Social animal

Getting on a bit

There was much to discuss from the National Housing Federation’s annual Birmingham bash last week: the visits of John Prescott and Paul Boateng; the first anniversary of In Business; the much-derided efficiency – sorry, operating – cost index. But the main topic of conversation exercising the grey cells was the passage of time.

The big R is looming large for many of the sector’s chief executives and retirement and pensions were the talk of the chattering classes in the exhibition hall. Eric Armitage – who is retiring from the board of the Housing Corporation – apparently put it best: “I have been coming here for more years than I care to remember and each year I watch people climbing the stairs looking a little bit larger, a little less fit and with a little less hair. It is definitely time to retire.”

But oldies taste better

Greg Parston, the executive chair at the Office for Public Management, hit back at this prevailing mood of melancholy.

Replying to a point in his Friday session on governance that perhaps membership of housing association boards was a little bit over the hill, he replied with this veritable pearl of wisdom.

“I may be male, pale and stale, but stale white bread still makes good French toast.”

A rallying cry for all 60-something males if ever there was one.

It’s for you, minister

Oh for the dynamic life of one of those young and thrusting government ministers – take Paul Boateng, for example.

His speech to the Fed conference had to be bumped from its Friday-morning slot until the afternoon.

The reason? The chief secretary to the Treasury was required in Paris and was flying into Birmingham specially.

When he finally arrived at the ICC, Boateng was in full flow on the problem of the lack of further education training for construction skills when interrupted by a rogue mobile – his own.

“That’ll be Charles Clarke telling me to shut up,” he joked.

Next stop Brighton …

Shelter evicted

On the subject of London-by-Sea, Shelter was kicked out of a shopping centre in Brighton last week for being too political.

The local branch of the homelessness charity had arrived with a bright red armchair for people to sit in and have their photo taken to show support for the Million Children Campaign to end bad housing. But the sit-in event was deemed inappropriate by the centre’s manager.

A spokesperson for Churchill Square said: “We are a non-political organisation and we cannot permit that sort of thing on the premises.”

Shelter workers were then ordered to remove themselves and the chair.