Open Writing

Soon after noon we left the headland and turned inland, heading east for the first time and soon walked through the village of Sandwith, which Wainwright described as a village with more pubs than churches. The route passed only one pub, the Dog and Partridge, and it was closed! Come to think of it, I didn't notice a church either. Is it possible that there is no church, which would mean that the presence of the Dog and Partridge justifies Wainwright's statement? Was the old fellow having a bit of a laugh at our expense by inferring the village is blessed with an abundance of pubs? He was a bit of a wag, wasn't he? Bastard.

Before we left Sandwith, our attention was attracted by a For Sale sign on a disused yard: Land For Sale with Outline Planning Permission for the Erection of Twenty Dwellings (Six Affordable). Even with over two hundred and forty years of life experience between the four of us, we were baffled.

'Why would the Local Authority grant permission for twenty houses when fourteen of them will stand empty because they are unaffordable?' Don asked.

'Perhaps they can charge council tax on empty properties and it's a clever way of increasing income,' I suggested.

'But no sane builder would buy the land and build houses that nobody can afford,'Tom reasoned.

'I can't afford even an affordable house anyway,' said Andy.

'That's because of that Gordon Brown. Even if you find a house you think you can afford, you have to pay stamp duty of about five squillion pounds,' I added.

'And even if you can afford that, council tax at about ten thousand pounds a month will bankrupt you in jig time,' Tom asserted.

'It's not right,' Don objected, 'we're robbed by stamp duty, then we have to pay council tax and then, when we die, we're robbed again because we have to pay inheritance tax on the value.'

'That Gordon Brown's a fool,' said Tom.'It's becoming impossible to buy a house now, so it's no wonder Local Authorities are granting planning permission for unaffordable houses. All houses will be unaffordable soon and then where will clever bastard Brown be?'

'He'll go back to Scotland. They probably don't have stamp duty there.'

'Or, if they do, he's probably arranged an exemption for former Chancellors of the Exchequer.'

'Or, he will have arranged for MPs pensions to include an allowance to cover stamp duty.'

'And council tax.'

'He thinks he knows it all just because he once read The Well Off Nations by Alan Smith,'Andy chipped in.

'It was actually called The Wealth of Nations!

'And Alan Smith plays for Manchester United.'

'No wonder the book was crap.'

'Anyway,' Tom said, trying to bring the conversation back to his version of sanity, 'he's a fool. Unaffordable housing means people won't move, so he won't get any stamp duty and then prices will fall because no-one's buying, so he won't get any inheritance tax either.'

'Simple economics really,' I agreed. 'The man's a divvy.'

Having congratulated ourselves on our in-depth understanding of the principles of economics, we walked on in confused mood.