A developer, as the old joke goes, is just an estate agent without the sense of humour. And who can blame them for being miserable? The residential housing crisis lurches from tragedy to farce to disaster, and back. Meanwhile, no one’s making any more land, leaving millions of renters and stay-with-parenters light years away from their own roof over their heads.
Now that we’re in an age where the espresso coffee machine operator is called a Barista, shop assistants can be ‘customer relations and finance co-ordinators’ and delivery drivers are ‘distribution operatives’, perhaps it’s time to rename the humble estate agent. Appropriate monikers could be ‘miracle worker’, ‘psychic predictor of market fluctuations’ or preferably, ‘herder of cats’. Let’s face it, an agent on a contingency fee basis can work for weeks, months and possibly years struggling to achieve the terms which are acceptable to the seller, even if, at times, this is a figment of their ambitious imagination. As they (should) say in property sales, “knitting water would be easier”. Continue reading
Politics has been deemed showbusiness for ugly people, but it’s also the art of illusion. Since time immemorial dictators, despots, and autocrats, whether they are voted in or have taken control by force, have used distraction techniques embedded in their politics to divert the attention of the populace from the state of domestic policies.
Argentina’s Galtieri foolishly tried this with the capture of the Malvinas (the Falkland Islands), Hitler did it in Germany in the late 1930s by annexing the Sudetenland (part of Czech Republic) and more recently, Boris Johnson was sucking up to Ukraine while there was plenty to be done in his own country.
Following in this inglorious tradition is Nicola Sturgeon, foisting her unhinged obsession with devolution on her country while leader of the Scottish National Party for the past eight years.
‘We look to Scotland for all our ideas about civilisation’
According to French writer Voltaire (1694 – 1778) ‘We look to Scotland for all our ideas about civilisation’. No doubt he’s referring to Scotchland’s array of gifts to the world such as deep-fried Mars Bars, Susan Boyle, or the delightful Glasgow ‘smile’ but one thing we can be sure about is that he didn’t mean Nicola Sturgeon. Caledonia’s Red Terror executed a policy of toil and trouble, attempting to decouple Scotland from the UK. Strangely, she was still happy to trouser £41billion of Barnett-formulaed, filthy Sassenach taxpayers’ money: and then slap the UK in the face by crawling back into bed with the EU.
Like any proper, grown-up nation, the UK Brexited from Europe to regain sovereignty and shape its own destiny. Sturgeon’s rancorous and chauvinistic fixation of leaving one union to join another that is even more restrictive was just senseless. Or the actions of a ‘glaikit’, ‘numptie’ and Tartan-covered ‘eejit’.
Scotland held a well-organised referendum in 2014 where the populace (remember them, Nicola?) made their views clear on independence. Even though a referendum vote should be binding and unrepeatable, Sturgeon eagerly looked forward to ‘indyref2’, presumably one in a long line of referenda until the benighted citizens come up with the ‘proper’ verdict, as in Ireland’s experience with the Lisbon Treaty.
The Pound as a currency
One of the biggest issues was whether Scotland would continue to use the Pound as a currency. If the decree nisi was final, it could reach for the photocopier and produce its own currency, ‘the groat’ (surely the love-child of an ovine and a native grain) and then join the glorious (i.e., worthless) Euro, if they were ever to get that far. During this time, Westminster would still be shelling out the central government funding and have control over Scotland’s spending, borrowing and taxation, which would deny the country any form of fiscal independence. Funnily enough, a YouGov poll carried out in 2020 showed that most Scots want to keep the Pound. A paltry 18% wanted to switch to the Euro and they were probably Belgian expats or working for the SNP.
As if this were not enough of an oxymoron, Scotland’s massive budget overspend of 8.3% (currently, reduced from 23% during Covid) would need to be shrunk to 3% in order to qualify for EU membership.
Sturgeon has the temerity to criticise the Brexiteers as having no road map for the future, whilst ignoring the fact that her devolutionary concept is doomed to failure.
The fiendish plan was to distract the Scottish public from the appalling state of welfare, so-called education and health care, which underpinned her domestic politics and really, are the only issues of interest to the electorate.
For all this time, she has been hoodwinking her loyal voters into focusing on the devolution issue instead of these other vital functions of running the country as First Minister, which should be her only priority.
This delusional politician is the greatest illusionist that we have seen in many decades. Her pièce de résistance was ‘disappearing’ £600,000 of campaign funds – a veritable masterpiece of prestidigitation.
Negative effect on the UK residential property market
However, like a bad smell, Wee Crankie has left a fetid legacy. The problem for the UK is that the Labour Party will capture some of her party’s lost territory, giving them a chance to have a commanding majority in Westminster at the next Election in 2025 (latest). This will have a profound, negative effect on the UK residential property market, particularly in London.
A resurgent Labour Party would unleash the green-eyed politics of envy. First to be financially assaulted will be the middle and upper middle classes, biffed with yet more personal taxation, higher Capital Gains Tax, VAT on school fees and a repeal of the non-Dom tax status in the UK. With rampant inflation, the race to Net Zero and onerous taxes, we’ll all be freezing and starving, but it won’t matter because we’ll be heading to hell in a Stalinist economic handcart where everyone is equal. Equally miserable, that is.
Meanwhile, there’ll have to be another English Revolution if they get their grubby paws on the Rent Act. Misguided meddling under the guise of ‘compassion’ and ‘fairness’ could result in a resurgence of sitting tenants claiming all manner of ‘rights’ to avoid paying rent. Although the idiot brigade will point and smirk, landlords will just bail out of the market quicker than you can say Section 8 Eviction Order. The magic money tree will shrivel and rents will go through the proverbial. Who does this affect most? That’s right – the disenfranchised and genuinely vulnerable, whom the strident lefties purport to represent.
Spectre of Momentum
Another spectre on the horizon is that of Momentum. Unfortunately, news of their demise was greatly exaggerated, since we’ve been hyper-focused on the Plague That Never Was and general shenanigans of the political (lack-of) class. This monstrous carbuncle on the face of British politics is still around, spreading their caustic and envy-ridden ideology of economic destruction, waiting to be unleashed when (or if) Mr. Starmer is ensconced in Number Ten.
Although the Leader may love to get rid of Angela Rayner, her shrieking presence there, as a beacon of Jeremy Corbyn’s legacy, is clear for all to see. Since the Left are inherently collectivist, it would only take nanoseconds for the comrades-in-arms to spread her extreme left-wing dogma around like so much dog-excrement confetti.
Given the propensity of the Labour Party to spend everyone else’s money, inflation would be out of control. Higher interest/mortgage rates would ensue, leading to a grim outlook for residential property values.
Part of the blame for this ridiculous situation is with the Conservative Party, for following a self-destructive path of big government, Blairite social democracy. Even so, a Labour Party with a big majority would be disastrous for this country.
The chippy and fractious unions would keep stirring the industrial pot, trying to persuade the Labour Party to repeal the laws controlling strike action. None of this can end well. It would be a revisit of the 70s, but without the cool disco music and flares.
You have been warned.