Why are you being obtuse?

His request is met with patronising indifference.

Appalled, he asks the warden: “Why are you being so obtuse?

“Is it deliberate?”

This scene came back to me as I read Clive Betts’ article, (May 11).

He was giving the Government stick regarding their housing policy, which as an opposition MP he is paid to do.

He claims, among other things, that too little funding is available in order to build enough homes and so ease the housing shortage.

Such is the situation, he says, that many will never get off the waiting list for a council house.

I couldn’t agree more but Mr Betts is not a fool, so why does he refuse to acknowledge that mass immigration to this country means that the shortage of housing can never be ameliorated?

The latest figure show that 800,000 people came to Britain last year and all require somewhere to live.

The vast majority of these people came from the EU which makes David Cameron’s much vaunted figure of tens of thousands no more than a pipe dream.

A refusal to accept the obvious is often referred to as ‘ignoring the elephant in the room’ but I prefer the question posed by that young chap in the film.

Mr Betts, Cameron, Corbyn, et al.

“Why are you being so obtuse?

“It is deliberate – isn’t it?”

Steve