A Labour government would be “for the builders not the blockers”. So Rachel Reeves told the Labour conference today. It went down well. The shadow chancellor’s attack on the “blockers” was specific. Not only did she give not an inch to the blocking cause, she offered a reward of “something in return” to nimbys who agree to turn builder. In exchange for not objecting to a wind turbine or row of pylons down their village street, they would get hard cash in the form of cheaper energy. It must be the most bizarre planning bribe in history.
Nor is that all. Labour wants to release developers into green belts and revive the Tory policy of forcing new housing estates on local people through central targets. Labour is back to the anti-localist days of David Cameron, when worrying about rural Britain was for wimps. Back then, as Reeves and Keir Starmer are seen doing now, politicians often wore hard hats and hi-vis jackets and hugged concrete mixers on television.
