In the news

I like both!

Came hoping. Was not disappointed.

I don't think this really solves the issue as you're just allowing more people into the current broken system, so prices continue to climb even faster. And anyone just getting their first property will be absolutely obliterated by any large interest rate increase.

You have to
a) build enough houses
b) stop allowing them to be used as an investment vehicle (→ implies ever-increasing prices)

Either prices stop going up or your kids rent for life

Increasing the tax on second homes shifts the balance towards more young people getting on the ladder and the second-home-owners and BTL property hoarders getting fucked over.

Doesn't that just result in those costs being passed onto the people who then try to rent them?

In theory it makes them more expensive to hold onto and therefore increases the incentive to sell. In practise the tax would have to be far higher than any of our politicians can stomach.

Remember that changes like this tend to affect things at the edges - it will cause things which are marginal to no longer be worth it and everything in the middle just shifts around.

First of the Partygate photos start to appear. This during lockdown2. Extraordinary that the corrupt/inept Met decided not to fine him...

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1528754003416387589![]

Yep. Actually doing something about "levelling up" would solve a lot of problems with housing.

Didn't actually expect to see anything as blatantly incriminating as that, Met ineptitude/corruption notwithstanding.

This will just be the start, all those Junior staff that have been fine multiple times for parties they didn’t want to go to will be pumping them out

Looks like a standard teachers' staff room or hospital break room after a difficult week on the front line. Just the six bottles of wine? Only one hand sanitiser chaser?

Seems harsh. I've never rented my own place unless paying my parents or living in a single room in someone elses house counts?

Surely you're a bit old to be still living at your mum's

My Mum charged me rent after I left school too. Had a rent book and everything. I look back at that parenting decision with fondness actually.

Bottle of wine each is a standard meeting, surely? 2 bottles if it’s really serious… I mean why even bother with glasses?

“Excuse me, was that vomiting or a point of order?”

Mine too. I thought she was joking when I got my first post school job. And then I realised she wasn't. That was a rude awakening

That innocent meeting that neither Johnson or Gray asked for gets better and better
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1528847678553169922

They had a St. John restaurant near Stonehenge?

The deckchair looks excellent value!
https://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/new-in/new-in/elizabeth-line-standard-print-deckchair

"The timber frame is made with sustainable, durable hardwood and finished with teak oil and has a noticeable solid feel."

Peak hours?
No one sitting or standing anywhere near him?
It makes you wonder why.

When I move to London in 1992 I paid less for a room in a nurses home in St Pancras Hospital than I paid my mum. And my mums house was not full of student nurses either.

You lived in the nurses quarters in East Wing? (as in the most easterly wing...can't remeber what it was called...North East Building maybe?) I did too for a few weeks!

In 2005 that is. And it wasn't full of student nurses in 2005, it was all lonely middle aged men who had been turfed out by their wives.

Sounds like a fun day at work
https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1529116956825100289

Sounds like a fun day at work

Sam is a good friend of mine. Sometimes I feel the need to send him little WhatsApps saying "Great fucking work".

Today was one of those days.