Scapegoats Needed

Just 7% of London housing target started in first three months of 2026

Just 6,325 private sector homes broke ground in London in the first three months of 2026, new data has revealed – equivalent to seven per cent of the Mayor’s 88,000 overall annual target.

Research from Real Estate consultants JLL suggests that developers are hesitant to build in the current market due to a proliferation of unsold stock.

New data shows that 22,000 properties across the capital sit unsold or under construction, with all types of buyers unwilling to invest in the present circumstances.

As we know, this is merely one symptom of a much wider shambles. A chap is bound to wonder why Andy Burnham thinks he can improve any of it, armed only with his teenage ideology and what appears to be a ludicrous dollop of self-confidence.

He joined the Labour Party at the age of 15, so we already know he hasn't learned much about the limitations of his ideology. Maybe he has been putting some serious effort into lining up a collection of scapegoats, there aren't many other options open to him if we are landed with him as Prime Minister.


Know how to put off Ills on Others. To have a shield against ill-will is a great piece of skill in a ruler. It is not the resort of incapacity, as ill-wishers imagine, but is due to the higher policy of having some one to receive the censure of the disaffected and the punishment of universal detestation. Everything cannot turn out well, nor can every one be satisfied: it is well therefore, even at the cost of our pride, to have such a scapegoat, such a target for unlucky undertakings.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)