politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn might have to face another tricky electoral test in

Mr. Jessop, true. Stalin was also a maniac.

The Romans and Goths united to fight Attila.

GarethoftheVale2 said:

Exactly. I am 37 and my partner 40. We both earn a lot more than the national average. We currently rent a 2 bed apartment in Maidenhead. Even with a reasonable deposit, we couldn't afford to buy a similar flat at 3x earnings (probably we could at 4x)

If you go back 20-30 years and looked at house prices then and our comparative earnings, we wouldn't have had a problem.

Sounds as though your landlord is subsidising your rent, as many landlords do (accepting a low yield in the hope of an eventual capital gain, or at least the capital keeping pace with inflation).

I think you might find it's a case of beware of what you wish for.

There's no such thing as a free lunch here. Clobbering BTL landlords won't increase the stock of housing - in fact the reverse, obviously.

@Jack_Blanchard_: Big moment for Labour as Hilary Benn says there's a "compelling" case for war. And now Corbyn will write to the PLP setting out his own view

So it appears the Shadow Cabinet are indeed revolting

Scott_P said:

@Jack_Blanchard_: Big moment for Labour as Hilary Benn says there's a "compelling" case for war. And now Corbyn will write to the PLP setting out his own view

So it appears the Shadow Cabinet are indeed revolting

I hope we are treated to the sight of the leader of the party rebelling against his own party.

After all, it would be a first if he didn't.

HurstLlama said:

JosiasJessop said:

Plato_Says said:

Or Col Jessop...

Charles said:

oxfordsimon said:

Charles said:

Fenster said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Fenster said:

The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.

When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.

The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.

The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?

What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.

Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.

So is he:

a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.

b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.

c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..

*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...

Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....

Much simpler than that.

He wants his party back.

The truth is that it never was HIS party.

They can't handle the truth.

(I was referencing the Kinnock quote)

Oi! I'm not a Major General, not a Colonel!

Get it right before I send you for immediate reeducation.

The very model of a modern major general, Mr Jessop, or one of Cromwell's type? Which do you see yourself as?

As someone whose head contains lots of useless information, little of it pertinent to my job.

@Dair

'And how are solicitors going to check.

They are going to say "Do you own another property in which you are primarily resident?" to which the Liar will say "No".

And there is no way for the solicitor to confirm whether or not this is true.'


It's not just the solicitor,the mortgage companies also do their own checks as BTL rates are much higher than OO rates.

MaxPB said:

watford30 said:

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.

http://www.property118.com/are-most-landlords-are-under-charging/82183/

Responses from 50+ LLs representing 1000+ properties.

So a bunch of parasites are bitching about how hard it all is living on other people's money? snip

For a minute I thought you were talking about whining bankers.

Yes, stuff the oldies and many with a pension that successive Chancellors have screwed over, and help Osborne's property spiv chums gets richer.

I'm neither old, nor a BTL'er, but I can see him losing the Tories a lot of their traditional voters over this and the changes to Contractors taxation. If Corbyn goes, Labour have every chance in 2020.

You are absolutely underestimating how popular these policies are in the 25-40 year old age bracket. These parasites have nowhere else to go anyway, Labour would be going even further with bigger taxes on housing and the Lib Dems are irrelevant. Also, there are a lot more people who want to buy a home than there are landlords, even that article has a less than a hundred people representing over a thousand properties, a thousand new owner occupiers vs a less than a hundred landlords. The political calculation is pretty clear.

I'm about to let out the flat that my wife and I bought 18 months ago. It was very run down, and we've renovated it.

We will get £500 a month. And a tenant will get to live in a property that was previously uninhabitable. That seems like a win/win situation to me.

I'm bemused by the idea that letting out property is somehow a bad thing.

Charles said:

MattW said:

Charles said:

Increasing supply will reduce rents. And that will reduce landlords pricing power.

In practice what should happen - and most likely will happen - is that BTL buyers will offer 97% of current asking prices. Which means that O/O will become more competitive.

1. Because the idea is they will be building new units, so increasing supply. They are looking for long-term returns to match their longevity risk.

2. They are not forcing smaller LLs out of the market, but they are encouraging them to reduce prices. Yes, on the margin, that will mean the proportion of O/O stock will increase which, together with reducing housing prices, is the objective

3. The stamp duty changes at the top end of the market have seen a decline in prices as the market has adjusted over 6-12 months. I'd expect it will also occur in other parts of the market - what we see is that asking prices are high, but are reduced when they don't sell and then transactions happen quite quickly at the reduced levels

1 - Yet they are high cost operators. At the moment they essentially can't compete because their cost base is too high and returns too low. And I don't see corporates providing houses for working poor families at affordable rents, somehow - at least not without a revolution in building techniques and planning on-costs.

Rents will not be going down by much. If by some chance they do, then pension funds etc will struggle to get a sufficient return.

2 - I didn't mean corporates, I meant Mr Osborne is clobbering individual LLs in order to create an opportunity for the corporates.

3 - Agreed on the top end for 1-2 million plus houses - lets ignore that in a couple of years your bog standard 3 bed semi in Surbiton will be hit when it comes down to £500k as the threshold.

But if this was about reducing prices he would have targeted his extra 3% stamp duty at high prices, not one particular sector. In any case excessive prices are simply not a problem in most of the country; it is mainly in London and the SE. It is availability of mortgages and supply that is the underlying issue. I can buy a brand new 4 bed detached within a mile of here for about £180k, or a 3 bed semi for £130k.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/fig6indexvalselectedregionsdec14_tcm77-395130.png

If it were about reducing prices, he would also not be offering interest free 40% loans in London.

It is about changing the landscape between sectors, and imo particularly about eating the revenue from Labour's plans to attack LLs before they get the chance.

MattW said:

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.

http://www.property118.com/are-most-landlords-are-under-charging/82183/

Responses from 50+ LLs representing 1000+ properties.

So a bunch of parasites are bitching about how hard it all is living on other people's money? Pull the other one, we need to tax BTL out of existence.

I'd be interested to hear a justification for the "bunch of parasites" comment.

Anyone who "invests" in existing property is a parasite. The capital is flowing from people who work and earn money to people who sit on property and cash. It is parasitical.

Your logic would hold just as well for owning shares.

Why do you think that property management involves no work?

Rubbish, shares are a productive form of investment, the company will use the cash to invest in the real economy thereby creating jobs, the profits are then taxed, some reinvested and some returned to shareholders. Investment in existing property creates no new real jobs (property management and lettings management is busy work) and no new real products that people can benefit from. The property was already there, the new BTL owner is just leeching from other people's hard work, either the original builder of the property or the person paying the rent. BTL carries zero risk over the long term, it is not proper investment, it is parasitical leeching from those who go out to work and earn money by those who have enough to buy up property. Thankfully the former group vastly out number the latter and the Tories are wise to it so have introduced measures to make BTL unprofitable and hopefully unviable.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Casino_Royale said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Casino_Royale said:

AndyJS said:

1920s balls are coming under attack at Oxford:

"Oxford University in 'race row' over 'problematic' 1920s ball

Critics have wondered why the colleges are commemorating 'an era of history steeped in racism

Colleges at the University of Oxford have been drawn into a 'race row' after advertising New Orleans and 1920s-themed balls, to be held in May 2016.
Students have claimed that the balls may cause offence to female and ethnic minority students.'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/12014304/Oxford-University-in-race-row-over-problematic-1920s-ball.html

WTF is wrong with these tossers?

Just give it 10 years and the same tossers will be bloody MPs, quango chiefs, etc. The thing is the group who are supposed to be offended by this stuff rarely are, it is always one or two tossers who are "offended" for a whole group.

Where this ends is writing off any history before c.1965 (perhaps later) on the basis it is non-inclusive.

History isn't that black & white (pun intended)

Where are the Conservative MPs publicly speaking out against this nonsense?

By the same idiotic logic taken to its ultimate conclusion, basically you can't have any themed ball, because there is somebody somewhere related to that theme will be getting discriminated / rough deal.

No Disney themed balls, because Disney performers get a rough deal?

The young women's argument (and for a law student) is totally flawed. She claimed women were absent from Oxford in the 1920's (not that that has anything to do with New Orleans), but..

"The first women’s colleges were founded in the nineteenth century, and women became full members of the University in 1920. "

And the lack of "people of colour", might have something to do with the demographic makeup of the UK then.

Certainly no masked balls, as 16th century Venice was hardly inclusive.

MarkHopkins said:

john_zims said:

@Dair

'And how are solicitors going to check.

They are going to say "Do you own another property in which you are primarily resident?" to which the Liar will say "No".

And there is no way for the solicitor to confirm whether or not this is true.'


It's not just the solicitor,the mortgage companies also do their own checks as BTL rates are much higher than OO rates.

Anyone trying this on would not just be doing a small tax dodge, but committing a financial fraud. When caught, they could face jail time.

They can all retire and become SNP MPs :-)

Sean_F said:

MaxPB said:

watford30 said:

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.

http://www.property118.com/are-most-landlords-are-under-charging/82183/

Responses from 50+ LLs representing 1000+ properties.

So a bunch of parasites are bitching about how hard it all is living on other people's money? snip

For a minute I thought you were talking about whining bankers.

Yes, stuff the oldies and many with a pension that successive Chancellors have screwed over, and help Osborne's property spiv chums gets richer.

I'm neither old, nor a BTL'er, but I can see him losing the Tories a lot of their traditional voters over this and the changes to Contractors taxation. If Corbyn goes, Labour have every chance in 2020.

You are absolutely underestimating how popular these policies are in the 25-40 year old age bracket. These parasites have nowhere else to go anyway, Labour would be going even further with bigger taxes on housing and the Lib Dems are irrelevant. Also, there are a lot more people who want to buy a home than there are landlords, even that article has a less than a hundred people representing over a thousand properties, a thousand new owner occupiers vs a less than a hundred landlords. The political calculation is pretty clear.

I'm about to let out the flat that my wife and I bought 18 months ago. It was very run down, and we've renovated it.

We will get £500 a month. And a tenant will get to live in a property that was previously uninhabitable. That seems like a win/win situation to me.

I'm bemused by the idea that letting out property is somehow a bad thing.

Sell it for the capital gain?

MaxPB said:

Of course, but I'm talking predominantly about IPOs or rights issues. Plus, investing in shares carries a lot more risk than property.

Well, lots of BTL landlords buy newly-built properties. Many are built and marketed specifically for that market. Structurally, it's identical to shares in companies: the existence of an after-market makes it possible for the whole thing to work to get investment into the sector.

As for risk, the historic risk-reward profile of UK residential property over periods of several years or more is quite similar to that of the UK stock market (sorry, I don't have a link, but there was a good article on this in Investors Chronicle a couple of years ago). Of course, property is much less liquid, and the transaction costs are very high, and actually being a landlord is a hell of a lot of hassle. Personally I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. It's most definitely not a free ride.

nigel4england said:

flightpath01 said:

watford30 said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

In fairness to landlords, I would divide the private landlords into 2 categories:

1) Accidental landlords - who end up with a spare property. They mostly want to see the mortgage paid and someone who won't wreck the place
2) Serial BTL-ers - these are the ones who are more likely to be unscrupulous or to have sub-standard properties.

Somehow you're avoiding -

3) BTL'ers with one or two properties let in good condition, that they would like to keep that way, rented at favourable rates. They're scrupulous and fair.

These are probably the majority of landlords.

Correct. I also doubt that 'serial' BTLers are unscrupulous either. The plain fact is there are a lot of them these days and they are unbalancing the market. And sine they are making money then they are open for taxation. Its a shame but its a fact of life.

I think many of these BTLers will come unstuck further down the line. I know someone who took out a big second mortgage and used it to pay the deposits on three flats, he has now released the equity from one of them to buy another. These people are not taking into account future interest rate rises, slowdown in demand, tenant voids or dodgy tenants.

Many of these people are in for a big shock.

I'm sure they will find someone else to blame rather than themselves.

Cyclefree said:

HurstLlama said:

Crikey, I have just finished reading Cameron's 36 page paper which apparently has been to justify the UK getting even deeper involved in the ME mess and setting ot the strategy by which ISISL/ISIL will be defeated. I have to say I am less than impressed, and I was really quite hopeful that when it came down to it HMG would come up with a viable plan for war.

Any MP who as a result of reading that collection of platitudes and wishful thinking still votes for bombing in Syria needs her/her head read.

As an ex-military man (I assume - I hope I am not doing you an injustice) what would you have liked to have seen?

Mrs Free, one has to start off with an objective - the thing that has to be obtained. It doesn't matter if one uses traditional words or more modern management speak such as SMART or Well-Formed Outcomes or any other jargon-du-jour. The key point is that there is a goal which everyone can understand and to which everyone knows is the common objective. Without that no organisation, be it military or civilian, public sector or private sector, large or small, can do anything other than flail around.

Cameron's 36 page paper to my mind falls at the first fence because it does not set down in clear and unambiguous terms (or indeed any terms at all) what he UK wants to achieve. We have been given seven platitudes masquerading as tasks but no succes criteria for any of them.

Indeed the document is almost an analogue for Cameron's premiership - well meaning in a sort of wishy-washy kind of way (providing it doesn't actually offend too many people) but with no actual purpose. In this particular case Cameron wants to lead us deeper into a war but on the basis of seven unmeasurable platitudes.

Parliament should, in my view, tell him to go away and come back when he has actually thought about it. His essay as submitted is not even worth an E minus.

GarethoftheVale2 said:

Dair said:

Pulpstar said:

MattW said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

MattW said:

There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.

http://www.property118.com/are-most-landlords-are-under-charging/82183/

Responses from 50+ LLs representing 1000+ properties.

In fairness they would say that, wouldn't they? The poor dears who haven't put up rents due to the kindness of their hearts and will now have to do so thanks to nasty Osborne. The fact is that there is a market value for properties in each area and those who dramatically hike their rents above market value will find they end up with vacancies.

Did you read the thread? That's quite a patronising response.

I'm not sure that "poor dears" is an appropriate description for people who treat tenants as human beings rather than money machines.

To very unfairly and inaccurately summise, it seems to me that a vast number of "the rich" (Landlords) let out to the poor (Tenants on HB) which dwindles the pool for the "middle" (Prospective O.Os) ^_~

Buy to Let is a great example of how the Boomers have pulled the ladder up behind them. The distortions it causes to the Owner Occupier market seem to have absolutely no benefit whatsoever for the majority of working age people (although, even those Boomers who have not dabbled in BTL will had made a killing on house price inflation that BTL has helped stoke).

Exactly. I am 37 and my partner 40. We both earn a lot more than the national average. We currently rent a 2 bed apartment in Maidenhead. Even with a reasonable deposit, we couldn't afford to buy a similar flat at 3x earnings (probably we could at 4x)

If you go back 20-30 years and looked at house prices then and our comparative earnings, we wouldn't have had a problem.

@Gareth

With respect, no one is forcing you to live in an expensive area like Maidenhead, or to rent. That is your choice. Even there, there are places within a very few miles with substantially - 25-40% - lower prices.

@Pulpstar

I have seen no real evidence of BTL distorting the O-O market - parts of London excepted (maybe).

I have seen lots of people shouting about it, but little evidence.

In the last decade house prices have increased very little in most places after inflation. And rents in the PRS have significantly lagged inflation.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Pulpstar said:

Plato_Says said:

E4 have it about right IMO, enough rebellion/fun/being controversial. C5 for Big Brother and similar.

Pulpstar said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

This will get the lefties and luvvies all excited

BBC3 to close in February

BBC3 is the not particularly good answer to E4/ITV/C5.

BBC4 is the real peak Guardian channel, and more in line with what the BBC should be doing.

BBC3: Young, trans and looking for love

BBC4: Colour - The spectrum of science.

Might watch that Docu actually.

BBC1 The Hunt, Sundays 9pm

The hunt is great tv - one of the only things I watch on the beeb.

Cyclefree said:

Charles said:

Cyclefree said:

watford30 said:

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.

http://www.property118.com/are-most-landlords-are-under-charging/82183/

Responses from 50+ LLs representing 1000+ properties.

So a bunch of parasites are bitching about how hard it all is living on other people's money? Pull the other one, we need to tax BTL out of existence.

I'd be interested to hear a justification for the "bunch of parasites" comment.

Anyone who "invests" in existing property is a parasite. The capital is flowing from people who work and earn money to people who sit on property and cash. It is parasitical.

Hmm, sounds like you're describing many in the financial services industry.

I see someone, the Head of Deutsche, is beginning to 'get it'.

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/deutsche-bank-boss-john-cryan-bankers-are-paid-too-much-a3121931.html

He gave that interview a few days ago and I posted it here yesterday. He's not the first person to be saying this within the industry. He's a good man, though (a) he has one hell of a hospital pass, with DB; and (b) I should declare an interest as I know and have worked with him.

He had such a cushty role at Temasek, I don't know why he took it on, to be honest.

Neither do I. The hospital pass from hell, from what I hear.

One day you and I should have a good old OTR natter about some of the things I learnt. For all the publications there have been into RBS, HBOS and the rest, the official stories don't tell the half of it.......

I will even buy you lunch...