Change of Address I quite understand that Mr Richard Crossman
needed to create as big a smokescreen as possible to conceal the fact that he had deliberately held over until after the election the publication of the February figures for housing starts, showing a drop of some 30 per cent on last year. (Before Mr Crossman writes to me to say that he couldn't announce them at the normal time because Parliament was dissolved, let me remind him that this handicap failed to prevent him from publishing the figures a week after the election was over.) But even so I should have thought he could have managed to announce the Govern- ment's new directive to local authorities on home loans without dragging me into it. Evidently not. 'I think you will find that the editor of the Spectator will not be an applicant under any of our categories' he declared to the press last week. No, I won't, for the simple reason that I've already bought one house and certainly can't afford another. In fact, it was only last week that I finally moved into the new house. But at least Mr Crossman's outburst has served some purpose. It reminded me to send him a change of address card.
NIGEL LAWSON
Previous page
