Irritating People #1 – The Cut Price Hero (or Heroine)

An occasional series, as usual. I’ve been meaning to park this one for ages.

The Cut Price Hero is a man or woman who tells you, in proud and slightly hushed tones: ‘Last year, I bought my mother’s council house for her.’

Let’s stop there for a moment. How wonderful, you are meant to think, that this person has pulled themselves up from such humble beginnings to such levels of success that they are able to pay for their maw’s security in the form of an entire property. See: any number of footballers, pop stars, and, I seem to remember, a lawyer of my ex-acquaintance. Cockles warm enough yet?

Look again. They think themselves terribly clever for doing this, as of course their mum’s house would have been available at a great discount, thanks to the Tories’ right-to-buy scheme that squats immovably in the middle of public life like a dropsical Godzilla.

But if these people really were the caring souls they wish to appear, they would have bought their mum a nicer house from a mainstream outlet, meaning she could put her original home back into the council reserves, thus enabling an overcrowded family who has spent years in temporary accommodation to have somewhere decent to live.

But we don’t think like that, do we?

I really should be on Grumpy Old Women.