Immigration.

 We now have close to 120,000 illegal immigrants in the UK just from the channel dinghy crossings alone. These people are being housed in 4-star hotels across the country at huge cost.

Over the past week have now added to that figure by "repatriating" over 10,000 "refugees" from Afghanistan. We've also opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of people from Hong Kong.

Apart from the illegal channel crossers, in general I have no qualms about the people coming in from Afghanistan and Hong Kong. We have some moral obligation towards them. In Afghanistan we went in with size 10 hobnails and failed to sort out their country. In Hong Kong we gave them away to the authoritarian Chinese government lock, stock and barrel. 

But, and the is a big but.... where are all these people going to go? We are already in the midst of a housing crisis. We have hundreds of thousands of people homeless on the streets, we have people unable to afford rent on a single wage, let alone buy a property and pay a mortgage.

So where exactly do we put these new immigrants these new citizens of the UK? Where do we house them? How do we house them?

We don't have the housing to place them, we don't have the infrastructure to support the new houses that need to be built, we just don't have the facilities to keep the door open for ever, accepting everyone into the country.

Yet we spend billions on HS2. 

I firmly believe that the country's priorities are fucked up. First an foremost should be providing basic facilities to people at a cost they can afford. We need more houses and if necessary, legislation should be put forward to ease the planning burden and sad to say, encroach on the green belt. 

It's without a hint of self-awareness that the people that shout loudest about accepting immigrants into the country are usually the ones that shout loudest against new housing developments and roads. Well, you can't have it both ways. You want to allow all and sundry to come in, then your precious green belt is going to have to go. Your fault, no on else's. 

Think that virtue-signalling and being virtuous won't have an effect on your middle-class life? Think again. 

Want to keep your precious greenery? Want to preserve your idyllic towns an villages? Don't want them to be swallowed up by massive conurbations? 

Don't want your house price to fall as more and more houses are being built? Enjoying the increased value of your house? Don't want to experience negative equity?

Then start to reject the open-door immigration policies. Because at some point, you will have to pay the piper for your virtue.

I blogged a few years ago that the housing crisis can only be solved by classing it as a national emergency and giving national government special powers in order to solve it. Planning objections need to be swept away and the houses need to be built now.

Being a national project, we need to identify decent sized accommodation, not the poxy shoeboxes that developers cram into the smallest plots in order to maximise profit. The houses need to be built and sold with a small profit. The difference between material costs and the actual value of a house is huge. 

By contracting the building of houses and selling them at a small margin over the material cost brings in revenue for the government and provides affordable housing.

At some point one of the major parties need to run with this policy. Because if one of the minor parties like UKIP (Change that bloody name!) or Nigel Farage's ex-party Reform run with this, they could well collect a huge number of votes from the low-paid working class. 

Add a dab of virtue by housing the homeless and immigrants then it might also bring the middle-classes on board too. After all if they are so virtuous they want to save everyone, then surely a drop in house values is a small price to pay eh? 

Or is all that virtue available just so long as it doesn't affect them?

I'd also add in a dash of Tax reclamation from the Mega-corporations like Google, PayPal and the like to pay for it. Change the rules so they can't pay tax offshore. If they resist then they're denying homes for the homeless and immigrants, the selfish bastards.