SMUG for too long, with their high house prices and better weather, Home Counties arseholes are now getting their comeuppance. Here’s how:
ULEZ expansion
London includes everything up to the M25 now, which means Sadiq Khan is inviting vast numbers of Home Counties residents to pay £12.50 emissions charges to get in their car to go food shopping or drive their kids to school. Never mind that there aren’t any Tube trains to make going car-free a convenient option. It’s fine because there are no low-income families in the Home Counties: they’re all rich bankers and they deserve it.
Flats, flats, flats
The success of any Home Counties commuter town hinges on how quickly one can get away from it on the train, which makes it a mecca for developers keen to throw up another block of 40 executive apartments on any tiny patch of land available. For wannabe smug Home Counties first-time buyers the sting in the tail is that they still cost £400,000, even though the garden is a small square of gravel and the service charge is £2,000 a year.
Wood burners are toxic
A clear sign that God is laughing in the face of the self-satisfied Home Counties resident is that their most beloved household fixture is poisoning them every time they light it, which must lessen the cosy glow somewhat. What will be next? Finding out that your luxury hot tub gives you scabies?
They’ll never be on the ‘Best Places to Live’ list
The Sunday Times never features the places its customers reside in in its ‘Best Places to Live’ list. Instead, it’s quaint little Cotswold market towns with award-winning farmers’ markets, or charming Cornish fishing villages where the nearest supermarket is 75 miles away. The Home Counties have Deliveroo and Waitrose, but they’ll never have the sense of community that comes from visiting a community shop for a jar of local, artisanal marmalade.
David Bowie once said something sarcastic about their town
Even if they feel bolstered by their property prices, quick travel times into London and leafy surroundings, the Home Counties resident can be brought down by David Bowie’s disdain for Home Counties suburbia. Or maybe that’s just projection on your part because you live in Nuneaton, which Bowie never mentioned at all.
