One of the great comic creations of the last fifty years was Rik Mayall’s “Rick”, one of the four student housemates of The Young Ones. Rick is a shrewdly drawn instance of the perpetual archetype of the middle-class leftist: parroting the slogans of radical leftism whilst remaining utterly, selfishly bourgeois (or “borjoysey”, as Rick would say). For instance, Rick loftily denounces property as theft, whereupon the truly anarchistic Vyvyan declares, “So I’m nicking it”. To which Rick responds with an outraged, Stop! Thief!
Similarly, Rick fondly says of his conservative father, So he’s an old square. And maybe he does vote Tory. He’s got where he is today by hard slog, and he’s got to put tax concessions first.
Which, we all know, is exactly where Rick himself will be in a few decades (notwithstanding an exploding bus).
Because that’s how it is with the green-left: they’ll blatherskite their lofty principles to anyone who doesn’t want to hear, but in reality, they’ll look after number one, first, last and always.
Case in point:
Sandy Dennis is a lifelong Greens voter and environmentalist.
But 30 years as a landlord, 10 of those in Perth, have left her conflicted between the Greens’ tenets of “giving renters a fair go” in “sustainable, quality housing”, and being “burnt” by another bad tenant.
“Conflicted”, my arse. As David Brooks recently wrote in The New York Times, however much the green-left elite might brag about “publicly speaking out for the marginalized”, they always end up “building systems that serve ourselves”. The left-elite class, Brooks says, have steadily ensured that they live “in a world up here and everybody else is forced into a world down there”.
Where, of course, they can look right down on them, even as they take their money.
“I won’t take anyone who is on social security anymore and I feel bad about that,” she said.
“But four of my tenants have been on social security for one reason or another.
And here is where the green left’s fine principles scrape right up against harsh reality. For the same reason, you won’t find Chloe Swarbrick or Golriz Ghahraman living next to a Kainga Ora tenancy, or James Shaw slumming it in a Rotorua motel, the borjoysey green-left won’t be letting any smelly peasants anywhere near their collection of investment properties.
And, really, who could blame them?
Ms Dennis has gone through five tenants in the past 10 years.
All but one, she said, had either skipped rent, run a methylamphetamine kitchen, failed to clean the house, or left it damaged […]
She said they had taken possessions and not left a forwarding address.
Welcome to la bas, dearie.
Yet, these bad tenants are the very same bunch the Greens’ policies are making such a song and dance about.
The Greens want stronger rights for renters to limit rent increases and freeze rents […]
Most of Australia’s states and territories have already introduced or are phasing in rental reforms […]Multiple real estate agents and landlords spoken to by the ABC said landlords were getting out of property investment because of Victoria’s Residential Tenancies Act.
Reforms introduced by the state government in 2021 included a ban on rental bidding, strict reasons for eviction, and allowing modifications by renters.
All of the agents and landlords said that while affordability was a factor, it was losing control of the investment property to renters that had led landlords to sell.
ABC Australia
And tenants still won’t be able to actually afford to buy a house. But with landlords bailing out there’ll be fewer rentals, So, the housing crisis will only be compounded.
So, once again, the policies of the green left, while preaching the virtues of the poor, are demanding policies which will only make life tougher for them.
A bit of advice for the Sandy Dennises of the world: stop the preaching, stop tilting your head to the left, and stop voting Green just to salve your conscience.
Be honest and vote Tory. You know you really want to.