Best Of

Rachel Reeves probably does not spend a lot of time reading the LandlordTODAY website. But if she did, she might have seen this article, written earlier this year, highlighting complaints about licensing schemes like the one that has got the chancellor into difficulties. It says:

Phil Turtle, a compliance consultant at Landlord Licensing & Defence, says it is increasingly the case that a missed renewal notice, a buried letter, or a forgotten deadline can cost landlords their financial stability – and even their properties.

And he believes that selective licensing schemes, enforced with increasing rigour by local councils, are catching landlords off guard with fines that can spiral into the hundreds of thousands.

“I’ve seen landlords lose everything because they didn’t have a system in place to track compliance. One missed deadline can cost you £105,000, and if you’re operating through a limited company, that fine could double to £210,000.”

He points to a recent case in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, where a landlord faced a staggering £66,000 in fines for failing to license a single house converted into two flats. “The council hit the landlord’s limited company with £16,500 per flat and then fined him personally as the sole director another £16,500 per flat. That’s £66,000 for a simple oversight – and now he’s forced to sell the property to cover the cost.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/oct/30/rachel-reeves-labour-keir-starmer-uk-politics-latest-news-updates

"Phil Turtle" sounds like an instruction from some utterly hideous Victorian cookbook...

Don’t mock him, or you’ll be in the soup.

Incredible really

Rachel Reeves was celebrating the renting law being expanded in her constituency, at the same time she was breaking that law with her own house👇

Claiming that she wasn’t aware of these laws is about as credible as her CV.

https://x.com/kemibadenoch/status/1983802829971100152?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

Claiming that she deliberately flouted the law is about as credible as Liz Truss.

Ignorance of the law is not a credible defence. She's an MP and should know better. Why is it that Labour MPs seem to think it's ok for them to be ignorant of the law.

Is that what they are saying ?
Or is it that she inadvertently breached the regulation, is taking steps to correct that, and that should (probably) be the end of the matter ?

As I commented on the last thread, assuming that Reeves is not a rogue landlord (which so far seems to be the case), and has in place gas and electric verification, EPC, etc, then it is ridiculous to be calling for her resignation.

The purpose of regulation is to ensure the safety of the property. It is not an end in itself, and to see an inadvertent breach of the rules, quickly rectified, as a resignation matter is effectively to say that regulation is indeed an end in itself.

Does the Tory party really want to take that stance, that regulation is an end in itself, and any technical breach should result in fines or criminal prosecution ?
If so, then the party is in a worse state than I thought.

I guess we just have to take her word for that her property was compliant given that she refused to get the licence. We have a recent example of a Labour MP being a slumlord so it's not beyond reasonable doubt that her property wasn't fully compliant.

But once again it's the hypocrisy of her campaigning for this type of landlord licencing in her own constituency then failing to get the licence that she campaigned to bring into place.

One rule for them and another for the rest of us. Two tier Keir all over again.

LOL.

He’s trolling you all, and won’t be running in 2028.

Read the article, Trump running or not isn't the issue, will the likes of the Trump crime family, Vance, and Miller give up power after the shithousery/corruption they have engaged in?

They have made untold billions manipulating the markets with insider information. A quiet tithe of those billions will be quite enough to manipulate enough of the voters (by persuasion or exclusion) to win another close election.

I doubt it will be Trump himself, but someone from the billionaire class, put forward to prevent an investigation into how they have turned democracy into kleptocracy, or more accurately a kakistocracy if it is one of the Trump offspring.

The alternative - of losing - risks having billonaires hanging from lamp-posts by piano wire and confiscation of all their assets to resume paying for food stamps.

It’s not even about the money, for these people - in the sense of enjoying their ill-gotten gains. The money is simply a way of keeping score. And, it’s timeless.

The whole mentality of people who can never be satisfied, despite enjoying great wealth, status, and power, is fascinating. Alexander's generals could not be satisfied with ruling enormous territories and living in splendour, but squandered vast resources (and their own lives), trying to conquer the whole lot. Caesar and Octavian were simply the most successful of the multimillionaire aristocrats who pillaged the Mediterranean and Gaul, in order to be first man in Rome (and the vast majority ended up dying violently in the process). Even after Octavian won, his dynasty spent a century murdering each other, and potential rivals, before they died out (Nero murdered his mother, brother, and two wives).

So, a billionaire might be reclining on his yacht in Monaco harbour, a mistress young enough to be his granddaughter by his side, and then quite suddenly, someone sails into the harbour in an even bigger boat, and his enjoyment is destroyed, as he worries about the size of his ... yacht. What's a billion, when the other man has two billion? What's ten billion, when there are people with fortunes that exceed one hundred billion? Getting more money is just keeping score, at this point.