Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
"Sky News understands that his release came about because of a court error, telling the prison his custodial sentence was a suspended one instead."
So the Prison Service wasn't to blame? Nasty interview coming shortly for the person at Court who wrote. the letter/filled in the form.
I wouldn't worry too much if I were them. Even if the decision is to sack them, there is a fair chance of a mistake where they end up on indefinite leave on fully salary instead.......
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
Ministers announced on Wednesday that 50 Ajax vehicles, of which there are six variants, were now ready to deploy on operations, sixteen years after the £5.5 billion programme began and eight years later than planned...
..Troops are now handed two hearing devices to block out the noise and other measures (sic) have been brought in to reduce the level of vibration.
Luke Pollard, the procurement minister, was at the General Dynamics factory in Merthyr Tydfil Wales to announce the vehicles had reached “initial operating capability”. They had originally been due to enter service in 2017.
Pollard said: “Ajax has overcome significant challenges but importantly we can say it has left its troubles behind...
Speaking via video link, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, said Ajax was the “world’s first truly digital armoured fighting vehicle”. “We are delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary,” he said.
Walker has been blocked by the government from speaking to the media.
He previously said in a speech in June that vehicles such as Ajax “take months to produce and years to train competent crews for”. “They’re also increasingly on the wrong side of the cost curve when it comes to price per kill. A £20 million tank and four experienced crew members lost to a £1,000 drone operated by a kid with only a few days training – who probably isn’t even on the same map sheet as the tank,” he said...
Major James Faire, 35, said: “The way in which the British Army wishes to employ this platform and the way in which we want to fight, is not the way in which the conflict in Ukraine is currently being conducted.
“We would like to try and avoid getting ourselves into the situation where we are in trenches, unable to move, with drones consistently overhead.” He said the army would want to remain mobile “without getting bogged down”...
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
To be fair to him, at least he’s drawing attention to a situation that’s mostly been ignored by the international community, with more than 7,000 Christians killed in the country so far this year.
The latest sanctions on Russia appear to be doing a good job as well, just need to send the Tomahawks to Ukraine now so they can take out the Shahed drone factory.
I think we might have noticed 7,000 deaths. Once again you are spiralling down the alt-right fact free rabbit hole.
The BBC reckons it might only be 3,000, so just over one 9/11.
Trump derangement syndrome in full effect again.
If anyone on PB has Trump Derangement Syndrome it's you.
Most of right wingers on PB can see what's staring us in the face. You are thankfully one of the very few Trump apologists left on PB . How you can support Trump and Ukraine and keep a straight face is quite a feat.
You’ve clearly not noticed several critisisms of Trump over Ukraine.
And no, I don’t support the president, I don’t particularly like him at all, but do go to the effort of following both sides of the US political debate and try to present the other point of view compared to most, on what’s a betting site after all.
I follow both sides of US politics very closely and have all the evidence I need to conclude that Trump and his cronies are unequivocally a malign force. I think even a majority of Americans are coming round to that view. I don't accept that you are simply putting forward the Trumpist view for the sake of balance, it is quite clear that you agree with most of it (despite your blind spot Trump's effect on the Ukrainian situation)
To be fair to him, at least he’s drawing attention to a situation that’s mostly been ignored by the international community, with more than 7,000 Christians killed in the country so far this year.
The latest sanctions on Russia appear to be doing a good job as well, just need to send the Tomahawks to Ukraine now so they can take out the Shahed drone factory.
I think we might have noticed 7,000 deaths. Once again you are spiralling down the alt-right fact free rabbit hole.
The BBC reckons it might only be 3,000, so just over one 9/11.
Trump derangement syndrome in full effect again.
The objections are to the idea that intervening in Nigeria would be easy - or effective. This isn't "drawing attention to" - it's a suggestion that large scale military intervention is a possibility.
"TDS" is just a stupid way of saying you don't want properly to engage in argument.
Look at the comment to which I was replying, the second such saying it was fake news purely because Trump said it.
I’m happy to call out the president when I disagree with him, such as over Ukraine, but in this case the figure came from a Nigerian NGO and has been widely published.
Well, sure. But arguing over the number of casualties is hardly TDS. And the issue isn't really about the precise number of casualties anyway, as I'm sure you're aware.
I disagree with @sandpit about just everything in life and the universe, but on this he was accused of falling down an alt-right fact free rabbit hole for repeating 'fake news' that 'we might have noticed' if it was real.
It is real (though perhaps inflated). I'd perhaps have used Sandpit Derangement Syndrome rather than TDS, but it's a bit less catchy.
Thanks. There’s too few of us here who actually look at what Trump’s supporters are saying, and trying to dismiss anything the president says as being fake doesn’t help the discussion.
There is something approaching a civil war going on in Nigeria at the moment, with thousands dead. That should be concerning, even if we don’t like the US president.
How did it go last time we intervened military in a civil war ?
Also, I quoted Trump directly.
It wasn’t you, you did indeed just quote Trump in his usual crazy style. I don’t think he will actually send the military to Nigeria, but he is bringing attention to the problems there.
Same with Venezuela. He’s parking half of the US Navy offshore and taking out a handful of drug boats, but he’s not going to actually invade the country.
To be fair to him, at least he’s drawing attention to a situation that’s mostly been ignored by the international community, with more than 7,000 Christians killed in the country so far this year.
The latest sanctions on Russia appear to be doing a good job as well, just need to send the Tomahawks to Ukraine now so they can take out the Shahed drone factory.
I think we might have noticed 7,000 deaths. Once again you are spiralling down the alt-right fact free rabbit hole.
The BBC reckons it might only be 3,000, so just over one 9/11.
Trump derangement syndrome in full effect again.
The objections are to the idea that intervening in Nigeria would be easy - or effective. This isn't "drawing attention to" - it's a suggestion that large scale military intervention is a possibility.
"TDS" is just a stupid way of saying you don't want properly to engage in argument.
Look at the comment to which I was replying, the second such saying it was fake news purely because Trump said it.
I’m happy to call out the president when I disagree with him, such as over Ukraine, but in this case the figure came from a Nigerian NGO and has been widely published.
Well, sure. But arguing over the number of casualties is hardly TDS. And the issue isn't really about the precise number of casualties anyway, as I'm sure you're aware.
I disagree with @sandpit about just everything in life and the universe, but on this he was accused of falling down an alt-right fact free rabbit hole for repeating 'fake news' that 'we might have noticed' if it was real.
It is real (though perhaps inflated). I'd perhaps have used Sandpit Derangement Syndrome rather than TDS, but it's a bit less catchy.
Thanks. There’s too few of us here who actually look at what Trump’s supporters are saying, and trying to dismiss anything the president says as being fake doesn’t help the discussion.
There is something approaching a civil war going on in Nigeria at the moment, with thousands dead. That should be concerning, even if we don’t like the US president.
How did it go last time we intervened military in a civil war ?
Also, I quoted Trump directly.
It wasn’t you, you did indeed just quote Trump in his usual crazy style. I don’t think he will actually send the military to Nigeria, but he is bringing attention to the problems there.
Same with Venezuela. He’s parking half of the US Navy offshore and taking out a handful of drug boats, but he’s not going to actually invade the country.
I'm not sure he'll invade, but I suspect he might conduct more limited military operations without asking the Venezuelan government. His whole attitude to Ukraine shows he supports the concept of spheres of influence with the great powers given carte blanche to do what they want
Very interesting situation, thanks for the header.
Name recognition is one thing, but Nigel Farage is well known in more than just name. People have formed their opinion of him as a politician/person long ago.
"Sky News understands that his release came about because of a court error, telling the prison his custodial sentence was a suspended one instead."
So the Prison Service wasn't to blame? Nasty interview coming shortly for the person at Court who wrote. the letter/filled in the form.
I wouldn't worry too much if I were them. Even if the decision is to sack them, there is a fair chance of a mistake where they end up on indefinite leave on fully salary instead.......
More likely a severe reprimand and a loss of promotion opportunities. Seriously though, unless they intended to let the chap dodge jail they're probably feeling as bad as everyone else.
As someone who has, at various times, been both an employer and a NHS employee, I don't think people are really happy to mess things up to this extent.
Although I once had to be employer representative at an NHS Disciplinary meeting where even the Trade Union rep thought the guy we were sacking was bonkers and deserved what he got.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
Ministers announced on Wednesday that 50 Ajax vehicles, of which there are six variants, were now ready to deploy on operations, sixteen years after the £5.5 billion programme began and eight years later than planned...
..Troops are now handed two hearing devices to block out the noise and other measures (sic) have been brought in to reduce the level of vibration.
Luke Pollard, the procurement minister, was at the General Dynamics factory in Merthyr Tydfil Wales to announce the vehicles had reached “initial operating capability”. They had originally been due to enter service in 2017.
Pollard said: “Ajax has overcome significant challenges but importantly we can say it has left its troubles behind...
Speaking via video link, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, said Ajax was the “world’s first truly digital armoured fighting vehicle”. “We are delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary,” he said.
Walker has been blocked by the government from speaking to the media.
He previously said in a speech in June that vehicles such as Ajax “take months to produce and years to train competent crews for”. “They’re also increasingly on the wrong side of the cost curve when it comes to price per kill. A £20 million tank and four experienced crew members lost to a £1,000 drone operated by a kid with only a few days training – who probably isn’t even on the same map sheet as the tank,” he said...
Major James Faire, 35, said: “The way in which the British Army wishes to employ this platform and the way in which we want to fight, is not the way in which the conflict in Ukraine is currently being conducted.
“We would like to try and avoid getting ourselves into the situation where we are in trenches, unable to move, with drones consistently overhead.” He said the army would want to remain mobile “without getting bogged down”...
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
It's the classic Wrong Kind of War theory.
The evidence is that you need armoured vehicles. Either you go for bullet and shell splinter proof and really mobile. Or you go full MBT level plus active defences - see Namer for infantry assault vehicles.
Ajax is a joke.
The bizarre belief in "air mobile" is insane. As Donald Rumsfeld pointed out, it would cheaper and simpler for the *US* military to simply station extra *divisions* of shrink wrapped vehicles and equipment near potential trouble spots than to try and air lift them. Just fly in the troops to man them... And the US airlift capability is orders of magnitude beyond anyone else.
So even if you lift in a half dozen armoured vehicles - how do you support them? airlift the fuel, spares, ammo?
Okay here's the first thing I did with THRML by @extropic
It's just a basic sudoku solver. Thermodynamic computing is a bit overkill for this task but I think since humans can actually do sudoku, it's a good intuition for what's going on under the hood.
With sudoku, there are many overlapping constraints. You start with a partially filled puzzle, which are the initial conditions, but then other rules are: no duplicates on any row, column, or square.
Now, with a sudoku problem, you know there is ONE singular solution, or a "low energy state" i.e. where there are no rule violations or collisions.
So then what you do is you program those "clamped" initial values into the TSU, and you bake in the rules (no duplicates) and then, due to the laws of thermodynamics and electricity... it just sort of settles into the correct solution (this is "annealing")
The reason I think this is such a good example of what TSUs do is because for humans (and classical computers) it's more or less a "guess and check" process. No matter what method you use with classical computation or human computation, it's an iterative refinement process of sequential steps.
But, with sudoku, as you can see in the output below, it's a single step. That's because the TSU looks at the whole problem globally.
... So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
We would aim to have air superiority, and consequently the ability to destroy the enemy's logistics - making it hard for the enemy to deliver drones to the front line in significant numbers.
One of the reasons that Ukraine has been concentrating on Russian radar systems is that they want to be able to fight the war in a different way too. If the West hadn't been so reluctant to provide fighter jets they would be that much further along towards being able to do so.
Obviously we have to learn from what is happening in this war, but that doesn't mean assuming that a future war will be exactly the same as this war.
To be fair to him, at least he’s drawing attention to a situation that’s mostly been ignored by the international community, with more than 7,000 Christians killed in the country so far this year.
The latest sanctions on Russia appear to be doing a good job as well, just need to send the Tomahawks to Ukraine now so they can take out the Shahed drone factory.
I think we might have noticed 7,000 deaths. Once again you are spiralling down the alt-right fact free rabbit hole.
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
Ministers announced on Wednesday that 50 Ajax vehicles, of which there are six variants, were now ready to deploy on operations, sixteen years after the £5.5 billion programme began and eight years later than planned...
..Troops are now handed two hearing devices to block out the noise and other measures (sic) have been brought in to reduce the level of vibration.
Luke Pollard, the procurement minister, was at the General Dynamics factory in Merthyr Tydfil Wales to announce the vehicles had reached “initial operating capability”. They had originally been due to enter service in 2017.
Pollard said: “Ajax has overcome significant challenges but importantly we can say it has left its troubles behind...
Speaking via video link, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, said Ajax was the “world’s first truly digital armoured fighting vehicle”. “We are delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary,” he said.
Walker has been blocked by the government from speaking to the media.
He previously said in a speech in June that vehicles such as Ajax “take months to produce and years to train competent crews for”. “They’re also increasingly on the wrong side of the cost curve when it comes to price per kill. A £20 million tank and four experienced crew members lost to a £1,000 drone operated by a kid with only a few days training – who probably isn’t even on the same map sheet as the tank,” he said...
Major James Faire, 35, said: “The way in which the British Army wishes to employ this platform and the way in which we want to fight, is not the way in which the conflict in Ukraine is currently being conducted.
“We would like to try and avoid getting ourselves into the situation where we are in trenches, unable to move, with drones consistently overhead.” He said the army would want to remain mobile “without getting bogged down”...
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Ajax is such a classic MOD procurement fuckup.
Did they just forget to specify that the noise levels in the crew compartment needed to be at safe levels for extended use, or was the problem that they’d paid out for the entire program before anyone noticed that they were going to permanently deafen the entire army?
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Someone’s trying to fight the last war not the next one. Having a handful of super-duper £20m IFVs isn’t gonna help much when the enemy has $10,000 drones that can disable it.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
It's probably my losses supporting your sofa habits! On a lower level, I've previously described not being able to prove right to work here, open an HMRC account (needs driving licence or passport) and last week, my attempt to get a new phone was stymied by the income question because it's a credit agreement and I'm living on savings only.
Life is increasingly designed for a narrow class, and woe betide those who fall outside Whitehall's experience.
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
Ministers announced on Wednesday that 50 Ajax vehicles, of which there are six variants, were now ready to deploy on operations, sixteen years after the £5.5 billion programme began and eight years later than planned...
..Troops are now handed two hearing devices to block out the noise and other measures (sic) have been brought in to reduce the level of vibration.
Luke Pollard, the procurement minister, was at the General Dynamics factory in Merthyr Tydfil Wales to announce the vehicles had reached “initial operating capability”. They had originally been due to enter service in 2017.
Pollard said: “Ajax has overcome significant challenges but importantly we can say it has left its troubles behind...
Speaking via video link, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, said Ajax was the “world’s first truly digital armoured fighting vehicle”. “We are delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary,” he said.
Walker has been blocked by the government from speaking to the media.
He previously said in a speech in June that vehicles such as Ajax “take months to produce and years to train competent crews for”. “They’re also increasingly on the wrong side of the cost curve when it comes to price per kill. A £20 million tank and four experienced crew members lost to a £1,000 drone operated by a kid with only a few days training – who probably isn’t even on the same map sheet as the tank,” he said...
Major James Faire, 35, said: “The way in which the British Army wishes to employ this platform and the way in which we want to fight, is not the way in which the conflict in Ukraine is currently being conducted.
“We would like to try and avoid getting ourselves into the situation where we are in trenches, unable to move, with drones consistently overhead.” He said the army would want to remain mobile “without getting bogged down”...
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Ajax is such a classic MOD procurement fuckup.
Did they just forget to specify that the noise levels in the crew compartment needed to be at safe levels for extended use, or was the problem that they’d paid out for the entire program before anyone noticed that they were going to permanently deafen the entire army?
What happens when you can’t park outside your house because someone else’s car is there
Cones, but I do remember reading that some councils are offering you exclusive parking bays outside your property if you have these installed.
You cannot use cones to try and steal a public parking space for yourself. And I don't see Councils having the resource to faff about with individual parking spaces until they have recovered from being gutted for 15-20 years.
The bigger problem with these is endangerment of pedestrians. From my pov, the footway is a pedestrian space and no obstructions whatsoever are acceptable.
Motor vehicles already dangerously infringe on pedestrian space willy-nilly, regularly destroying pavements, and questioning the assumed entitlement often results in insults or sometimes threats, as anyone who has tried knows. Movement needs to be in the other direction.
Chargers in lamp posts may be acceptable. When chargers block pedestrian space - no.
The pavement parking thing isn't quite as straightforward as you make out, and banning it is the wrong solution.
Outside my house, in a 1950s ex-council estate, is a fairly narrow road with a massive pavement each side. To give you an idea how wide the pavement is, I used to drive my Landrover pickup onto it, and stand in the back to cut my hedge (easier than using ladders, and most of the cuttings land straight in the Landrover ready to go to the tip). With the Landrover parked on the pavement, you could still walk past it without stepping into the road. Because the road is narrow, everyone leaves their cars with one pair of wheels up on the curb, using maybe 2' out of the 15' width of one pavement. They all do this on the same side, which means that our street has one uninterrupted pavement at 15' wide, and one uninterrupted at 12' wide.
This poses a problem to zero people - you can and people (including me!) do, easily push prams and wheelchairs, ride scooters etc down the narrow side, never mind the wide side. Most of the estate is like this. If you banned pavement parking, half the houses would have no-where to park a car, without improving utility for anyone else.
If could of course be altered (at massive expense) to move all the curbs 2' on one side - but again, the end result is that no-one is better off.
I understand why some people want a ban on pavement parking, and I'm sure it is a problem in some places, but a blanket ban is completely the wrong solution. A much better fix would be just to put double yellow lines in problem spots - but that would require councils to do some actual work, rather than just inconvenience everybody.
The blanket ban has worked well here, primarily because of it's simplicity. I appreciate you get edge cases like yours but, from the council's perspective, universal rules (e.g. 20mph) are much cheaper to put in place and to enforce.
Ultimately cars are private property and it's a pretty sweet deal that we're allowed to use up public space to store them in the first place. In Japan there is no on-street parking at all.
I think the obvious solution is a minimum with of pavement that must be left, enough for a double buggy or a wheelchair. Defined in mm. If the pavement is narrower than this, you can't park on it.
The drivers that annoy me are the ones that block the pavement, but still don't leave enough room for two cars to park, thus blocking both pedestrians and drivers rather than just drivers.
I think it's rather more complex than that. We cannot have pavement parking because it smashes up the surface eg slabs (trip hazards etc), because long cane users use the kerb as a guide line.
It's about equality, and pedestrians not receiving it, and the consequences that flow from dealing with that issue.
The core issue is that we need to fix the screwy thinking in the heads of drivers, and if we can't do that completely to take measures necessary to control their behaviour.
And that needs a whole range of disciplines to put them in their proper place - such that everybody is safe - and keep them there.
The last Government were making good progress on things like guidelines for redesigning areas around decent traffic management, but (under Mark Harper I think) they went neanderthal and deliberately turned the whole arena into a culture war - going so far as to embrace values in their policy documents that were determined by Parliament to be conspiracy theories.
It is certainly true that pavement surfaces are often appalling, I tripped and went flying running the other day, although it was tree roots this time. Drivers wonder why runners are in the road, well although as drivers we all complain about road surfaces they are generally much smoother than pavements.
When I complain about this in any forum, I am told that my requirements as a runner are not the norm, and pavements are safe enough. However, I think actually I'm a reasonable proxy for someone less able, as it can be harder to spot hazards when you move faster, have less time to make corrections and the consequences of a fall are greater if you are moving faster.
I think that things like tree roots and utilities are a bigger problem than cars driving on pavements, although I hadn't realised about the kerb edge thing which means just putting a wheel up on the kerb is a problem. I do, however, mostly park completely in the road.
IMO it's not one double buggy, it's two because they have to be able to get past each other - which means 2m or 2.4m of width if the constraint is more than perhaps 5m long (Inclusive Mobility Guidelines use a length of 6m usually for a narrower than normal section max length).
There's an endless succession of them. Another one that we all know about, and 75% of us will recognise when we think about it, is that Guide Dogs are trained to walk next to their user - so space needed is 1.2-1.5m to be comfortable. But when we are thinking "how much space is required", we think of ourselves and say "600mm or 2 feet".
And because of the anti-wheelchair barriers I complain about, we actively force our vulnerable people into these spaces.
That's where the lived experience thing comes in. And therefore Equality Impact Assessments, and the need for an experienced officer who would also advise businesses on adaptations, or it's back to a consultant for every exercise, or a non-experienced Council Officer making guesses. But the number of Equality Officers left is negligible, after austerity.
One of my current betes noire is that road signs for motors have thousands of pages of regulations, whilst road signs for visually impaired people ie Tactile Paving have "Guidelines". And "Guidelines" is another word for "Optional" - yet done badly it can send a blind person straight down a flight of steps or into a canal. A pitched battle was fought in a committee on that one about 6-7 years ago by relevant organisations, but the word came back from the Department "no can do".
The underlying issue is with the values defining the culture.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
I asked agents about this last time. They were split half and half, between those who thought it a plus point, and those who thought it a red flag. This was before any recent regulatory changes though.
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Someone’s trying to fight the last war not the next one. Having a handful of super-duper £20m IFVs isn’t gonna help much when the enemy has $10,000 drones that can disable it.
Ajax is a mess because Britain could have bought a better IFV for less money if they hadn't gone through the botched process of MOD procurement.
But the drones are neither here nor there. You still need to move soldiers on the battlefield and you still need to provide them with the best combination of armour and mobility as you do so. How else are you going to do that but with an IFV of some sort?
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
One agent told me that people who pay a year up front often don't pay anything else afterward. Not sure exactly what the scam is, or who these people are though.
... So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
We would aim to have air superiority, and consequently the ability to destroy the enemy's logistics - making it hard for the enemy to deliver drones to the front line in significant numbers.
One of the reasons that Ukraine has been concentrating on Russian radar systems is that they want to be able to fight the war in a different way too. If the West hadn't been so reluctant to provide fighter jets they would be that much further along towards being able to do so.
Obviously we have to learn from what is happening in this war, but that doesn't mean assuming that a future war will be exactly the same as this war.
No one is saying that it would be.
But our defence establishment is claiming - as a basis for spending billions on legacy systems (which take a decade or more to commission) and not spending those billions on stuff proven useful in combat in the last two years - that a future war won't resemble this one at all, and we can just rely on the way we did things twenty years ago.
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Someone’s trying to fight the last war not the next one. Having a handful of super-duper £20m IFVs isn’t gonna help much when the enemy has $10,000 drones that can disable it.
Yes but soon we (or more likely the Americans and Chinese) will mount small anti-UAV lasers on their tanks and it will be the drone users fighting the last war.
During the Second World War, the navy's biplanes were too slow to be shot down by the Bismark's guns or even ME 109 fighters. No-one took that as a sign the next war should be fought with Sopwith Camels.
A more fundamental question is why the British Army needs tanks anyway. We share no border with Russia and the BAOR is no more. Tanks just make politicians want to invade the Middle East.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
One agent told me that people who pay a year up front often don't pay anything else afterward. Not sure exactly what the scam is, or who these people are though.
I paid six months in advance for seven years in Edinburgh. I was between jobs at the start of the tenancy, and I didn't fancy paying for a credit check to switch to paying monthly later on.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
I asked agents about this last time. They were split half and half, between those who thought it a plus point, and those who thought it a red flag. This was before any recent regulatory changes though.
If ever I move back to the UK I’d probably be in a similar situation.
Unless I can buy a house with cash, it’ll be difficult to get a mortgage having disappeared off the radar of the credit ratings agencies for two decades, and my best bet would be to rent somewhere for a year offering to pay the whole year up front.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
... So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
We would aim to have air superiority, and consequently the ability to destroy the enemy's logistics - making it hard for the enemy to deliver drones to the front line in significant numbers.
One of the reasons that Ukraine has been concentrating on Russian radar systems is that they want to be able to fight the war in a different way too. If the West hadn't been so reluctant to provide fighter jets they would be that much further along towards being able to do so.
Obviously we have to learn from what is happening in this war, but that doesn't mean assuming that a future war will be exactly the same as this war.
No one is saying that it would be.
But our defence establishment is claiming - as a basis for spending billions on legacy systems (which take a decade or more to commission) and not spending those billions on stuff proven useful in combat in the last two years - that a future war won't resemble this one at all, and we can just rely on the way we did things twenty years ago.
That is insane levels of reactionary stupidity.
I think you're over-reacting. It's not like all the IFVs provided to Ukraine are rusting in Lviv is it?
As far as I can see the Ukraine war means that you need to do some things differently and you need extra capabilities, but I don't see any current capabilities that you can do without.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
One agent told me that people who pay a year up front often don't pay anything else afterward. Not sure exactly what the scam is, or who these people are though.
IIRC there have been issues in the UK with things like cannabis grow operations, where they paid a year’s rent up front to make the landlord go away. Really shouldn’t be an issue if going through an agent though.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
The Renter’s Rights Bill bans taking large “deposits” like this.
It’s not actually being enforced yet - IIRC the rules require the sign off of the relevant secretary of state before they are enforceable. Hence ISAM needs to get a move on & get moved in if he wants to rent somewhere for the next year.
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Someone’s trying to fight the last war not the next one. Having a handful of super-duper £20m IFVs isn’t gonna help much when the enemy has $10,000 drones that can disable it.
Yes but soon we (or more likely the Americans and Chinese) will mount small anti-UAV lasers on their tanks and it will be the drone users fighting the last war.
During the Second World War, the navy's biplanes were too slow to be shot down by the Bismark's guns or even ME 109 fighters. No-one took that as a sign the next war should be fought with Sopwith Camels.
A more fundamental question is why the British Army needs tanks anyway. We share no border with Russia and the BAOR is no more. Tanks just make politicians want to invade the Middle East.
We don't - particularly not a model that no other army is going to order.
As for Ajax, there's a perfectly good IFV that BAE makes that's been available for years. Which is cheaper, and is and will be operated by numerous European NATO allies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_90
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Someone’s trying to fight the last war not the next one. Having a handful of super-duper £20m IFVs isn’t gonna help much when the enemy has $10,000 drones that can disable it.
Yes but soon we (or more likely the Americans and Chinese) will mount small anti-UAV lasers on their tanks and it will be the drone users fighting the last war.
During the Second World War, the navy's biplanes were too slow to be shot down by the Bismark's guns or even ME 109 fighters. No-one took that as a sign the next war should be fought with Sopwith Camels.
A more fundamental question is why the British Army needs tanks anyway. We share no border with Russia and the BAOR is no more. Tanks just make politicians want to invade the Middle East.
Britain is part of NATO and committed to the defence of other NATO members that do have a border with Russia. Of course we need tanks, albeit in lower numbers than before.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
He didn't impress me in his interview with Peston on The Rest is Money -- completely one-sided partisan view of Trump and Trump's policies as they affect the economy. Left me inclined to think his economic takes were liable to be similarly detached from reality.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
Farage does not have what it takes to be Prime Minister.
Then again, Starmer does not have what it takes to be Prime Minister.
Badenoch does not have what it takes.
So we are lumbered with an incompetent either way.
Better an incompetent Starmer than an incompetent racist Farage, but that does not say much.
The gene pool is pretty shallow on both sides of the divide. The remaining Tories that Johnson didn't kick out of the party are piss poor (including Hunt) and the big names on the Labour front bench are equally nondescript. Surely within the ranks of around 400 MPs Labour must have one or two that aren't utter roasters.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
My take from Caerphilly and Runcorn is that voters on the Right will vote overwhelmingly for Reform, if they are best placed to win; and voters on the Left will vote overwhelmingly for the left wing party that is best placed to stop them.
At least in by-election conditions.
I don't believe that to be true. Forever Labour voters voted Johnson in 2019 to kick out the European foreigners. Now they will vote Farage to kick out "other" foreigners.
My late father always voted Labour but he was as socially right wing as they came. With Reform one can vote to kick out foreigners without vomiting as one votes Tory.
If he were still around, do you think he would be a Lab/Reform floater? That would be interesting - because popular wisdom - which I do not necessarily buy - says there aren't many of those.
He couldn't bring himself to have voted Tory, but in a secret ballot kiosk he might vote for a working class hero party like Reform.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
The new rules are badly thought out but in an efficient market the answer to this would be instead of paying a year in advance the tenant pays a premium, perhaps 5-10% instead.
With modern estate agents as gate keepers and their over reliance on standardised process, that won't work for most of the market, but it may do with those outside the agency network, either openrent type standalone small landlords, or the big corporates like Grainger perhaps, where you can talk to them directly.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
The new rules are badly thought out but in an efficient market the answer to this would be instead of paying a year in advance the tenant pays a premium, perhaps 5-10% instead.
With modern estate agents as gate keepers and their over reliance on standardised process, that won't work for most of the market, but it may do with those outside the agency network, either openrent type standalone small landlords, or the big corporates like Grainger perhaps, where you can talk to them directly.
Unfortunately the rules also prevent renters from bidding up the rent. You pay the rent advertised by the landlord or don’t enter the rental contract at all, those are your choices.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
The new rules are badly thought out but in an efficient market the answer to this would be instead of paying a year in advance the tenant pays a premium, perhaps 5-10% instead.
With modern estate agents as gate keepers and their over reliance on standardised process, that won't work for most of the market, but it may do with those outside the agency network, either openrent type standalone small landlords, or the big corporates like Grainger perhaps, where you can talk to them directly.
Unfortunately the rules also prevent renters from bidding up the rent. You pay the rent advertised by the landlord or don’t enter the rental contract at all, those are your choices.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Apparently it is coming in this month. I might be able to rent from a mate with no checks for now. Fingers crossed
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
The new rules are badly thought out but in an efficient market the answer to this would be instead of paying a year in advance the tenant pays a premium, perhaps 5-10% instead.
With modern estate agents as gate keepers and their over reliance on standardised process, that won't work for most of the market, but it may do with those outside the agency network, either openrent type standalone small landlords, or the big corporates like Grainger perhaps, where you can talk to them directly.
Unfortunately the rules also prevent renters from bidding up the rent. You pay the rent advertised by the landlord or don’t enter the rental contract at all, those are your choices.
Labour have seen you coming!
Wow, that is bonkers!
Every clause is there for understandable reasons, but the net result is a system that’s even more rigid & makes it impossible for people who can’t prove their credit-worthiness through “normal” channels (i.e. local job, credit scores, etc) to gain access to rental accommodation by simply paying for it.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
In my mind the obvious one is inheritance tax. It it was 10% with almost no exemptions, it would raise a whole load more money than it being 40% and driving a massive avoidance industry.
But from the government side, they also make 20% VAT and a load of income and corporation tax from that avoidance industry.
With payroll taxes on higher incomes well over 50%, it’s going to drive emigration whether the government likes it or not. There’s other countries out there with different arrangements, and HNWIs can pretty much choose where they want to live.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
The new rules are badly thought out but in an efficient market the answer to this would be instead of paying a year in advance the tenant pays a premium, perhaps 5-10% instead.
With modern estate agents as gate keepers and their over reliance on standardised process, that won't work for most of the market, but it may do with those outside the agency network, either openrent type standalone small landlords, or the big corporates like Grainger perhaps, where you can talk to them directly.
Unfortunately the rules also prevent renters from bidding up the rent. You pay the rent advertised by the landlord or don’t enter the rental contract at all, those are your choices.
Labour have seen you coming!
So it seems landlords can accept lower than advertised rates but not higher.
Very obviously this is going to lead properties that were being advertised at £2000, typically being rented at £2000, with some below and a few above, to now be advertised for more like £2250.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
That's not a problem, that's Economics.
In Economics the middle macro decisions are up for debate all the time. That's the whole point and the whole stereotypical joke of looking for a one-handed Economist.
It isn't possible to say whether (for example) 45% is definitely above or below the peak on the Laffer Curve. Does that make the curve meaningless? No, because that uncertainty does tell us something, versus the certainty people act with too often that a tax rise absolutely definitely will bring in extra revenues (which is not always the case).
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
IIRC Hunt played fast and loose with the OBR five year rule by cutting NI but promising that the government would raise taxes in the future to compensate for the lost income. Unsurprisingly it turned out that all of those tax raises would be the responsibility of the next Government after the GE.
Which left Labour in the somewhat invidious position of being forced to raise taxes the moment they got into power if the government was going to remain within the fiscal envelope set by the OBR. One might even have suspected that this was part of Hunt’s plan all along.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
It is difficult to establish the shape of the Laffer curve in a given country and for a given tax without extensive empirical analysis. That doesn't mean that it has "absolutely nothing to say about the middle". Much economic theory and a good chunk of postulates in social science are like that.
Indeed it is essential to have such concepts so you can frame the questions you ask and the research you do around them. Of course I would say that because a good part of my living comes from such work, and I'm more aware than most of the formidable difficulties involved. Nevertheless it is valuable, indeed I would say virtually essential, to test such theories vigorously, especially since the results are likely to be not what politicians, with their endless appetite for other people's money, want to hear.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
Precisely.
The renter could theoretically make the offer and the landlord could theoretically accept the offer, but the way for the offer to be accepted is to codify it in the contract then exchange the cash upon completion of the contracts.
However if the offer is verboten for being in the contracts then even if the offer comes from the would-be renter, it can't go into the contract, so can't be formally accepted.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Yup, the Renters Rights act, an act passed at the behest of lobbyists and journalists who rent, was always going to be problematic for those who rent.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
Solve the housing shortage is the only way to fix the housing market.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Income tax? If it all comes in one lump, and the LL isn't sure that another year's rent will be payable ...
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
The Renter’s Rights Bill bans taking large “deposits” like this.
It’s not actually being enforced yet - IIRC the rules require the sign off of the relevant secretary of state before they are enforceable. Hence ISAM needs to get a move on & get moved in if he wants to rent somewhere for the next year.
The previous act (2023?) limited deposits to 5 weeks iirc, which amongst other things made management of pet rentals more complex.
It has now been confirmed what Ukraine hit last night in their devastating blow against Russia.
“On the evening of November 5, 2025, a strike was launched on Geran-2 UAV launch sites and storage facilities at the Donetsk airport. Both cruise missiles and attack drones were used during the attack”
- Dosiye Shpiona
As a result of the strike: • The ammunition depot was completely destroyed; • The fuel depot was destroyed; • The UAV pre-launch processing facility was destroyed; • Power supply and communications units were damaged.
At the time of the strike, up to 1,000 Geran-2 UAVs and over 1,500 warheads were located at the airfield.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Given current practice I expect Labour to decide to ban guarantors in the next Renter’s Rights Bill. Why should people with rich parents have an advantage over those that don’t?
(Although perhaps that might be a step too far even for them? It would crucify the student lets market for a start.)
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Given current practice I expect Labour to decide to ban guarantors in the next Renter’s Rights Bill. Why should people with rich parents have an advantage over those that don’t?
(Although perhaps that might be a step too far even for them? It would crucify the student lets market for a start.)
They’ve banned fixed term tenancies. What if a student wanted to stay where they are renting for the foreseeable ?
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
The Renter’s Rights Bill bans taking large “deposits” like this.
It’s not actually being enforced yet - IIRC the rules require the sign off of the relevant secretary of state before they are enforceable. Hence ISAM needs to get a move on & get moved in if he wants to rent somewhere for the next year.
The previous act (2023?) limited deposits to 5 weeks iirc, which amongst other things made management of pet rentals more complex.
It’s kind of spectacular just how anti-free market the last Conservative government was. The entirety of the British state appears to have abandoned any idea that market forces & market prices are things that have meaning.
One of the few reasons to support Labour would have been that after the shambolic approach to legislation of the Tories, things could only get better. But looking into the Renters Rights Bill it is just another mess. I broadly approve of the direction and intent of the changes but these are just completely lacking in any logic or common sense, it is just a continuation of the madness of the last decade.
Looking at annual rent rises, it is inevitable that the dispute scheme won't be able to cope, and that effectively blocks annual rent rises for all tenants willing to be a pain. AIUI those rent rises aren't backdated on the dispute decision either.
"Tenants will be able to challenge even mutually agreed rents for up to six months after moving in, without much risk of backdated payments if they lose. They’ll also be able to challenge proposed rent increases throughout the tenancy, as long as it’s within two months of the landlord requesting a rise. That’s a strong incentive to raise a dispute — and with only 34 judges currently overseeing rental tribunals across 4.7mn private tenancies, the risk of gridlock is real. Without significant investment in capacity, the system could quickly become overwhelmed."
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
Hey - the only fix to all housing market issues is to build a few million homes.
But we don't have the ability to do that (land with planning, builders you name it)..
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Given current practice I expect Labour to decide to ban guarantors in the next Renter’s Rights Bill. Why should people with rich parents have an advantage over those that don’t?
(Although perhaps that might be a step too far even for them? It would crucify the student lets market for a start.)
They’ve banned fixed term tenancies. What if a student wanted to stay where they are renting for the foreseeable ?
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Given current practice I expect Labour to decide to ban guarantors in the next Renter’s Rights Bill. Why should people with rich parents have an advantage over those that don’t?
(Although perhaps that might be a step too far even for them? It would crucify the student lets market for a start.)
With guarantors the sensible thing to do would be to limit it to a maximum of 1 years rent and ban the joint and several liability obligations for guarantors of sharers. Beyond that, it is fine.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
I haven't seen a £50 for years! But if it is in £20s, he'll need two suitcases.
EDIT If it happens (it won't) I'll tell him to keep it. Otherwise he'll have to pay 40% IHT on it when the time comes.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
I haven't seen a £50 for years! But if it is in £20s, he'll need two suitcases.
I remember the 500 euro notes - accepted without a murmur in ski resorts, not welcomed many other places though.
NB. I guess in the future what people in ISAM’s position are going to have to do is get a third party to act as rent guarantor & give them a large pile of cash to cover the risk, repayable at the end of the tenancy.
In which case Labour will have made things more complicated & expensive without making them any more equitable.
It has now been confirmed what Ukraine hit last night in their devastating blow against Russia.
“On the evening of November 5, 2025, a strike was launched on Geran-2 UAV launch sites and storage facilities at the Donetsk airport. Both cruise missiles and attack drones were used during the attack”
- Dosiye Shpiona
As a result of the strike: • The ammunition depot was completely destroyed; • The fuel depot was destroyed; • The UAV pre-launch processing facility was destroyed; • Power supply and communications units were damaged.
At the time of the strike, up to 1,000 Geran-2 UAVs and over 1,500 warheads were located at the airfield.
That's a lot of Ukrainian hospitals, tower blocks, schools, markets that can breathe a sigh of relief for a while.
Now give them the Tomahawks to whack the shaheed drone production facilities.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
Companies House needs major reform. If someone is a director/psc of 10 or more companies, there should be a minimum of a face to face interview with them.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
Because renters lobbying groups demanded it
Why did they demand it? Sorry, I don't know anything about the subject at all.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
We are currently guaranteeing the rent of a family friend because their parents (our friends) couldn't pass the guarantor checks and we could.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
I think the government is hoping that the new rules around identifying the people running ltd companies at Companies House will put the brakes on this kind of thing.
It has now been confirmed what Ukraine hit last night in their devastating blow against Russia.
“On the evening of November 5, 2025, a strike was launched on Geran-2 UAV launch sites and storage facilities at the Donetsk airport. Both cruise missiles and attack drones were used during the attack”
- Dosiye Shpiona
As a result of the strike: • The ammunition depot was completely destroyed; • The fuel depot was destroyed; • The UAV pre-launch processing facility was destroyed; • Power supply and communications units were damaged.
At the time of the strike, up to 1,000 Geran-2 UAVs and over 1,500 warheads were located at the airfield.
That's a lot of Ukrainian hospitals, tower blocks, schools, markets that can breathe a sigh of relief for a while.
Now give them the Tomahawks to whack the shaheed drone production facilities.
It’s about 3-4 days worth of attacks.
So a breathing space, but sadly not that significant in the grand scheme of things.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
The Renter’s Rights Bill bans taking large “deposits” like this.
It’s not actually being enforced yet - IIRC the rules require the sign off of the relevant secretary of state before they are enforceable. Hence ISAM needs to get a move on & get moved in if he wants to rent somewhere for the next year.
The previous act (2023?) limited deposits to 5 weeks iirc, which amongst other things made management of pet rentals more complex.
I'm not surprised. Very few pets have enough cash to provide 5 weeks deposit.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
We are currently guaranteeing the rent of a family friend because their parents (our friends) couldn't pass the guarantor checks and we could.
That's how stupid things are already..
Doing the same for a friend of my eldest daughter - we know the family etc.
Can't help wondering about a cross-over with the discussion of crime-fixers - In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Guarantor means "will pay if they default", rather than "will sub them the money". Not clear from your description which you mean (not that it's any of my business).
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Comments
I will still say I am a bit bemused by the push for cuts when inflation remains well above target, but maybe that’s why I’m not an economist.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
British Army will ‘not fight war like Ukraine’ after tank upgraded
Controversial Ajax vehicles to be deployed seven years behind schedule following works on noise and vibration issues
https://www.thetimes.com/article/c5df3221-fb05-4f93-979d-e76afccff380?shareToken=c61b60b775970e5dce0531ac9355e5d1
The British Army will not fight a future war in the same way as the Ukrainians, military officers have said, as the army unveiled its new reconnaissance vehicle designed to find an enemy positioned five miles away.
Ministers announced on Wednesday that 50 Ajax vehicles, of which there are six variants, were now ready to deploy on operations, sixteen years after the £5.5 billion programme began and eight years later than planned...
..Troops are now handed two hearing devices to block out the noise and other measures (sic) have been brought in to reduce the level of vibration.
Luke Pollard, the procurement minister, was at the General Dynamics factory in Merthyr Tydfil Wales to announce the vehicles had reached “initial operating capability”. They had originally been due to enter service in 2017.
Pollard said: “Ajax has overcome significant challenges but importantly we can say it has left its troubles behind...
Speaking via video link, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, said Ajax was the “world’s first truly digital armoured fighting vehicle”. “We are delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary,” he said.
Walker has been blocked by the government from speaking to the media.
He previously said in a speech in June that vehicles such as Ajax “take months to produce and years to train competent crews for”. “They’re also increasingly on the wrong side of the cost curve when it comes to price per kill. A £20 million tank and four experienced crew members lost to a £1,000 drone operated by a kid with only a few days training – who probably isn’t even on the same map sheet as the tank,” he said...
Major James Faire, 35, said: “The way in which the British Army wishes to employ this platform and the way in which we want to fight, is not the way in which the conflict in Ukraine is currently being conducted.
“We would like to try and avoid getting ourselves into the situation where we are in trenches, unable to move, with drones consistently overhead.” He said the army would want to remain mobile “without getting bogged down”...
So the lessons we draw from Ukraine are that... we plan not to fight a war in the same manner.
As a means of "delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary", that is ... Melchett level.
Same with Venezuela. He’s parking half of the US Navy offshore and taking out a handful of drug boats, but he’s not going to actually invade the country.
Name recognition is one thing, but Nigel Farage is well known in more than just name. People have formed their opinion of him as a politician/person long ago.
As someone who has, at various times, been both an employer and a NHS employee, I don't think people are really happy to mess things up to this extent.
Although I once had to be employer representative at an NHS Disciplinary meeting where even the Trade Union rep thought the guy we were sacking was bonkers and deserved what he got.
The evidence is that you need armoured vehicles. Either you go for bullet and shell splinter proof and really mobile. Or you go full MBT level plus active defences - see Namer for infantry assault vehicles.
Ajax is a joke.
The bizarre belief in "air mobile" is insane. As Donald Rumsfeld pointed out, it would cheaper and simpler for the *US* military to simply station extra *divisions* of shrink wrapped vehicles and equipment near potential trouble spots than to try and air lift them. Just fly in the troops to man them... And the US airlift capability is orders of magnitude beyond anyone else.
So even if you lift in a half dozen armoured vehicles - how do you support them? airlift the fuel, spares, ammo?
Anyone ?
Okay here's the first thing I did with THRML by @extropic
It's just a basic sudoku solver. Thermodynamic computing is a bit overkill for this task but I think since humans can actually do sudoku, it's a good intuition for what's going on under the hood.
With sudoku, there are many overlapping constraints. You start with a partially filled puzzle, which are the initial conditions, but then other rules are: no duplicates on any row, column, or square.
Now, with a sudoku problem, you know there is ONE singular solution, or a "low energy state" i.e. where there are no rule violations or collisions.
So then what you do is you program those "clamped" initial values into the TSU, and you bake in the rules (no duplicates) and then, due to the laws of thermodynamics and electricity... it just sort of settles into the correct solution (this is "annealing")
The reason I think this is such a good example of what TSUs do is because for humans (and classical computers) it's more or less a "guess and check" process. No matter what method you use with classical computation or human computation, it's an iterative refinement process of sequential steps.
But, with sudoku, as you can see in the output below, it's a single step. That's because the TSU looks at the whole problem globally.
Here's how I did this: ChatGPT PRO 🤣
No joke, ChatGPT pro one-shotted this entire problem...
https://x.com/DaveShapi/status/1985677294753522036
I also chewed through the 8 queens problem in short order.
Speculation follows on the thread.
What do you think of the idea of pointing this kind of computing at (eg) protein folding ?
One of the reasons that Ukraine has been concentrating on Russian radar systems is that they want to be able to fight the war in a different way too. If the West hadn't been so reluctant to provide fighter jets they would be that much further along towards being able to do so.
Obviously we have to learn from what is happening in this war, but that doesn't mean assuming that a future war will be exactly the same as this war.
Did they just forget to specify that the noise levels in the crew compartment needed to be at safe levels for extended use, or was the problem that they’d paid out for the entire program before anyone noticed that they were going to permanently deafen the entire army?
Life is increasingly designed for a narrow class, and woe betide those who fall outside Whitehall's experience.
Anyway, I must be off.
There's an endless succession of them. Another one that we all know about, and 75% of us will recognise when we think about it, is that Guide Dogs are trained to walk next to their user - so space needed is 1.2-1.5m to be comfortable. But when we are thinking "how much space is required", we think of ourselves and say "600mm or 2 feet".
And because of the anti-wheelchair barriers I complain about, we actively force our vulnerable people into these spaces.
That's where the lived experience thing comes in. And therefore Equality Impact Assessments, and the need for an experienced officer who would also advise businesses on adaptations, or it's back to a consultant for every exercise, or a non-experienced Council Officer making guesses. But the number of Equality Officers left is negligible, after austerity.
One of my current betes noire is that road signs for motors have thousands of pages of regulations, whilst road signs for visually impaired people ie Tactile Paving have "Guidelines". And "Guidelines" is another word for "Optional" - yet done badly it can send a blind person straight down a flight of steps or into a canal. A pitched battle was fought in a committee on that one about 6-7 years ago by relevant organisations, but the word came back from the Department "no can do".
The underlying issue is with the values defining the culture.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements.
That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
But the drones are neither here nor there. You still need to move soldiers on the battlefield and you still need to provide them with the best combination of armour and mobility as you do so. How else are you going to do that but with an IFV of some sort?
But our defence establishment is claiming - as a basis for spending billions on legacy systems (which take a decade or more to commission) and not spending those billions on stuff proven useful in combat in the last two years - that a future war won't resemble this one at all, and we can just rely on the way we did things twenty years ago.
That is insane levels of reactionary stupidity.
During the Second World War, the navy's biplanes were too slow to be shot down by the Bismark's guns or even ME 109 fighters. No-one took that as a sign the next war should be fought with Sopwith Camels.
A more fundamental question is why the British Army needs tanks anyway. We share no border with Russia and the BAOR is no more. Tanks just make politicians want to invade the Middle East.
Unless I can buy a house with cash, it’ll be difficult to get a mortgage having disappeared off the radar of the credit ratings agencies for two decades, and my best bet would be to rent somewhere for a year offering to pay the whole year up front.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
* My analogy, but the principle is correct.
As far as I can see the Ukraine war means that you need to do some things differently and you need extra capabilities, but I don't see any current capabilities that you can do without.
Then again, Starmer does not have what it takes to be Prime Minister.
Badenoch does not have what it takes.
So we are lumbered with an incompetent either way.
Better an incompetent Starmer than an incompetent racist Farage, but that does not say much.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
It’s not actually being enforced yet - IIRC the rules require the sign off of the relevant secretary of state before they are enforceable. Hence ISAM needs to get a move on & get moved in if he wants to rent somewhere for the next year.
As for Ajax, there's a perfectly good IFV that BAE makes that's been available for years. Which is cheaper, and is and will be operated by numerous European NATO allies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_90
And which is combat tested in Ukraine.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
With modern estate agents as gate keepers and their over reliance on standardised process, that won't work for most of the market, but it may do with those outside the agency network, either openrent type standalone small landlords, or the big corporates like Grainger perhaps, where you can talk to them directly.
See https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/03/31/untaxing-the-laffer-curve-and-the-napkin-that-changed-the-world/
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
Labour have seen you coming!
But from the government side, they also make 20% VAT and a load of income and corporation tax from that avoidance industry.
With payroll taxes on higher incomes well over 50%, it’s going to drive emigration whether the government likes it or not. There’s other countries out there with different arrangements, and HNWIs can pretty much choose where they want to live.
Very obviously this is going to lead properties that were being advertised at £2000, typically being rented at £2000, with some below and a few above, to now be advertised for more like £2250.
In Economics the middle macro decisions are up for debate all the time. That's the whole point and the whole stereotypical joke of looking for a one-handed Economist.
It isn't possible to say whether (for example) 45% is definitely above or below the peak on the Laffer Curve. Does that make the curve meaningless? No, because that uncertainty does tell us something, versus the certainty people act with too often that a tax rise absolutely definitely will bring in extra revenues (which is not always the case).
Which left Labour in the somewhat invidious position of being forced to raise taxes the moment they got into power if the government was going to remain within the fiscal envelope set by the OBR. One might even have suspected that this was part of Hunt’s plan all along.
Indeed it is essential to have such concepts so you can frame the questions you ask and the research you do around them. Of course I would say that because a good part of my living comes from such work, and I'm more aware than most of the formidable difficulties involved. Nevertheless it is valuable, indeed I would say virtually essential, to test such theories vigorously, especially since the results are likely to be not what politicians, with their endless appetite for other people's money, want to hear.
The renter could theoretically make the offer and the landlord could theoretically accept the offer, but the way for the offer to be accepted is to codify it in the contract then exchange the cash upon completion of the contracts.
However if the offer is verboten for being in the contracts then even if the offer comes from the would-be renter, it can't go into the contract, so can't be formally accepted.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
Good luck
Anything else is just fiddling while Rome burns.
https://x.com/bricktop_nafo/status/1986368970362933398
It has now been confirmed what Ukraine hit last night in their devastating blow against Russia.
“On the evening of November 5, 2025, a strike was launched on Geran-2 UAV launch sites and storage facilities at the Donetsk airport. Both cruise missiles and attack drones were used during the attack”
- Dosiye Shpiona
As a result of the strike:
• The ammunition depot was completely destroyed;
• The fuel depot was destroyed;
• The UAV pre-launch processing facility was destroyed;
• Power supply and communications units were damaged.
At the time of the strike, up to 1,000 Geran-2 UAVs and over 1,500 warheads were located at the airfield.
(Although perhaps that might be a step too far even for them? It would crucify the student lets market for a start.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jidGt_ym6X4
Looking at annual rent rises, it is inevitable that the dispute scheme won't be able to cope, and that effectively blocks annual rent rises for all tenants willing to be a pain. AIUI those rent rises aren't backdated on the dispute decision either.
"Tenants will be able to challenge even mutually agreed rents for up to six months after moving in, without much risk of backdated payments if they lose. They’ll also be able to challenge proposed rent increases throughout the tenancy, as long as it’s within two months of the landlord requesting a rise. That’s a strong incentive to raise a dispute — and with only 34 judges currently overseeing rental tribunals across 4.7mn private tenancies, the risk of gridlock is real. Without significant investment in capacity, the system could quickly become overwhelmed."
But we don't have the ability to do that (land with planning, builders you name it)..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo
A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers.
The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name.
The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement.
Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city".
In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters:
He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker
His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details
Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses
In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working
An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
EDIT If it happens (it won't) I'll tell him to keep it. Otherwise he'll have to pay 40% IHT on it when the time comes.
In which case Labour will have made things more complicated & expensive without making them any more equitable.
Now give them the Tomahawks to whack the shaheed drone production facilities.
Edit: just seen Phil's reply.
That's how stupid things are already..
So a breathing space, but sadly not that significant in the grand scheme of things.
Can't help wondering about a cross-over with the discussion of crime-fixers - In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working