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Morning Briefing: reaction to Sir Roger Scruton’s sacking after offensive comments
All of the national papers this morning run stories on the sacking of Sir Roger Scruton, one of the government’s housing advisors, after he was dismissed yesterday for “unacceptable comments”
Yesterday Sir Roger was sacked with “immediate effect” from his role as chair of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission after reportedly making offensive remarks about Islam, the Chinese and the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros in an interview with the New Statesman.
Here is Inside Housing’s full piece on the story.
The Guardian ran comments from a number of Labour MPs including Dawn Butler, shadow secretary for women and equalities, who called Sir Roger’s comments “despicable and invoked the language of white supremacists”.
Andrew Gwynne, shadow secretary for communities and local government, raised questions over assurances from housing secretary James Brokenshire that due diligence had been carried out when appointing Sir Roger. He also called for Sir Roger’s knighthood to be removed.
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The Muslim Council of Britain also questioned the appointment of Sir Roger in Politics Home, and called for an independent inquiry into his appointment.
Elsewhere, The Guardian reports that house prices in the UK are likely to fall for another six months, and house prices in London and the South East will continue to fall for the whole of 2019.
The report comes off the back of a poll carried out by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors which found a subdued picture across the housing market and a fall in enquiries from buyers for the eighth successive month.
A number of surveyors interviewed by the paper said that Brexit was a main factor behind the poor outlook.
It comes on the day that Theresa May has agreed a Brexit extension until 31 October with the European Union.
While the surveyors’ body doesn’t directly report house prices, it gives a net positive or negative figure of where surveyors feel house prices are going. In the March poll, the net balance was -24%.
In the Evening Standard there was a story yesterday of desperate renters who were left “baffled” after coming across a flat on website SpareRoom that didn’t seem to have a door.
Pictures of the flat, which was being advertised for £572 a month, showed that the flatowner had placed a wardrobe in front of the door to leave the room in a bid to give the illusion of more space (see tweet below).
Please look at these pictures and tell me the window ~~OR THE WARDROBE~~ isn’t the only way to get in or out of this room #renting #london pic.twitter.com/bUm8Mt95fn
— Becky Brynolf (@rabbitinahat)Please look at these pictures and tell me the window ~~OR THE WARDROBE~~ isn't the only way to get in or out of this room #renting #london pic.twitter.com/bUm8Mt95fn
— Becky Brynolf (@rabbitinahat) April 8, 2019
A number of outlets, including Construction News, report on the latest Office of National Statistics data, which shows that construction output has dropped for the third consecutive period.
It showed that for the three month to February there was a decline of 0.6% in construction. This follows a drop of 0.9% and 0.5% decline for the preceding three-month periods.
On social media
The chair of the Royal Institute of British Architects made his thoughts known on Sir Roger’s dismissal… and appointment:
Well what a waste of time and energy was that! Tell me, did anyone see it coming? t.co/9gCTMW5ARM
— Ben Derbyshire PRIBA (@ben_derbyshire)Well what a waste of time and energy was that! Tell me, did anyone see it coming? https://t.co/9gCTMW5ARM
— Ben Derbyshire PRIBA (@ben_derbyshire) April 10, 2019
