This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
In giving the Nobel prize in Physics to Hinton and Hopfield, they've given it for work in a field that has f'all to do with physics.
(Yes, AI is used in physics. But so are computers. And little pieces of paper. And lots of coffee.)
This shows: *) The crisis in physics, where the best 'advance' in physics the committee could come up with is this. *) The fact that the Nobel prizes no longer fit modern science well. *) The Nobel committee's inability to see advances when they happen - H&H's work was decades ago. *) The Nobel committee's desire to appear relevant.
(I am not a fan of the Nobel prizes. A worthy idea let down by the way it was set up and is run.)
I don't know if this has been reported on here, but the French are upgrading some Mirage fighters to allow better ground attack. And then donating them to Ukraine, to arrive early next year.
I hope they've got the pilot and maintenance training pipelines going...
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
Shelter and Generation Rent may well end up learning a hard lesson on this legislation.
In giving the Nobel prize in Physics to Hinton and Hopfield, they've given it for work in a field that has f'all to do with physics.
(Yes, AI is used in physics. But so are computers. And little pieces of paper. And lots of coffee.)
This shows: *) The crisis in physics, where the best 'advance' in physics the committee could come up with is this. *) The fact that the Nobel prizes no longer fit modern science well. *) The Nobel committee's inability to see advances when they happen - H&H's work was decades ago. *) The Nobel committee's desire to appear relevant.
(I am not a fan of the Nobel prizes. A worthy idea let down by the way it was set up and is run.)
Penny: So, what's new in the world of physics? Leonard: Nothing. Penny: Really, nothing? Leonard: Well, with the exception of string theory, not much has happened since the 1930s. And you can't prove string theory, at best you can say “Hey, look, my idea has an internal logical consistency.” Penny: Ah. Well I'm sure things will pick up.
How many people remain in the forecast path of Milton? Sounds like there might not be much left standing by Thursday. Footage of the highway queues is something else.
There’s one hell of an evacuation plan underway, they’ve told everyone to get out of the path. City mayors are saying it’s a matter of life and death.
There’s videos of fuel tankers and dump trucks getting police escorts heading South, to aid in the evacuation and cleanup of debris from last week’s storms. https://x.com/flhsmv/status/1843693013966696873
Kemi’s biggest problem when it comes to the membership outside the south east, Is that she’s seen as DougieSmith’s protege and that is likely fatal for her chances in the members ballot!
@NadineDorries 'Kemi is the long term protege of Gove and Dougie Smith. How does her network work?
Francis Maude launched her leadership campaign.
Maude runs a successful political consultancy, his business partner is Nick Boles.
Boles is v close to Gove and was a key player when Gove stabbed Boris in the back in 2016.
Maude is a close ally of Sue Gray, who is also a longstanding close friend of Gove.
Maude heaped effusive praise upon Gray when it was announced she had left the civil service and jumped to Labour.
He was also the hugest fan of the coalition government and was quick to publicly defend Dougie Smith, when it was disclosed that Smith ran the fever sex parties
Dougie Smith is a long standing close friend of Kemi and her husband and is closer to Gove than most. He is still on the CCHQ payroll.
Nick Boles works in Reeves office. Gray worked in Starmer’s. Now Maude wishes you to vote for Kemi to be leader of the opposition.
If you have contacts at the heart of every administration in Westminster, would that benefit your political advisory business?
Why do Gove (where he goes, Cummings goes too) Dougie Smith, Francis Maude and others want Kemi who would cross the road to pick a fight and cannot handle a media round, to be leader.
Because she’s the only candidate they have links to.
How? Kemi worked at the Spectator where Cummings wife worked and where Gove is now editor. Where James Forsyth worked who introduced Sunak to Dougie.
I asked someone who was very close to Sunak in No10, why he tolerated CCHQ paying Dougie when Dougie turned on him and the answer was ‘because Sunak is *ucking terrified of him,they all are.’
It won’t be just Kemi MPs will be voting for if she is put through to the final 2.
The language here possibly a bit OTT for a politics prof, but he has a point, I reckon.
The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people. You can't see a doctor, find a dentist, take a train or even get on a bus. Until that changes, we will just see rotation after rotation in our politics as voters search for an answer.
It feels broken because a lot of it is broken, or at best extremely tatty. It's the logical endpoint of things we've voted for (with our wallets as well as our ballots) for decades, but we're not going to acknowledge that. But until we do, we will collectively keep looking for that One Weird Trick that They Don't Want Us To Know.
Whatever the answer is, it ain't going to be easy or quick.
It's nonsense though. Today I saw a doctor at the drop of a hat. Four weeks ago I needed emergency dental work which I was able to get, along with two follow up appointments. Oh, and I got the tram there without incident. My kids all go to totally acceptable state schools
The story we are told is that nothing works. And indeed I listen to the story, and sometimes believing the story, I don't even try (to, for example, see a doctor). But when I'm forced to use the system, mostly, it works. I accept there are many examples of people for whom it doesn't. But the norm is a working system.
Maybe the whingers should go and take a trip to eastern Ukraine or the middle east. They need to get a bit of perspective. "The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people." What a piece of hyperbolic bollox. It is clearly a hard life being a mollycoddled Professor.
Well quite. Try telling the recent arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong that the UK just doesn’t work, and they’ll tell you exactly what they think.
We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
Oh no, not another Russian ammo dump lighting up the night sky! This time it’s one near Karachev, Bryansk Oblast, Russia. 100 miles from the Ukranian border.
Rishi Sunak is the only politician who makes the 'list' of "Top 100 Community Noted" Twitter accounts, at number 96. New York Post is at 58.
It's by Ron Filipkowski, but it's a bit clickbaity, and doesn't tell me which Sunak account it is, nor give me a full list.
I think this says as much about our recent General Election and online social media politics, as it does about Mr Sunak compared to say Mr Chump. There's a "how many followers" bias, of course, and presumably no one has heard of Generic Bob.
Oh, and another thing I should mention about the HK contingent: lots of them are going to various churches. I've no idea how religious they were before; whether this is an attempt to integrate; and/or a place where the HK community can meet up.
Today, I visited a logistics staging area at the Florida Horse Park in Ocala, one of our many staging sites just outside Hurricane Milton’s projected path. Florida and our partners have spent the past few days deploying personnel and equipment to strategically located sites like this.
Nearly 600 ambulances and more than 30 paratransits are in operation. They will be nearby and ready to save lives as soon as the hurricane passes. The National Guard is deploying aerial, water, and ground search and rescue teams for the largest National Guard search and rescue mobilization in Florida history.
Florida will have 43,000 linemen staged from all over the country, and they’ll be ready to restore power when it’s safe to do so.
Now is the time to execute your plan and follow any evacuation orders from your local officials. Your home can be rebuilt, your possessions can be replaced, but we cannot replace a life lost to the storm.
We are grateful for everyone who is stepping up to help, and we will get through this together.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The only way the housing problem gets fixed is by doing what was done after WWII, building millions of new dwellings as quickly as possible.
Treat it as the single biggest problem facing the country, and get all of the red tape that stops it happening out of the way. Yes that includes a fair bit of planning law, and all the new construction standards aimed at energy efficiency which add a lot of costs for marginal gains. Get factories set up to build prefab houses, and have them turn out thousands per week.
But I don’t see any of the lawyers and managerial types in government or the senior CS having any idea of just how far out of the box they need to think.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
One suggestion.
I don't know how quickly you are able to move, but if you are a cash buyer (ie real cash buyer or mortgage on tap) it could be worth putting in an offer at 3-6% below what it would otherwise be (which will be low anyway as we are in October) with a "applies if we complete by midday on October 30th" term. If CGT goes up (imo it will, and the Lawson experience from 1989? says that it must apply from NOW) that will save you both money. You would just be getting a partial chunk of the LL's CGT saving.
With skates on, an alert solicitor and no problems it should be possible. Eg as a real cash buyer you could perhaps choose to ignore searches, which might be worth it on a recent build to save £10-20k.
I got a transaction through in 2 weeks from offer to completion before the Osborne Stamp Duty hike partly by offering a £1000 cash bonus to the seller, and I got my searches through in 48 hours by asking the Council Officer nicely. Saved several thousand.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
Harris has been consistently in the lead in the polling in PA, albeit always well within the margin of error. She has an enormous GOTV set up in the State with 50+ offices and tens of thousands of volunteers. The early voting statistics suggest she may be 500k ahead at the moment although Trump will definitely have a bigger turnout on the day. She is pouring money into advertising there. Admittedly Trump is doing the same but not on the same scale and his GOTV efforts seem amateur by comparison.
I make her slight favourite there but its incredibly close. Arizona is looking a bigger ask for her although having abortion on the ballot is helpful.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
Identity politics ends with politics being set by one's identity. Not issues.
They're either too thick to work this out or they just don't care.
The language here possibly a bit OTT for a politics prof, but he has a point, I reckon.
The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people. You can't see a doctor, find a dentist, take a train or even get on a bus. Until that changes, we will just see rotation after rotation in our politics as voters search for an answer.
It feels broken because a lot of it is broken, or at best extremely tatty. It's the logical endpoint of things we've voted for (with our wallets as well as our ballots) for decades, but we're not going to acknowledge that. But until we do, we will collectively keep looking for that One Weird Trick that They Don't Want Us To Know.
Whatever the answer is, it ain't going to be easy or quick.
It's nonsense though. Today I saw a doctor at the drop of a hat. Four weeks ago I needed emergency dental work which I was able to get, along with two follow up appointments. Oh, and I got the tram there without incident. My kids all go to totally acceptable state schools
The story we are told is that nothing works. And indeed I listen to the story, and sometimes believing the story, I don't even try (to, for example, see a doctor). But when I'm forced to use the system, mostly, it works. I accept there are many examples of people for whom it doesn't. But the norm is a working system.
Maybe the whingers should go and take a trip to eastern Ukraine or the middle east. They need to get a bit of perspective. "The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people." What a piece of hyperbolic bollox. It is clearly a hard life being a mollycoddled Professor.
Well quite. Try telling the recent arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong that the UK just doesn’t work, and they’ll tell you exactly what they think.
We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
Hong Kong really was the best fusion of cultures in the modern world.
Here's the 538 national polling average. It's continued no change:
There are two questions that matter for me.
Firstly, have pollsters adjusted their weightings and samplings following 2016 and 2020, so as to avoid the undersampling of less educated white voters?
Secondly, will abortion ballot propositions drive turnout for young voters? Wherever there have been abortion ballot propositions, turnouts have been way higher than expected, normally driven by the young.
The third thing is: will something happen to genuinely move opinion?
In 2016 we had the late thing about Clinton's emails that arguably swung the election enough in Trump's direction. A massive escalation in the Israel/Iran conflict that caused a spike in oil prices would likely have as large an impact.
A more cynical and conspiratorial person than I would find it interesting that Netanyahu has delayed retaliating against Iran for the latest Iranian missile barrage, and might speculate that he is leaving it for closer to polling day.
Today, I visited a logistics staging area at the Florida Horse Park in Ocala, one of our many staging sites just outside Hurricane Milton’s projected path. Florida and our partners have spent the past few days deploying personnel and equipment to strategically located sites like this.
Nearly 600 ambulances and more than 30 paratransits are in operation. They will be nearby and ready to save lives as soon as the hurricane passes. The National Guard is deploying aerial, water, and ground search and rescue teams for the largest National Guard search and rescue mobilization in Florida history.
Florida will have 43,000 linemen staged from all over the country, and they’ll be ready to restore power when it’s safe to do so.
Now is the time to execute your plan and follow any evacuation orders from your local officials. Your home can be rebuilt, your possessions can be replaced, but we cannot replace a life lost to the storm.
We are grateful for everyone who is stepping up to help, and we will get through this together.
A hurricane this powerful, so late in the season, so soon after the last, its almost as if those climate change people are onto something, as De Santis didn't say.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
Identity politics ends with politics being set by one's identity. Not issues.
They're either too thick to work this out or they just don't care.
"The "Blob" will ensure Cleverly is elected, thereby guaranteeing there is no actual real opposition. TTK can then get on his task of destroying what's left of our nation unobstructed."
Dominic Cummings description of Cleverly acting like an NPC in the foreign office in response to those islands in the Indian Ocean that I can’t name without a quick google certainly has a real ring of truth to it.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
Identity politics ends with politics being set by one's identity. Not issues.
They're either too thick to work this out or they just don't care.
You mean like Brexit?
Not sure if you are missing the point, being ironic or just self deprecating.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
Identity politics ends with politics being set by one's identity. Not issues.
They're either too thick to work this out or they just don't care.
You mean like Brexit?
Indeed, when more than half the country think that life and politics are not working out for them, they’ll vote to give the elites a damn bloody nose.
Instead, the elites haven’t learned the lessons of Brexit and Trump, and have doubled down on calling the WWC racist and sexist over the last eight years.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
On a couple of aspects, the shift to professional landlords has been an aim since at least 2005. The average portfolio size has gone iirc from 3-5 properties then to 8-9 properties now, which is a huge change.
eg Just under half of all landlords owned one rental property, though nearly half of tenancies were owned by landlords with five or more properties.
There's a stark division and difference between corporate landlords:
- commercial build-to-let are in the top half of the market - 60-90% percentiles imo, and their model is high cost large development lots of added value. Up until the last round of reforms they charged fees of hundreds to assess your dog before letting it in.
- social built to let are at the bottom, or grandfathered in richer 'blockers' who have made good and are sitting pretty (remember Frank Dobson and his Council Flat?). And access is controlled by a points system.
- Traditional PRS is in the middle. Build to let setups aren't efficient enough to manage them absent economies of scale, and the Ts can't access the social sector, or won't - for a large range of reasons.
Organisations such as Generation Rent are trying to help their mainly young professional members carpetbag these properties, which will give a short-term benefit for one cohort, and future Tenants will have to go and f*ck themselves.
Lab had to do the 'no fault eviction' for political reasons, and it is manageable if done carefully. Even though the name is a lie; there is always a reason or the tenancy would not be terminated (tenant changes are bloody expensive), and it is usually arrears.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
One suggestion.
I don't know how quickly you are able to move, but if you are a cash buyer (ie real cash buyer or mortgage on tap) it could be worth putting in an offer at 3-6% below what it would otherwise be (which will be low anyway as we are in October) with a "applies if we complete by midday on October 30th" term. If CGT goes up (imo it will, and the Lawson experience from 1989? says that it must apply from NOW) that will save you both money. You would just be getting a partial chunk of the LL's CGT saving.
With skates on, an alert solicitor and no problems it should be possible. Eg as a real cash buyer you could perhaps choose to ignore searches, which might be worth it on a recent build to save £10-20k.
I got a transaction through in 2 weeks from offer to completion before the Osborne Stamp Duty hike partly by offering a £1000 cash bonus to the seller, and I got my searches through in 48 hours by asking the Council Officer nicely. Saved several thousand.
Another manouevre which a buyer did on a friend of mine (who was perfectly happy with the outcome) is to put in an offer as a 'cash buyer' on a property listed at below market value on the 'modern method of auction', with the condition that it proceeds outside of the auction process, so you don't need to pay the fees. Then you can do all the searches, sort out the mortgage etc without the timeframe.
In my case I am selling a property, have a buyer who is doing a survey etc, so it is a bit more uncertain. Lots of painful paperwork to get through in the sale (it is an old converted building). I am not that desperate to move so don't want to end up owning two properties and having bridging loans or becoming an 'accidental landlord'.
There is a good case to just wait it out. Lots of landlords selling up due to the legislation discussed above. There is a lot of pressure on price in London as first time buyers just don't have that much purchasing power. I imagine it must be static wages and student loan repayments? Lots of sales falling through because of finance issues with first time buyers.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
That wasn't true in Britain in July. There was barely any difference in how people voted by social class:
"Among ethnic minority voters, Labour led the Conservatives by 46% to 17%, and among white (including white minority groups) voters by 33% to 26% (turning a 19 pt lead for the Conservatives among white voters in 2019 to an 7pt lead for Labour this year). "
So in Britain at least stoking up race and class war in the way you describe has failed if anyone has been trying it.
And in the USA:
"But might that polarization be more pronounced for working-class white evangelicals than it is for other whites without a college degree? That is what seems to be suggested by exit polls showing that in both 2016 and 2020, Trump won white working-class evangelicals but lost other white working-class voters."
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The biggest problem in my view (also picking up @Sandpit's other point) is just that there has been no coherant strategy in housing policy for over a decade most famously characterised by the rapid turnover of housing and planning ministers in the latter years of the last government. The government cannot control the narrative so they just end up pandering to the demands of populist lobby groups and policy drifts towards unwanted outcomes like we are seeing.
It has got to the point where there is a case for provision of prefabricated emergency housing IE the kind that they build in war zones, but that itself would be an astounding admission of state failure, and isn't in a long term solution as the infrastructure/connectivity problems would remain.
For entertainment value: there is quite an story doing the rounds about new social housing being put up in Scotland, 15 houses being built at £535k each to meet 'net zero' standards, the existing houses nearby cost £150k each.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
One suggestion.
I don't know how quickly you are able to move, but if you are a cash buyer (ie real cash buyer or mortgage on tap) it could be worth putting in an offer at 3-6% below what it would otherwise be (which will be low anyway as we are in October) with a "applies if we complete by midday on October 30th" term. If CGT goes up (imo it will, and the Lawson experience from 1989? says that it must apply from NOW) that will save you both money. You would just be getting a partial chunk of the LL's CGT saving.
With skates on, an alert solicitor and no problems it should be possible. Eg as a real cash buyer you could perhaps choose to ignore searches, which might be worth it on a recent build to save £10-20k.
I got a transaction through in 2 weeks from offer to completion before the Osborne Stamp Duty hike partly by offering a £1000 cash bonus to the seller, and I got my searches through in 48 hours by asking the Council Officer nicely. Saved several thousand.
Another manouevre which a buyer did on a friend of mine (who was perfectly happy with the outcome) is to put in an offer as a 'cash buyer' on a property listed at below market value on the 'modern method of auction', with the condition that it proceeds outside of the auction process, so you don't need to pay the fees. Then you can do all the searches, sort out the mortgage etc without the timeframe.
In my case I am selling a property, have a buyer who is doing a survey etc, so it is a bit more uncertain. Lots of painful paperwork to get through in the sale (it is an old converted building). I am not that desperate to move so don't want to end up owning two properties and having bridging loans or becoming an 'accidental landlord'.
There is a good case to just wait it out. Lots of landlords selling up due to the legislation discussed above. There is a lot of pressure on price in London as first time buyers just don't have that much purchasing power. I imagine it must be static wages and student loan repayments? Lots of sales falling through because of finance issues with first time buyers.
I suspect your friend has placed the seller in technical breach of contract, as the seller will have an exclusive clause in their contract in all likelihood. MMA is evil.
Reflecting, I think RR is also hoping for a windfall. 4.6 million rented properties in England in the PRS - she gets the extra 3% Stamp Duty on every sale.
Take the average sale price is £200k (probably low - that's a small 2 bed semi or 3 bed terrace in Newark), if 1% of rental properties sell that is £6000 * 46k = £276m.
In London on values at say £400k, that is 12k each.
5-10% of rented properties sold is £1.25 to £2.5 billion. Add in the Stamp Duty and CGT and she's on the way to £10-20 billion over a few years.
(May be different figures for multiple sales in one transaction if that is still in place).
And she gets that on top of CGT and normal Stamp Duty even if they are bought by a different LL or in a company.
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
There is much that that can and should be disrupted - but suspending democracy is a path to hell.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The biggest problem in my view (also picking up @Sandpit's other point) is just that there has been no coherant strategy in housing policy for over a decade most famously characterised by the rapid turnover of housing and planning ministers in the latter years of the last government. The government cannot control the narrative so they just end up pandering to the demands of populist lobby groups and policy drifts towards unwanted outcomes like we are seeing.
It has got to the point where there is a case for provision of prefabricated emergency housing IE the kind that they build in war zones, but that itself would be an astounding admission of state failure, and isn't in a long term solution as the infrastructure/connectivity problems would remain.
For entertainment value: there is quite an story doing the rounds about new social housing being put up in Scotland, 15 houses being built at £535k each to meet 'net zero' standards, the existing houses nearby cost £150k each.
Huge exaggerations and added Grunting by the Mail, there, imo . Plus some gold plating and I suspect a lot of traditional inefficiency.
The standard they claim to meet - Silver - is not actually that high up the Scottish scale and has been around since 2011 afaics.
Most of it is not down to Net Zero, and the low energy features quoted are mainly marginal extra costs at build time. A larger problem may be the need for a workforce with particular skills. The site is between a canal and the Antonine Wall, and they include extras such as a Home Office space, and 2/15 are fully wheelchair accessible - which justifies extra.
Further, in 2024 3G is not usually necessary for Passive, and I suspect they may have extra registration costs with Passive House Trust etc.
I don’t care if I look like a pathetic PB centrist dad with my stupid Garmin smartwatch
I just want to die later rather than earlier, and it seems that these might help
Genuinely surprised to read this.
Given all the booze and drugs you've done, I always kind of thought you took the "live well, die young" mentality?
I didn’t expect to be enjoying myself quite this much at this later stage. Lots of travel. Good friends. Still a decent income. Fascinating job. Get on with my kids (also worry about them - and they probably need me to hang about). Its a pretty good package
But it doesn’t just need me alive it needs me relatively fit and healthy. Think these watches might help
It is amazing what we can do these days at an older age if healthy. I am 70 in a few weeks. Admittedly I gave up squash when I was 40, catamarans in my 50s and skiing in my 60s, but I can still cycle 500 km in just over a week on holiday with little preparation and enjoy the good things in life and do physically challenging jobs daily eg I chop all the logs for our 3 stoves which is a hell of a lot of logs.
Compare this to the 1960s when I was a teenager. Philosan for the over 40s, many dead from cancer, heart attack or stroke in their 50s, knackered by your 60s.
We are so much luckier these days when we reach 60 if we are still fit.
A relative of mine is almost 70 and exercises for at least an hour every morning, weights and various cardio, and frequently go for 20 mile bike rides and the like.
It's not as though they are in perfect shape, they have periodic back troubles from 50 years of working in factories and buiding sites etc, so they have lighter exercise videos and chair exercises and such when that's all they can do.
I'd say it was inspirational, as it is fitter than I am, but it hasn't actually inspired me to action just yet. But put the work in earlier and it clearly pays off.
And people can just look really good thesedays too. Must have been a moisteriser revolution or something.
To be honest, I've been fairly inspired by this conversation today. Maybe I'll get some sort of smartwatch device after all. (Not an apple, though...)
I have a FitBit somewhere.
But they probably stopped being fashionable (good!).
My head canon says that Arizona and Michigan will go Harris and Penn will go Trump. Happy to hear counter-argument. 🙂
I think the polls are underestimating differential turnout and that Harris will take all seven swing states giving 319 v 219. She might even get an extra 30 from Florida making 349.
NB 330-349 EVs for Harris is 13.5 on Betfair.
See the NYTimes poll for Florida - it's Trump +13
Possible it's wrong, but Siena are a very decent pollster.
I wonder. If Trump were to lose very badly, would it help to kill Trump-ism, or is the Republican Party unsalvageable?
Things have gotten so bitter, so odious, with so many boundaries of previously acceptable behaviour pushed back, that I'm not sure a bad loss would kill it.
It would probably help, though a more likely scenario is that Trump outperforms in some areas - for instance the wannabee Trumps like Lake likely to lose badly in Arizona, whilst there's a good chance he wins it. Now, that might lead them to think trying to be like Trump whilst not being Trump doesn't work, or they may triple down to attempt to be even more like Trump.
In a normal world, electoral loss would be taken as a signal that change was needed if the electorate was to vote for you.
In Trump world, electoral loss means you were cheated. Personally, I am not bothered by Trumpian politics, but I am extremely disturbed by the erosion of democratic norms.
This analysis might obscure what is really going on.
It used to be considered a democratic norm that a people had a right to self-determination through free elections, but in the modern age the idea of 'a people' has been problematised, which in itself undermines this conception of democracy.
It’s the natural end point of identity politics, that eventually you end up with a self-identified “white working-class” identity group, who are by far the largest such group and will vote en masse for the guy who’s not outwardly calling them racist and sexist.
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
That wasn't true in Britain in July. There was barely any difference in how people voted by social class:
"Among ethnic minority voters, Labour led the Conservatives by 46% to 17%, and among white (including white minority groups) voters by 33% to 26% (turning a 19 pt lead for the Conservatives among white voters in 2019 to an 7pt lead for Labour this year). "
So in Britain at least stoking up race and class war in the way you describe has failed if anyone has been trying it.
And in the USA:
"But might that polarization be more pronounced for working-class white evangelicals than it is for other whites without a college degree? That is what seems to be suggested by exit polls showing that in both 2016 and 2020, Trump won white working-class evangelicals but lost other white working-class voters."
So as per my header of a few Sundays ago, US voting patterns are more dominated by religious affiliation than being White non-college.
Not true in 2019 Boris was elected by white working class voters more than any other and in 2024 the Reform vote was overwhelmingly white working class.
In 2016 and 2020 the white working class vote was overwhelmingly for Trump, indeed in 2020 the evangelical vote was slightly down for Trump
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
One suggestion.
I don't know how quickly you are able to move, but if you are a cash buyer (ie real cash buyer or mortgage on tap) it could be worth putting in an offer at 3-6% below what it would otherwise be (which will be low anyway as we are in October) with a "applies if we complete by midday on October 30th" term. If CGT goes up (imo it will, and the Lawson experience from 1989? says that it must apply from NOW) that will save you both money. You would just be getting a partial chunk of the LL's CGT saving.
With skates on, an alert solicitor and no problems it should be possible. Eg as a real cash buyer you could perhaps choose to ignore searches, which might be worth it on a recent build to save £10-20k.
I got a transaction through in 2 weeks from offer to completion before the Osborne Stamp Duty hike partly by offering a £1000 cash bonus to the seller, and I got my searches through in 48 hours by asking the Council Officer nicely. Saved several thousand.
Another manouevre which a buyer did on a friend of mine (who was perfectly happy with the outcome) is to put in an offer as a 'cash buyer' on a property listed at below market value on the 'modern method of auction', with the condition that it proceeds outside of the auction process, so you don't need to pay the fees. Then you can do all the searches, sort out the mortgage etc without the timeframe.
In my case I am selling a property, have a buyer who is doing a survey etc, so it is a bit more uncertain. Lots of painful paperwork to get through in the sale (it is an old converted building). I am not that desperate to move so don't want to end up owning two properties and having bridging loans or becoming an 'accidental landlord'.
There is a good case to just wait it out. Lots of landlords selling up due to the legislation discussed above. There is a lot of pressure on price in London as first time buyers just don't have that much purchasing power. I imagine it must be static wages and student loan repayments? Lots of sales falling through because of finance issues with first time buyers.
I suspect your friend has placed the seller in technical breach of contract, as the seller will have an exclusive clause in their contract in all likelihood. MMA is evil.
Reflecting, I think RR is also hoping for a windfall. 4.6 million rented properties in England in the PRS - she gets the extra 3% Stamp Duty on every sale.
Take the average sale price is £200k (probably low - that's a small 2 bed semi or 3 bed terrace in Newark), if 1% of rental properties sell that is £6000 * 46k = £276m.
In London on values at say £400k, that is 12k each.
5-10% of rented properties sold is £1.25 to £2.5 billion. Add in the Stamp Duty and CGT and she's on the way to £10-20 billion over a few years.
(May be different figures for multiple sales in one transaction if that is still in place).
And she gets that on top of CGT and normal Stamp Duty even if they are bought by a different LL or in a company.
Thinking a little further, property transactions in England in the 1980s were consistently 1.5 million plus, with 10m fewer people.
Increase people moving by 25%, and that is quite teh boost of transfer taxes.
(Notwithstanding my desire to have Stamp Duty abolished.)
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The biggest problem in my view (also picking up @Sandpit's other point) is just that there has been no coherant strategy in housing policy for over a decade most famously characterised by the rapid turnover of housing and planning ministers in the latter years of the last government.
On that particular, the strategy point is correct.
On the rolodex of Housing Ministers, it's not just the end of the last Government. Those turned over because the last Tory Government turned over PMs like Bojo turned over mistresses.
We had 16 Housing Ministers between 2010 and 2024 under Tory-led regimes.
And 10 under Labour between 1997 and 2010.
Which is still shit, although only about half as shit.
Comments
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgwjye2xvpo
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
In giving the Nobel prize in Physics to Hinton and Hopfield, they've given it for work in a field that has f'all to do with physics.
(Yes, AI is used in physics. But so are computers. And little pieces of paper. And lots of coffee.)
This shows:
*) The crisis in physics, where the best 'advance' in physics the committee could come up with is this.
*) The fact that the Nobel prizes no longer fit modern science well.
*) The Nobel committee's inability to see advances when they happen - H&H's work was decades ago.
*) The Nobel committee's desire to appear relevant.
(I am not a fan of the Nobel prizes. A worthy idea let down by the way it was set up and is run.)
I hope they've got the pilot and maintenance training pipelines going...
Which is why so many unions are not endorsing Democrats this time around, because so many of the members are about to vote Republican for the first time.
Leonard: Nothing.
Penny: Really, nothing?
Leonard: Well, with the exception of string theory, not much has happened since the 1930s. And you can't prove string theory, at best you can say “Hey, look, my idea has an internal logical consistency.”
Penny: Ah. Well I'm sure things will pick up.
There’s videos of fuel tankers and dump trucks getting police escorts heading South, to aid in the evacuation and cleanup of debris from last week’s storms.
https://x.com/flhsmv/status/1843693013966696873
Wait until you see the WhatsApp messages.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1843890782090211466
It's by Ron Filipkowski, but it's a bit clickbaity, and doesn't tell me which Sunak account it is, nor give me a full list.
I think this says as much about our recent General Election and online social media politics, as it does about Mr Sunak compared to say Mr Chump. There's a "how many followers" bias, of course, and presumably no one has heard of Generic Bob.
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/fake-news-the-top-100-community-noted
Again, anecdata, so treat with care.
They’re taking it really seriously. Storm is around 20 hours away now.
https://x.com/govrondesantis/status/1843758093974302868
Today, I visited a logistics staging area at the Florida Horse Park in Ocala, one of our many staging sites just outside Hurricane Milton’s projected path. Florida and our partners have spent the past few days deploying personnel and equipment to strategically located sites like this.
Nearly 600 ambulances and more than 30 paratransits are in operation. They will be nearby and ready to save lives as soon as the hurricane passes. The National Guard is deploying aerial, water, and ground search and rescue teams for the largest National Guard search and rescue mobilization in Florida history.
Florida will have 43,000 linemen staged from all over the country, and they’ll be ready to restore power when it’s safe to do so.
Now is the time to execute your plan and follow any evacuation orders from your local officials. Your home can be rebuilt, your possessions can be replaced, but we cannot replace a life lost to the storm.
We are grateful for everyone who is stepping up to help, and we will get through this together.
The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market.
If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation.
In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties.
Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect.
The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
Treat it as the single biggest problem facing the country, and get all of the red tape that stops it happening out of the way. Yes that includes a fair bit of planning law, and all the new construction standards aimed at energy efficiency which add a lot of costs for marginal gains. Get factories set up to build prefab houses, and have them turn out thousands per week.
But I don’t see any of the lawyers and managerial types in government or the senior CS having any idea of just how far out of the box they need to think.
I don't know how quickly you are able to move, but if you are a cash buyer (ie real cash buyer or mortgage on tap) it could be worth putting in an offer at 3-6% below what it would otherwise be (which will be low anyway as we are in October) with a "applies if we complete by midday on October 30th" term. If CGT goes up (imo it will, and the Lawson experience from 1989? says that it must apply from NOW) that will save you both money. You would just be getting a partial chunk of the LL's CGT saving.
With skates on, an alert solicitor and no problems it should be possible. Eg as a real cash buyer you could perhaps choose to ignore searches, which might be worth it on a recent build to save £10-20k.
I got a transaction through in 2 weeks from offer to completion before the Osborne Stamp Duty hike partly by offering a £1000 cash bonus to the seller, and I got my searches through in 48 hours by asking the Council Officer nicely. Saved several thousand.
I make her slight favourite there but its incredibly close. Arizona is looking a bigger ask for her although having abortion on the ballot is helpful.
They're either too thick to work this out or they just don't care.
In 2016 we had the late thing about Clinton's emails that arguably swung the election enough in Trump's direction. A massive escalation in the Israel/Iran conflict that caused a spike in oil prices would likely have as large an impact.
A more cynical and conspiratorial person than I would find it interesting that Netanyahu has delayed retaliating against Iran for the latest Iranian missile barrage, and might speculate that he is leaving it for closer to polling day.
NEW THREAD
This is about the level where the Russian government intervened a year ago. It'll be interesting to see if they have the bandwidth to intervene again.
Instead, the elites haven’t learned the lessons of Brexit and Trump, and have doubled down on calling the WWC racist and sexist over the last eight years.
Very good recent data summary here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-private-landlord-survey-2021-main-report/english-private-landlord-survey-2021-main-report--2
eg Just under half of all landlords owned one rental property, though nearly half of tenancies were owned by landlords with five or more properties.
There's a stark division and difference between corporate landlords:
- commercial build-to-let are in the top half of the market - 60-90% percentiles imo, and their model is high cost large development lots of added value. Up until the last round of reforms they charged fees of hundreds to assess your dog before letting it in.
- social built to let are at the bottom, or grandfathered in richer 'blockers' who have made good and are sitting pretty (remember Frank Dobson and his Council Flat?). And access is controlled by a points system.
- Traditional PRS is in the middle. Build to let setups aren't efficient enough to manage them absent economies of scale, and the Ts can't access the social sector, or won't - for a large range of reasons.
Organisations such as Generation Rent are trying to help their mainly young professional members carpetbag these properties, which will give a short-term benefit for one cohort, and future Tenants will have to go and f*ck themselves.
Lab had to do the 'no fault eviction' for political reasons, and it is manageable if done carefully. Even though the name is a lie; there is always a reason or the tenancy would not be terminated (tenant changes are bloody expensive), and it is usually arrears.
In my case I am selling a property, have a buyer who is doing a survey etc, so it is a bit more uncertain. Lots of painful paperwork to get through in the sale (it is an old converted building). I am not that desperate to move so don't want to end up owning two properties and having bridging loans or becoming an 'accidental landlord'.
There is a good case to just wait it out. Lots of landlords selling up due to the legislation discussed above. There is a lot of pressure on price in London as first time buyers just don't have that much purchasing power. I imagine it must be static wages and student loan repayments? Lots of sales falling through because of finance issues with first time buyers.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election
Neither is it true for ethnicity:
"Among ethnic minority voters, Labour led the Conservatives by 46% to 17%, and among white (including white minority groups) voters by 33% to 26% (turning a 19 pt lead for the Conservatives among white voters in 2019 to an 7pt lead for Labour this year). "
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-election
So in Britain at least stoking up race and class war in the way you describe has failed if anyone has been trying it.
And in the USA:
"But might that polarization be more pronounced for working-class white evangelicals than it is for other whites without a college degree? That is what seems to be suggested by exit polls showing that in both 2016 and 2020, Trump won white working-class evangelicals but lost other white working-class voters."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-trump-and-the-4-categories-of-white-votes/
So as per my header of a few Sundays ago, US voting patterns are more dominated by religious affiliation than being White non-college.
It has got to the point where there is a case for provision of prefabricated emergency housing IE the kind that they build in war zones, but that itself would be an astounding admission of state failure, and isn't in a long term solution as the infrastructure/connectivity problems would remain.
For entertainment value: there is quite an story doing the rounds about new social housing being put up in Scotland, 15 houses being built at £535k each to meet 'net zero' standards, the existing houses nearby cost £150k each.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13915421/Council-spends-8million-15-affordable-homes-bid-meet-eco-planning-rules-costs-ultimately-repaid-tenants.html
Reflecting, I think RR is also hoping for a windfall. 4.6 million rented properties in England in the PRS - she gets the extra 3% Stamp Duty on every sale.
Take the average sale price is £200k (probably low - that's a small 2 bed semi or 3 bed terrace in Newark), if 1% of rental properties sell that is £6000 * 46k = £276m.
In London on values at say £400k, that is 12k each.
5-10% of rented properties sold is £1.25 to £2.5 billion. Add in the Stamp Duty and CGT and she's on the way to £10-20 billion over a few years.
(May be different figures for multiple sales in one transaction if that is still in place).
And she gets that on top of CGT and normal Stamp Duty even if they are bought by a different LL or in a company.
The standard they claim to meet - Silver - is not actually that high up the Scottish scale and has been around since 2011 afaics.
Most of it is not down to Net Zero, and the low energy features quoted are mainly marginal extra costs at build time. A larger problem may be the need for a workforce with particular skills. The site is between a canal and the Antonine Wall, and they include extras such as a Home Office space, and 2/15 are fully wheelchair accessible - which justifies extra.
Further, in 2024 3G is not usually necessary for Passive, and I suspect they may have extra registration costs with Passive House Trust etc.
DM quotes £535k each for an "£8m scheme". That is up from £7.1m quoted by the Glasgow Herald on October 1st.
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottish-news/24621865.construction-begin-7-1m-housing-development/
Build cost is quoted as £420k. TBH I would guestmate those to be deliverable for maybe £300-325k each build cost on that site.
The comparison with "buy an old one for £150k does not really hold imo - those will need a *lot* of money investing.
The Times piece is a little better:
https://archive.ph/ZQHnN
But they probably stopped being fashionable (good!).
In 2016 and 2020 the white working class vote was overwhelmingly for Trump, indeed in 2020 the evangelical vote was slightly down for Trump
Increase people moving by 25%, and that is quite teh boost of transfer taxes.
(Notwithstanding my desire to have Stamp Duty abolished.)
On the rolodex of Housing Ministers, it's not just the end of the last Government. Those turned over because the last Tory Government turned over PMs like Bojo turned over mistresses.
We had 16 Housing Ministers between 2010 and 2024 under Tory-led regimes.
And 10 under Labour between 1997 and 2010.
Which is still shit, although only about half as shit.