Goodhart: majority of Bradfordians are twisted mutants

Jonathan Portes reviews David Goodhart. A sample:

‘Bradford has just opened two more schools for children with Special Educational Needs,’ he writes. ‘On some measures nearly half of all children in the area qualify for special help.’ No source. However, the Department for Education publishes the statistics, and it turns out that in Bradford, the proportion of children who ‘qualify for special help’ is about 21 per cent. Well, 21 per cent is not ‘nearly half’. It is, in fact, only slightly higher than the national average of 20 per cent. And it is significantly lower than in some other, mostly white places. Nationally, the highest figure is 27 per cent, in north-east Lincolnshire

Goodhart is trying to claim that half! of children in Bradford are classified as having special needs, because they’re all Pakistanis up there and they marry their cousins. It’s probably worth pointing out that Bradford isn’t actually a majority-minority city here, but it’s perhaps more interesting to note that he’s literally arguing that we’re descending into the nightmare of racial degeneration due to inferiors having too many kids and all being perverts.

As I keep saying, the fundamental fact about Goodhart is his radicalisation.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s Grauniad ran this advertorial:

“These are the unintended consequences of the great idealism of Cathy Come Home,” added David Goodhart, director of the Demos thinktank. “The 1977 Housing Act made need the main criteria. Teachers and police officers used to live on public estates, but they became full of people who were ill, unemployed or had big families.”

Ill, out of work, or had more kids than Goodhart’s inner eugenist estimates is the correct number for your generation? You should be homeless. David Goodhart hates you more than you think.

Actually, this piece is remarkably revealing. Boris Johnson’s chief of staff and deputy for housing, Sir Edward Lister, thinks 1950s and 1960s council planners made the mistake of building in areas of high unemployment:

“It’s all very well building the housing but we need to have the jobs to go with it,” he said. “What we must not do is recreate the mistakes of the 50s and 60s and create vast estates of social housing where nobody stands a chance of getting a job.”

Presumably he also wants to demolish hospitals, because so many people in them are ill. Why did they put them in such unhealthy locations?

Sean Griffiths, director and co-founder of Fat Architects is also confused.

Estates were often built without clear pathways, instead forcing residents through menacing concrete underpasses, aerial walkways or public spaces that had long fallen into disrepair.

The public spaces fell into disrepair before they were built. Some trick!

Anyway, I’m beginning to think that we need a regular Goodhart Watch. Something does not work with this man. Perhaps I should bid for a PREVENT grant to fight extremist radicalisation among the opinion elite?