At the heart of all this is a question which is, I am glad to say, becoming fashionable in Tory political debate. The way we look at our own lives and our own society should be intergenerational. The present comes out of the past and looks into the future. What is good only for one generation at one moment is almost certainly bad for all of us. Our refusal to allow enough new houses is an attack by the present generation on the next, a vote of no-confidence in the future for which the social and financial costs are already proving punitively high. So I wish all the best not only to Mr and Mrs Fidler, but also to young Harry Fidler, aged eight, who spent his earliest years behind hay-bales. Why shouldn't he one day be king of the castle his father built?