Live and let live – unless you’re a plumber!

Iam neither a fan nor a follower of any of the – apparently – fairly numerous platforms for social media. Mrs. B, on the other hand, is a devotee of Facebook. Last Thursday she brought to my attention a manifesto by the failed candidate for the post of police commissioner for Kent, Fergus Wilson. It is immediately clear that Mr Wilson has much in common with that clown of American politics, Donald Trump.

Mr Wilson’s statement, dated December 27, 2016, is headed “letting criteria”, and is a list of the kinds of people he will not allow to rent his houses (I thought he had sold his property portfolio some time ago but I’m clearly mistaken).

The main points of his statement are that he will have no one with a child under 18, no single parents, no-one on housing benefit, no low income workers or those on zerohours contracts, no battered wives, pets or smokers and no plumbers!

He rounds the thing off with “Not all tenants on benefits are a problem but all problems are on benefits”. Some time ago, he was on record saying it is unlawful to discriminate against people, be they black or Chinese. But he clearly thinks it’s OK to discriminate against perfectly respectable individuals who don’t meet his bizarre standards.

A few days ago, I was stopped in the street by a chap who wanted me to write about a house next to the magnificent new college building in Elwick Road. The house had, apparently, some time in the fairly distant past served a useful purpose. It no longer serves the same purpose and is, the chap told me, likely to be demolished.

The place is one of those white buildings with a few black beams on the outside in a failed pastiche of the 15th and 16th century style loved by turn-of-the-century builders. My accoster thought it beautiful, especially when compared to that “hideous square glass box of a college”.

I take issue with him on two points. Firstly, I don’t consider it beautiful and wouldn’t do so even if prohibitively costly repairs and restorations were to be carried out and, secondly, as I’ve said so many times before about the ruined ex-pub, the Albert, nostalgia alone is insufficient reason to prevent its demolition.

‘He clearly thinks it’s OK to discriminate against perfectly respectable individuals who don’t meet his bizarre standards’