Opinion: Kirstie Allsopp's World - Just Stop Being Poor

“Of course young people can afford a home – just move somewhere cheaper”, a recent headline in The Times admonished. Naturally, the source of such an ill-informed, out of touch, and frankly just plain stupid view was Kirstie Allsopp, the Location, Location, Location presenter, taking time out from moaning about having to take Covid tests like the rest of the little people to make a typically boomerish jibe at the younger generations housing struggles.

“When I bought my first property, going abroad, the easyJet, coffee, gym, Netflix lifestyle didn’t exist. I used to walk to work with a sandwich. And on payday I’d go for a pizza, and to a movie, and buy a lipstick. Interest rates were 15 per cent, I was earning £11,500 a year” Allsop harrumphed.

Yes Kirstie, interest rates were 15 per cent. However, the average house price was £51,000 which was five times the average yearly wage in 1992. A not inconsiderable sum until you compare it to the present day, where it’s £268,000, which is nine times the average wage. That’s before you factor in the rocketing price of living in the sunlit uplands of Brexit Britain, where energy prices are projected to rise by a measly 54 per cent in April.

Apart from the bizarre idea that coffee and gyms didn’t exist in the early nineties, you could say that Allsopp is right in some ways. Yes Kirstie, Netflix didn’t exist because the internet as we know it today didn’t exist. Yes Kirstie, flying abroad at all, never mind on a budget airline like easyJet, was something that only a privileged few could do. People like you Kirstie.

Allsopp neglects to mention - quite by accident you understand - that the reason she could “afford” to buy her first house at the age of 21 is because what is euphemistically called “family help.” A fact usually buried in the middle of that disingenuous genre of “news” story where a seemingly thrifty yet curiously joyless young couple are able to buy their first home because they “make sacrifices” before revealing they were “gifted” tens (sometimes hundreds) of thousands of pounds from parents who put them up rent-free. A luxury that most young people couldn’t (and wouldn’t) expect to rely upon despite regular accusations by their elders that they are too soft and entitled. In Allsopp’s case, that help came in the form of her father, Charles.

Oh sorry, where are my manners – Charles Allsopp, the 6th Baron Hindlip who sat as a hereditary (a.k.a. unearned) peer in the House of Lords between 1993-1999. The Baron was educated at Eton – that famously egalitarian private school that totally judges people on merit – and served as the chairman of the Christie’s auction house, once wielding the gavel over the sale of a Van Gough for £25million in 1987.

“I don’t want to belittle people who can’t do it” Allsopp says about those unable to get on the property ladder - because everyone’s dream is to be tied into a decades long mortgage with someone you’ll probably end up divorcing dontchaknow - before going on to belittle people who can’t do it, breezily suggesting that people should just move somewhere cheaper or move back in with their parents; that those who can’t do so are in such sitaution becuase they - GASP - drink coffee, watch television, or even exercise on occassion.

When you’ve spent your whole life able to rely on the “bank of mum and dad” as Kirstie’s pal David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron once said in a similarly breathtakingly tone-deaf fashion, such things are mere trifles. Naturally, the comments provoked a wave of derision, prompting her to declare that she’s going to flounce off social media in a huff. A non-property owning generation can only dream.

Allsopp’s tin-eared musings reflect the typical pattern of Britain’s upper-classes, who expect (nay, demand!) deference and praise for all their self-mythologised hard work in – checks notes – inheriting fabulous wealth and privilege from the moment they were born. This is perhaps unsurprising in a country that still weirdly treats its head of state as some sort of benevolent auntie.

It should be said, such views aren’t confined to the middle-aged generation. Instagram “influencer” and former Love Island contestant Molly-Mae Hague caused a storm recently when she blithely suggested that “we all have the same 24 hours” to do whatever “work” influencers actually do; if only we could all stop being so worried about minor issues such as the soaring cost of living, a deadly pandemic, the homelessness crisis, and climate breakdown.

Kirstie Allsopp isn’t to blame for being born into a life of wealth and privilege; indeed, none of us can choose the circumstances we are born to. Many are born into abuse, deprivation, and poverty through no fault of their own, which can leave mental scars for decades, and indeed whole lives. Being able to just “move somewhere cheaper” because “we all have the same 24 hours” to pursue the relentless grift betrays a worldview where the biggest worry you have is being mercilessly dragged on Twitter.

No one expects the likes of Allsopp to apologise for being so out of touch, but a mere crumb of humility and self-awareness would be a start.

 Just so long as that crumb isn’t smeared in avocado of course.

PoliticsFrancesco Bonfanti