Growth and change for Albrighton and beyond - but you can't please everyone

The sites of disused filling stations are the tell-tale sign of "grey belt" land, according to the new Labour planning policy which says there is green belt land that can be covered with housing because it is really "grey belt." 

It's good to be clear. Wouldn't want what constitutes "grey belt" to be a grey area.

Even so, with 800 new homes proposed at Albrighton, there has been considerable local opposition. Which brings us to the other innovative "grey belt" feature. All local opposition can be ignored. After all, they are only the people who actually live there. There is the national interest, you know.

For the way forward, consider this. Shifnal has seen lots of new house building. Albrighton is between Shifnal and Wolverhampton, and looks like it too is going to see lots more housing. Many people in Shifnal and Albrighton commute to Wolverhampton. Throw in Tong, another place which apparently has lots of disused filling stations.

Angela Rayner wants to create a new generation of new towns. Join Shifnal, Albrighton, and Wolverhampton... simples!

The only question is what the new town would be called. Printable suggestions welcome.

....................

Here is what our "growth, growth, growth" Chancellor told the House of Commons in her spring statement.

"Members of the House, I have to report that all the previous economic forecasts were wrong, so today I shall give you more economic forecasts which will be proven wrong, perhaps as early as tomorrow."

Actually she didn't say that last bit, but if she had, it would have been a correct forecast.

Yes I know, it's a hobby horse of mine, the way economic forecasts are almost invariably proven wrong, so it's a wonder anybody takes them seriously in the first place.

Here we go again. Statement Wednesday, obsolete Thursday, when Donald Trump announced his car tariffs, with more to come. It is typical of the unpredictability of The Don. He says he is going to do things - and then does them.

The car trade balance between the US and EU (which loves tariffs for outsiders) just ain't fair. I mean, how many Cadillacs do you see in Europe?

Now we are out of the EU perhaps if we keep our heads down and say nice things to Donald, and get King Charles involved, he will give us special treatment.

Rachel Reeves has been keen to position herself as somebody with experience as an economist, as per her CV, but would it not gain her at least as much kudos to say that she worked in the complaints department, dealing with the issues and concerns of real people?

Talking about complaints departments, would that be a "back office job" or a front line service? The Chancellor has assured us all that the cuts in the Civil Service will not affect the front line, but the back office roles.

It's the sort of thing politicians say when they take such measures, such as when the Tories decimated the police in the (previous) austerity years. The cuts would be in back office staff, they said. Trouble is, the so-called back office staff are not all sitting around twiddling their thumbs and playing cards. They are in fact doing all the things that the front line staff would have to do if they were not doing it.

One day I am going to launch a secret mission to investigate. I'll creep up to an office populated by civil servants, and avoid reception - surely being at the front they count as being on the front line - and sneak round the back and look through the windows and see what they are actually doing in the back office. Apart from collecting their P45s, that is.

As for that spring statement, with blame laid on a changing world, Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves bang on about how they are all about change. And then they cut up rough when they get change!

You just can't please some people.