An open letter to Julie Burchill....
in response to this article:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,,2034685,00.html
Dear Julie,
Your usual heady brew of misinformation and hyperbole is fine for your day job, cultural criticism being, after all, the backbone of any class war. My day job, however, involves spending public money providing housing for people in often severe housing need, and if you're going to talk about how I do it, I suggest you do your research.
You and I met at a party about 18 months ago, and quickly got into a scrap over the Decent Homes standard. Through great mouthfuls of cheesecake which you distributed generously over your listeners, you berated me in your trademark squeak about the privatisation of Council housing, gentrification, and the uselessness of attempts at social inclusion. My attempts to argue that good insulation, heating, and one's own bathroom should not be beyond the reach of people in social housing met with more desserty tirades about digital TV and landscaped gardens. Reading those same lines now would amuse me if they didn't reveal that you have read nothing, learned nothing, and listened to no one from that day to this. I guess I should just smile and ask for a cut of your book profits, but your allegations about the cost of the Decent Homes agenda are nothing short of fantastical, and I've had enough of reading you whining about my work in the newspaper I've read since I was a child.
It's been years, Julie, of paranoia and rampant hypocrisy and accusations of public malfeasance. I have a suggestion as to how you can return 'your town' to its glory days: take the profits from the sale of your house, a home which you sold to developers who built luxury flats there, on a site where we fought to provide affordable housing instead. Take all that dirty, dirty cash, hire a lawyer, and seek a judicial review of our services. I double fucking dare you.
Love, from the vipers' nest,
Petra
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,,2034685,00.html
Dear Julie,
Your usual heady brew of misinformation and hyperbole is fine for your day job, cultural criticism being, after all, the backbone of any class war. My day job, however, involves spending public money providing housing for people in often severe housing need, and if you're going to talk about how I do it, I suggest you do your research.
You and I met at a party about 18 months ago, and quickly got into a scrap over the Decent Homes standard. Through great mouthfuls of cheesecake which you distributed generously over your listeners, you berated me in your trademark squeak about the privatisation of Council housing, gentrification, and the uselessness of attempts at social inclusion. My attempts to argue that good insulation, heating, and one's own bathroom should not be beyond the reach of people in social housing met with more desserty tirades about digital TV and landscaped gardens. Reading those same lines now would amuse me if they didn't reveal that you have read nothing, learned nothing, and listened to no one from that day to this. I guess I should just smile and ask for a cut of your book profits, but your allegations about the cost of the Decent Homes agenda are nothing short of fantastical, and I've had enough of reading you whining about my work in the newspaper I've read since I was a child.
It's been years, Julie, of paranoia and rampant hypocrisy and accusations of public malfeasance. I have a suggestion as to how you can return 'your town' to its glory days: take the profits from the sale of your house, a home which you sold to developers who built luxury flats there, on a site where we fought to provide affordable housing instead. Take all that dirty, dirty cash, hire a lawyer, and seek a judicial review of our services. I double fucking dare you.
Love, from the vipers' nest,
Petra
posted by white hotel | 8:52 pm
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