Scrapbook for July

08.07.2026 – Bill the Builder

This website, as the occasion arises, has often pointed out the genetic dimness that runs down the Windsor line of descent. For example The Windsors: only a matter of time, Good breeding, Dim Charles, dim William.

Some kind-hearted people have hopes for William, the king in waiting, but he is as deeply daft as all his ancestors – and a self-anointed ambassador for something called 'mental health'. Proof of this assertion is provided by this photograph:

Look at this picture. We can accept that this nicely-dressed chap is wearing a hard hat; he is on a building site after all. We might even accept the thoughtful expression directed at nothing in particular. But why on earth is he holding a hammer?

In posing for this ridiculous photograph holding a hammer, William shows us all that he's a complete thicko, just like his dad, his mum, his brother, his uncles and his entire line going back to the intellectually challenged Victoria and Albert. Is he so completely incapable of independent thought that he cannot grasp how stupid he looks?

The message of the piece is that William's billionaire property company, the Duchy of Cornwall, is going to do its bit by putting a little bit of its money into building some houses on some of the land it owns. 'Homing the homeless' is in there somewhere. Somehow, unless the parties are even dimmer than I suspect, this project is hardly going to be a charitable gesture for the homeless, but a hard-headed investment for the Duchy of Cornwall. The 'homeless' are homeless for many complicated reasons, not just because there is a shortage of inexpensive accommodation.

The taxpayer, however, is not going to get off lightly in such projects:

Crucially, housebuilders are often required, through so-called Section 106 contributions, to supply much of the infrastructure needed to sustain the communities that will live in the homes that they build, says Bax [Will Bax, the chief executive of the Duchy].

This includes schools and doctors’ surgeries.

'At a point when there is no viability in the housebuilding area, the private sector is being asked to carry too heavy a load on infrastructure,' says Bax.

We know that there is mischief afoot when we are fed this kind of waffle; we wonder why, when we are frequently told that there is a housing crisis in the UK, 'there is no viability in the housebuilding area'. William, being dim, is just the useful idiot in this game and, just as his dim father does with his green advisors, he does what his handlers tell him to do: 'Just stand over there, Sir, with this hammer…'.

It's a bit of a surprise that builders and landowners can't make any money out of building shops, supermarkets, schools and medical centres, expecting the poor taxpayer to finish off these housing projects for them. Perhaps we should be careful what we wish for – we might get another Poundbury, Charles' homage to Greek pediments and scrappy Georgian windows, where the effort of making no two buildings look alike has resulted in an architectural nervous breakdown.

My suspicion of the motives of housebuilders in shunning infrastructure building is that in the space taken up by buildings such as a school, a shop or a medical centre, with their extensive car parks, bus stops and access roads, they could build half a dozen or more standardised houses much more cheaply and profitably.