The writing’s on the wall

There is a housing development in Brockley, south east London, with an extraordinary piece of graffiti. “Thanks to Gordon Brown, I will never buy a house,” it says, and in super-large lettering no less. It is not without economic rationale. Brown’s easy-money policy at the Treasury led the Bank of England to chase a dodgy inflation measure – therefore, making credit too cheap, and, therefore, inflating an asset bubble. Also Brown’s failure to reform planning laws put an artificial restriction on supply of UK housing in the face of ever-rising demand. But is Brown entirely to blame for housing boom? Not even I would go that far. But this isn’t the point. If many people believe this to be true, it becomes in itself a feature of our political landscape.

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Simon Cook

Pensioners have never had it so good

To me, this is reminiscent of anti-Thatcher graffiti in Glasgow in the late 1980s, a time when contempt for the Prime Minister is widespread and a general election anxiously awaited.