This (not very) old house

The oldest construction in my village is an iron age fort, which now resembles a series of mounds on a hilltop. The oldest building, the parish church, is much more recent, dating from the 12th Century. The oldest house, called the ‘Old Hall’, started life two hundred years later and was extended in the later Middle Ages. Dotted round the parish are several farmsteads and cottages built from 1500 onwards. This might give the impression that the English build to last. But of course most houses in the past were insubstantial hovels, most of which fell down before they were demolished. This tradition persists with modern housebuilding in England.

My wife and I moved into our house in 1983. We were the first occupiers of a three-bedroom bungalow on a recently-completed estate. The house was constructed of breeze-block with a brick outer layer, and low-pitched tiled roof. The low pitch meant that there have been longstanding problems with leakages and the resulting damage to ceilings. The windows were single-glazed and there was only a thin layer of loft insulation. The bathroom suite was an awful orange colour (‘sunburst’) and there was a gap between the bath and the wall, and a hole in the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. The en-suite toilet had a toilet and washbasin in a grim brown colour, and the basin did not sit properly on its plinth. The tiles in the bathroom and in the en-suite began falling off the wall in a matter of weeks. The internal walls were plasterboard and provided no sound-proofing. The front door had a simple lock and could easily have been kicked in. All the floors (even in the bathroom and en-suite toilet) were covered by a cheap bottle-green carpet. There were persistent problems with condensation. The garage, like almost all those that were and still are built in England, was too small to house a car.

We spent our first few years getting repairs done under the NHBC guarantee, and every year after that in making the house more habitable. We have employed squads of roofers, followed by a plasterer to repair the ceiling. We have replaced all the windows (now all double-glazed) and had a conservatory built. The boiler, front door, internal doors, garage doors, soffits, barge boards, kitchen fittings, curtain rails, bath, toilets and washbasins have all been replaced. We have installed wooden floors and ceramic tiles and a much thicker layer of loft insulation. We replaced the paving along the side of the house and all the fencing in the back garden. We installed a dehumidifier to cure the problem with condensation.

Why did we not just move house instead? Mainly because short-term contractual employment made it risky to increase debt. But there were other reasons. We have had good neighbours, the house faces woodland but is still close to the centre of a small rural village surrounded by hills. We can walk to the shop, the garage, the bus stop, and the GP clinic. The village has a good primary school, a good high school and a large sports centre. My children always walked to school, at first accompanied, and then proudly independent.

An estate of new houses has since been completed in the village. This has an attractive layout, and building regulations have improved considerably since 1983. The houses all have double-glazing, better insulation and central heating. The kitchens were fully-equipped on completion, and all were decorated in the currently-fashionable black, white and anthracite. But there were still problems with the construction, requiring residents to move out for a short period while corrective work was carried out. One major change from our house is the diminished size of the gardens. New houses, apart from the most expensive, now have just a small patch of front garden, and a back garden only large enough for a trampoline and a barbecue. The total plot size is sometimes half that found in interwar council houses.

In place of proper gardens, new estates have ‘green space’. This is a planning requirement that 40% of the land area must be allocated for open space. In the past, this would have been looked after by the district or parish council. But to cut costs, district councils now allow developers to set up contracts with maintenance companies which charge the residents a monthly fee. The fees keep increasing, but most green space usually amounts to little more than flat plains of mowed grass and a few short-lived spindly trees. This is so much less than could be achieved, and a challenge to those of us who believe a house is characterised by its setting as much as by its contents.

A new dictionary of bad politics

Politics is the art of persuasion, building coalitions of support for particular policies or for people seeking office. Politics can take place in an open arena (such as in Parliament) or by a secret backstairs conspiracy. At its best, politics involves argument and debate which can identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular policy or person. At its worst, politics becomes a shouting match or a parade of devious ways to avoid honest debate. Here are some new terms which categorise bad politics of this sort.

Avoidism
‘Avoidism’ is a pretence that a preferred policy is devoid of shortcomings. Most public policies involve a complex balance of gains and losses and require a detailed consideration of evidence. But this does not make for the drama beloved by many commentators, while members of the public (and many journalists) lack the time and skill to assess anything longer than half a page of information. One way to manage this complexity is to pretend that there are only gains from the policies you support and only losses from the those you oppose. An outstanding example is how supporters of Brexit used the phrase ‘Project Doom’ to designate any opposing arguments. Sadly, Brexiteers came to believe their own arguments, which meant that the Government was utterly unprepared to meet the numerous problems this country encountered after leaving the EU.

Betrayalism
This the belief that the leaders of one’s party or political movement are always about to betray the cause, taking any of their statements as irrefutable ‘evidence’ that this is so. Betrayalists typically have their own idea of what the ‘cause’ truly comprises, and this may radically differ from the preferences of a party’s voters.  Betrayalism has always been an integral element of the culture of the Left in British politics, but is now also common among Conservatives. One result is that betrayalists prefer leaders (such as Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Truss) who concentrate on re-stating banalities to the faithful.

Christofascism
Christofascism combines a simplified version of Christianity with support for authoritarian government. The Christian component is usually reduced to a few simple ideas asserting male dominance and hence denigrating female autonomy. These include opposition to abortion and birth control. Homosexuality is also opposed because it is regarded not only as a symptom of liberalism, but also because it is seen as a feminisation of masculinity. Although ostensibly Christian, christofascism actually involves the worship not of God but of an authoritarian leader, to whom supernatural powers are attributed. These include a belief that the leader can communicate spiritually with the nation, and thus has no need for intermediary institutions such as political parties or parliaments.

Racialisation
Racialisation involves regarding every political issue as an example of racism, even in the absence of any evidence. Politicians in the past spoke of the superiority of the ‘British (or other) race’ over foreigners. This has now been reversed, so that any criticism of a black person for any reason is deemed an example of (white) racism. Criticisms of the Duchess of Sussex for bullying her staff and her narcissistic behaviour are thereby discounted as ‘racism’ because she has some African ancestry. Where no black people are involved in a dispute, all arguments can be discounted by mentioning the Atlantic slave trade. Racialisation is a specific example of victimism, which is a belief that a particular group of people are perpetual victims and another group their perpetual oppressors. Members of the ‘victim’ group who do well for themselves are denounced as having betrayed their identity. Thus Kwasi Kwarteng (who is wealthy and was in high office) was said to not really be black.

Re-nameism
Re-namism involves campaigning to rename a disadvantaged group of people. This can become a cyclical process, with some groups (currently known internationally as ‘people with intellectual disabilities’) being renamed every generation. The most prominent re-namist campaign at the moment concerns people who are uncertain of their gender or wish to change it. Re-nameism is popular because it is an alternative to actually taking action to resolve the fundamental problems and the inequalities suffered by a disadvantaged group.

Whataboutery
This involves countering an argument by asserting some unrelated issue associated with your opponent. This can be seen in most developed form in Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister at times responds to criticism of the failures of his Government by pointing to some error of the Leader of the Opposition (usually that he was formerly part of Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench team).

Wokehysteria
One response to re-nameism is to regard any unwelcome change in public policy as ‘wokeism’. This has recently become a major theme among right-wingers and seems to be based on a belief that minor changes to names are a major threat to the order of society. This implies a belief that society is so fragile that any small change will result in disintegration and chaos. The term ‘wokehysteria’ is justified because of the disproportionate anger generated by what most would see as trivial matters.