Nick Boles started his first fringe as a minister this evening by saying that after years of trying to make controversial points at party conference events, he wasn’t going to say anything interesting. The new planning minister’s attempt at being boring wasn’t thoroughly successful: Boles’ version of being dull and unreportable is still more fascinating than some politicians will ever manage.
He opened his speech to the IPPR event by praising the good intentions of the Labour government in building more homes. But there was one fatal flaw in that plan, he said:
‘The last government had many good intentions in this area. They made life a lot more difficult for themselves in combining their desire to build more housing with their desire to completely open borders and open immigration. That made the already very difficult challenge much more difficult.’
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