Michael and Grant and Eric and Brandon

That brilliant entrepreneur and respected statesman, Michael Green, has notched up another triumph, this time in fulfilling the coalition's 2011 pledge to replace all the social housing it was allowing to be flogged off. According to the Government's own figures, sixteen and a half thousand homes have been sold since the scheme was introduced, and a remarkable three thousand homes have been started. This means that the pledge to build one for every one sold has been fulfilled at a rate of one built for every 5.28 sold, which is almost certainly bang on the button as far as Osbornomic maths goes: a home-owning prole is worth at least five and a half renting proles, particularly if those who cannot afford to rent are consigned to their proper status outside the equation. Nevertheless, something called Brandon was extruded to point out that it takes longer to build houses than to sell them, and that therefore the discrepancy was all the fault of those local authorities at which Eric Pickles has been throwing money these past few years. Besides being a former primary-school profiteer and victim of marauding gipsies, Brandon used to be part of a double act with Pickles on local radio, The Eric and Brandon Show, where no doubt concern for social housing was a persistent theme.