Author Archives: Trevor Abrahmsohn

Nicola Sturgeon is gone, but how does her summary resignation affect the Residential Property Market?

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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.

With the virtual demise of Purplebricks, is the DIY Estate Agency completely dead?

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purple bricks

Well, well, well, the founding shareholders of Purplebricks have had a rude awakening, and what a tumultuous journey they’ve been on.

For a company floated on AIM in 2016, at 100p, which rose stratospherically at one point in 2018 to over 500p, after goodness knows how many rescue cash calls, is now languishing at under10p, and it is probably only worth the good will of the name. Continue reading →

Have we swapped barmy Carney for Andrew ‘numbnuts’ Bailey in the Carry On the BoE saga?

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After 7 years of that complete buffoon, Mark Carney, now we have Mr. Andrew ‘numbnuts’ Bailey, the present Governor of the Bank of England, in charge of our inflation. Are we in a Carry On film or are they the Keystone Cops?

Lest we forget, Mr. ‘Barmy’ Carney, made five appalling predictions on UK interest rates, inflation, and the growth of the economy.

For his idiocy, we paid him some £847,000, as the Governor of the Bank of England plus a bloated pension, and may I remind you of his soundbites.

Prediction: In August 2013, he predicted that UK interest rates would not rise until the employment rate was down to 7% which was not expected until late 2016.

Fact:  It fell below 7%, less than a year later.

Prediction:  In July 2015, he predicted that interest rates may have to rise during the course of the year.  Note less than six months later, he said, “Now is not the right time for an interest rise.”

Prediction:  In February 2016, he proclaimed that interest rates would “more likely rise than not.”

Fact:  No less than 3 weeks’ later he said, “We could bring interest rates down towards zero.”

This goon made more ‘about-turns’ than Colonel Mainwaring in ‘Dad’s Army.’

Governor Andrew Bailey

Turning now to the latest hapless Governor, Andrew Bailey, in autumn last year he foolishly predicted that “the UK would in all likelihood have the longest, deepest, most damaging recession in 300 years.” This had the effect of terrifying the public, investors and institutions, and this tumult was exacerbated by the political convulsions of the Truss/‘Kamikaze’ Kwarteng debacle.

Is it any wonder that the public was ‘caught like a rabbit in the headlights?’

However, against his worst prediction, the UK economy grew in December 2022, when it was meant to be in recession and perversely, inward investment in the UK has been one of the highest in the G7.

Inflation is moving progressively downwards to a sustainable long-term predicted rate of between 2% and 4% in eighteen months’ time, as energy, transportation and commodity costs fall as we speak, as a result of the global recession.

‘Remoaners’ Out in Force

It appears that the malcontent ‘Remoaners’ are out in force again, indulging in gloomster-ville economics and rejoicing at the slightest sign of bad news that besets this country.

“Hark, where are the Brexit dividends they cry?”   May I remind them that Brexit is a generational matter which is an investment in the future of this country in order to shape its destiny.  Did the newly reunified Germans, bitch and moan after reunification when the magnificent west German economy was thrown into disarray for twenty-five years?  No, they didn’t.

I wonder what the appeasement lobby was thinking after Churchill declared war on Germany, despite only having 300,000 dispirited troops holed up in Dunkirk, facing 3million emboldened Nazi troops who gobbled up Europe in a month?  When the bombs rained down on London in 1940, the voices of disquiet must have been cacophonous and the pressure to surrender irresistible. Winston, the visionary, battled on and the rest is history.  ‘Remoaners’ take note – history can repeat itself with a positive outcome.

May I remind the ‘Remoaners’ that their darling European brethren are in a worse parlous state, with rising unemployment, slow growth (Germany is in a fully-fledged recession) and instead of looking at our former EU paymasters, we should instead look west to our largest, single trading partner, the USA, which will recover faster and stronger than any other country in the G20 and where our economies are often paralleled.

The Irish protocol is all but done – bar the shouting – and I am sure that as time goes on, the idiocy of the European bureaucracy which affects our export trade, will ease as common sense prevails.

If our imports from the EU are down, this is no bad thing and will assist our trading imbalance.

Rishi and his Merry Men

Why on earth doesn’t Rishi and his Merry Men, take a sledgehammer to the much-needed reforms of red tape, so that we can at least enjoy our hard-fought freedom from the shackles of former EU protocol?

After the Second World War, Ludwig Erhard deregulated the German economy, such that the country was free of rations after six months whilst the UK was under these restrictions for a further six years and were saddled with an over-regulated economy.

Whilst no one wants the ‘wild west’ maybe there is something between this and our legacy of EU bureaucracy to help this country out of the trenches, in which we are currently bogged down.

We have the same 85% service economy as Singapore and why don’t we ape their model now that we have the freedom to do so?

Raising Corporation Tax from 21-25% is a retrograde step, and although I appreciate it does generate money for the depleted coffers of the Treasury, it does not encourage new investment in this country, which is much needed in the post Brexit era.

The EU detests Ireland’s pro-business 12% Corporation Tax, as they stagger along with their socialistically inspired 35%, anti-business rate.

Whilst Brexit may be the cathartic benefit that we all thirst for, unless we use our newly won freedoms, we will inadvertently be in the worst of all worlds.

We need boldness and courage to grasp the nettle and fly free and very soon we will be leaving our leaden-footed, former European counterparts, where they belong – in the mire.