Now that is apt. He could be writing about the banal housing that will creep over the Kent marshes in the name of Thames Gateway regeneration. Or the Government's bonkers Pathfinder scheme that sees perfectly good Victorian terraced housing destroyed in the name of "neighbourhood renewal".

He knew what the problem was: ignorance and a public who "when confronted with architecture .?.?. remain resolutely dumb - in both the original and transatlantic senses of the word".

Never mind the public. For services to cynical, grasping philistinism step forward Hazel Blears, worthy successor to John Prescott as "Communities Secretary". Last month, despite opposition from English Heritage, Westminster Council and an independent planning inspector, she approved plans for the 470ft Doon Street tower - pithily described by the Georgian Group's director as a "one-finger salute" - on the South Bank, which has the distinction of wrecking London views from every possible direction.

While acknowledging the damage to the environment, Blears apparently feels it's worth it because the developer says this pile of 300 or so luxury flats "will help fight obesity [it has a sports centre in the basement], gang culture and unemployment".

Osbert Lancaster knew all about this kind of special pleading. In 1938, in Pillar to Post, he illustrated two almost identical buildings - giant, boxlike - distinguished only by the hammer and sickle on one and the swastika on the other. "It is immediately apparent that the proletarian and the Fascist both labour under the same misapprehension - that political rhetoric is a sufficient substitute for genuine architectural inspiration." Plus ça change.