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9.1.25

LONDON: Reform mp Lee Anderson offered behavioral guidance to social housing tenants on wednesday in a westminster hall debate he had secured.

“We have families creating mayhem and misery. People call them feral families in my neck of the woods,” Anderson said.

His criteria for a good social housing tenant included keeping the property decorated, maintaining the garden, emptying the bins and not causing trouble on the street.

“Most of us mps, I imagine, live in nice houses. We have security, CCTV and panic alarms. Some of us live in nice big posh pads in gated communities,” Anderson said, revealing his vision of the good life.

Anderson complained of weed smoking, revving motorbikes and other noise disturbances. “Why can’t these people live by our rules? Why can’t they integrate? Why can’t they live our way of life?”

Labour mp Andrew Cooper said a lack of social support and addiction needed to be addressed, adding “it is not as simple as the honorable gentleman perhaps makes out,” referring to Anderson.

“It is,” the reform mp replied.

Liberal democrat mp Gideon Amos endorsed community policing with “more bobbies on the beat” to maintain peace on housing estates.

Labour minister Alex Norris returned the debate to former socialist post-war prime minister Clement Attlee, who Anderson had earlier cited as a person of higher ideals than the current government.

Norris sought to clarify Attlee’s social philosophy. “Clement Attlee was a man of exceptional privilege, but he chose to go to the places where life was hardest. He looked at the living conditions of individuals in the east end of London and non-judgmentally sought to change them … but he never sought to divide people into worthy and unworthy people. He would never write people off.”