Another missed Housing Grant

CONSERVATIVE housing spokesman Grant Shapps slipped through the net when I went to the Conservative conference in Manchester.

I would have liked to have known where he saw Camden’s housing crisis being solved, but, jumping from fringe meeting to fringe meeting, he didn’t have time to chat. It was a bit disappointing, because he always seems like he has something to say for himself – especially on Sky News newspaper reviews.

But it could have been so different. In an alternative scenario, I’ve learned, he might just have been one of Camden MPs.  A whisper I hadn’t heard before, Shapps apparently once tried to become the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Holborn and St Pancras.

Although he fancied a battle against Frank Dobson, he wasn’t chosen by the panel of selectors. He eventually got elected in Welwyn Hatfield.

I wonder what Shapps thinks of the Holborn and St Pancras constituency these days and if he is to become housing minister in May, whether he will allow Camden Council to keep on selling off local authority homes (probably) and how he thinks all council homes in the borough can finally be brought up to scratch.