I must start with a confession. I really don’t like Grant Shapps who for some reason is the Tory party chair. He comes across as a haughty up-market barrow boy who’d tread on his mother’s face if he thought it would advance his career or turn in a bigger profit. You know what I mean – heartless, callous and downright nasty. However, I must admit I hadn’t realised before that he’s also got a very thin skin.

He really doesn’t like anybody criticising him or his party. He doesn’t turn a hair at propagating a policy of social cleansing, evicting families for having a spare room when their child died. Nor when their son has been killed in Afghanistan (as happened to one of my constituents). Nor because someone’s disability required a second bedroom. But when an official UN rapporteur comes to Britain, with an agenda organised by the UK government, and uses the phrase ‘bedroom tax’ rather than the government’s gobbledigook ’ending the spare room subsidy’, he goes ape. Strange man – obviously caught the Tory germ of overweening arrogance rather young. Continue reading →