Steve Norris
Steve Norris is chairman of Soho Estates and senior adviser to BNP Paribas Real Estate and a former Transport Minister and London mayoral candidate - you can find him on Twitter at @StevenJNorris
InsightGove’s cladding solution is brutal
I’ve always thought of housing secretary Michael Gove as one of the brightest men in politics. He is credited with radically reforming the Department of Education. He did great work at the Department of Justice, putting right many of his predecessor Chris Grayling’s catastrophic mistakes. And in his time at ...
- Insight
Soho Estates’ Steve Norris on grade III listings
Designer and TV presenter Kevin McCloud is a legend. Which of us doesn’t watch Grand Designs just to see how much grief couples go through to build the house of their dreams?
- Insight
Has Gove got it wrong this time?
Readers of this column will know that I have a special place in my heart for that most agile and effective of ministers, Michael Gove.
- Insight
Brace for the impact of real austerity
In 1947, as he was about to present his Budget, Labour’s Hugh Dalton, the then chancellor of the exchequer, let slip to an old friend: “No more on tobacco; a penny on beer; something on dogs and pools but not on horses; increase in purchase tax, but only on articles ...
- Insight
Hunt takes charge as Truss lingers
They say a week’s a long time in politics and boy, this has been one of those weeks.
- Insight
Truss will take on the Treasury first
Only two days after kissing hands with her late Majesty, Liz Truss found herself facing an unprecedented period in our history during which politics largely disappeared from our national consciousness.
- Insight
Let’s pray Truss succeeds as PM
So it’s obviously Liz Truss. Unless some extraordinary gaff derails her, the foreign secretary is nailed on as our next prime minister.
- Insight
Will party voters pick the right PM?
It was Harold Wilson who coined the immortal line that a week is a long time in politics, but even he would have been shocked by the speed of events since Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid resigned from the government and between them precipitated a tsunami of resignations that even ...
- Online
No one can call Michael Gove idle
Say what you like about the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, but Michael Gove certainly hasn’t been idle.
- Insight
City megaprojects hit last stop
It was kind of Mark Wild, the Elizabeth line chief executive, to finally open it this week on my birthday. It’s a project first conceived over half a century ago and that I promoted as a minister, but was nearly killed by the Treasury in 1994.
- News
Gove is a serious change agent
In my next life, I want to come back as a government sign writer. Politicians (and yes, I confess, I was one) appear to believe that changing the name somehow of itself solves perennial challenges.
- Insight
Crunch time looms for Johnson
I’ve never been Boris Johnson’s greatest fan, but you do have to cut the guy some slack.
- Insight
We’re living in dangerous times
I doubt that many of us could have conceived that as we entered 2022 it would not be the virus that filled our media but the very real threat that an increasingly paranoid dictator in Russia could have seriously raised the threat of nuclear war.
- Insight
Boris is a party pooper for the Tories
“I get it and I will fix it” was the prime minister’s response to Sue Gray’s damning report asserting “failures of leadership and judgement” over the antics of No 10 and the PM himself in what we now refer to as Partygate. The question, of course, is whether that is ...
- Insight
Boris Johnson may yet survive
And so we bid a none-too-fond farewell to a year of frustration and disappointment for millions across the country.
- Insight
Gove must avoid levelling down
Just when we thought the worst of Covid was behind us, along comes Omicron. It may or may not be massively serious but meanwhile travel restrictions are tightened, supply chains disrupted and life in general is just a tad more miserable.
- Insight
We must make sensible changes
The media have been gorging themselves on COP26 all this week despite the obvious, which is that as ever with conferences of this kind, there will be lots of hot air and promises and very little action will follow.
- Insight
Gove is the right man to fix housing
Given that we’ve had 12 housing ministers in as many years, it is really very good news that while Chris Pincher, the housing minister in what was MHCLG, has retained his job, his boss is now the one man whose record in three departments – education, justice and DEFRA – ...
- Insight
Predicting the legacy of Covid
We may not be entirely out of the Covid woods yet, but at least we can assume the worst is behind us.
- Insight
Boris failed to show leadership
I know nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, but in my time in parliament I served two prime ministers who I looked up to.
