For most of his married life he lived in a council flat opposite the British Museum in Bloomsbury.
MP married to a Fellow at UCL.
In current money, what? £150k a year as a couple, more? And we should all be righteously paying for them to have a nice council flat in the middle of fashionable London, should we?
To say nothing of how he got it – by being on he local council of course.
Ah, Frank Dobson. I used to wonder why a man who had no neck would grown a beard when there wasn’t room for one.
The other remarkable thing was that his rather strident language often seemed to be an advance party for what he would probably have liked to say.
His wife alive? If not, has he grandchildren? One of the family registered as living in the flat with him? For inheritance works just as well in public housing as private. No death duties to pay, of course.
Well, the Graun did say he was from Yorkshire.
Two quotations, both from lefty rags:
1/ “Frank Dobson, who has died aged 79, devoted his lifetime in politics to giving practical effect to the socialist principles he had always held and from which he never deviated. He described himself as a member of the “sane left” within the Labour party and took immense pride in having secured extra funding for the National Health Service during his time in charge of an institution he regarded as truly emblematic of a caring society.”
2/ ” Letwin and Redwood’s ideas also had traction in Tony Blair’s 1997 National Health Service Act. Together, the 1990 and 1997 Acts turned NHS hospitals into trusts able to operate as commercial businesses. Many formed Private Finance Initiative partnerships to build and maintain hospitals – these deals, originally worth £11.4 billion, have lumbered the NHS with more than £80 billion of debt. Under New Labour a number of hospital trusts commissioned Kaiser and United Health, the largest US private health insurer, to run pilot programmes. ‘Consumer choice’ had been the mantra of the Thatcher era; under New Labour NHS patients became consumers and the goal ‘patient choice’.”
Interesting that 2 credits Blair while 1 credits Dobson. Also interesting that the author of 2 shows how the Dobson act saddled the NHS with immense amounts of debt and also brought in the hated Americans into “our NHS”. But he stayed true to his Socialist principles. Socialist principles is the great oxymoron of our age
I’d have socialist principals if I got to live in Bloomsbury for tuppence.
“the never lost his sense of himself as a Yorkshireman”: I’ve lived in Yorkshire. Only in cricket do they play with straight bats.
It occurs. Being a council tenant is somewhat like being the resident of Buckingham Palace. You don’t own it or have to pay for its upkeep. But you inherit it & it passes to your children & their children after them.
Obama rode being Kenyan for 15 years, til it no longer gave him an advantage/actually became a problem. Then “How dare you!” challenge his birth location.
Similarly, Lie-awatha rode being a Cherokee through the school system.
It is especially tasteless for Lefties to take advantage of carve-outs they created.
Have you seen the Elizabeth Warren Jeep? It’s white, but it says “Cherokee.”
I wonder who his fellow council tenants were. I can’t imagine he lived alongside benefit claimants, druggies, petty criminals, etc.
“the never lost his sense of himself as a Yorkshireman”: I’ve lived in Yorkshire. Only in cricket do they play with straight bats.
We can’t even produce any batsman who can play with a straight bat judging by the team’s performance last year. See also England ‘s lack of opener’s.
@Sam
TUC HQ a few yards away. Flats will be full of Labour MPs, Councillors, Union leaders etc – rather like USSR housing
I’d have socialist principals if I got to live in Bloomsbury for tuppence.
Sadly, MC, we all have socialist principals these days and it looks likely only to get worse.