The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

Kevin Cahill, in his book Who Owns Britain, accuses Friends of the Earth as
fronts for large landowners. He picks out Porrit, who comes out with overt
lies.

There's a thought. Dribble and Porrit cast from the same mould.

ISTR that Dribble (or Adam as he then was) actually complained to my ISP
about personal abuse when I publicly criticised a fawning review of that
book written by a certain John Burns-Curtis. Didn't get him anywhere of
course.

We don't need high levels of social housing. The private sector can cope if
the population is allowed to build on the 92.5% of the land that is not
settled, and much of it subsidised to do nothing. People are priced out of
housing because land accounts for 2/3 of the value; an artificial shortage
has been created.

Dribble has been coming out with this rubbish for a long time without
changing the ratio. I doubt whether it is true even now for the average
new build but if it were true when he first expounded it the ratio by
now should be at least 7/8ths. How much does the average 3 bed detached
matchbox cost to build excluding the cost of the land? If it is on an
estate the cost of new roads and services could easily eat up a third of
the cost so would the house itself cost absolutely nothing to design and
build?

"Except for the few surviving commons, the high roads, the lands of the
National Trust, a certain number of parks, and the sea shore below high-tide
mark, every square inch of England is `owned' by a few thousand families.
These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms. It is desirable
that people should own their own dwelling houses, and it is probably
desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he can actually farm."
- George Orwell

I wouldn't put it past Dribble to make up quotes to suit his purpose but
accepting for the moment that it is a real quote it wasn't true even
when first made (presumably some time in the 30s). (So our current PM is
by no means the first B.Liar).

The middle classes and farmers families have always had a significant
proportion of owner-occupiers and these days owner occupation is
probably somewhere around that 2/3rd figure that he is so fixated on.

--
Roger Chapman