Affordablehousingaction.org has as its principal interests ending homelessness, preventing people from becoming homeless and providing truly affordable housing for the most vulnerable.
How can we be expected to resist the siren song of a United Kingdom charity whose principal aim (for now) is nothing less than the speedy insulation of all the UK’s notoriously under-insulated social housing?
We can’t resist. Though we are compelled to scratch our head. Where is that short, muscular name like Canada’s “Vote Housing” or “America’s “Shelterforce” or the UK’s even more abruptly to-the-point “Shelter?”
“Insulate Britain?” Surely a slightly potty name, particularly since it turns out to be a Trojan Horse hiding a far more ambitious climate change agenda, presumably to be implemented just after UK social housing is completely insulated.
But the pottiest thing about Insulate Britain is its choice of tactics. Its members (who suffer insults that they are upper-middle class over-privileged twits) take actions seemingly designed to infuriate every other citizen in the kingdom. We’ll not reveal all their clever obstructive brainwaves, beyond noting a certain fascination with superglue.
Can activists aggravate a nation into compliance with some major charitable agenda? The fortunes of Insulate Britain are worth following if only to learn whether there is a kernel of success in such an apparently reckless prosecution of charitable aims. (We count it on the reckless side now that some of them have been jailed1.)
There may well be an enduring international interest in just how far pure aggravation can carry social activists. Here’s a small confirmation in this regard from South Asia. Read more in TheIndianEXPRESS: Explained: What is Insulate Britain and why is it blocking roads in UK?
Footnotes
- Try, in The Guardian: Nine Insulate Britain activists jailed for breach of road blockades injunction
