Good read on competition policy - mentions some tension between the "antitrust" movement and the abundance agenda.
Of course, housebuilding in this country is incredibly concentrated, with large developers drip-feeding supply to maintain prices. Promoting competition should help deliver more homes
I feel like now would be a good time to slap some retaliatory tariffs on the USA as punishment for this fiasco
Narratively having Ever Given getting stuck in 2021 to set up Hormuz in 2026 is great foreshadowing. You want your audience to understand the basics of international shipping in a lower stakes context so you drop the real plot without a lot of saggy exposition about the minutiae of cargo logistics.
Tom Adams has clearly not tried the blackberries that grow in my garden
Bar chart showing rent rises on new tenancies slowing in most British cities between January 2025 and January 2026. Only Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle have seen rises of more than 2% in the past year
If your landlord is trying to raise the rent, it's worth checking what is happening in your local market. Today's Zoopla figures show rents rising more slowly in the past year in most UK cities - even dropping in some - giving renters a bit more bargaining power
www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/pro...
A Rightmove advert tried to stop tenants registering to vote. We challenged it and it was removed within hours.
But it exposed a bigger issue: millions of renters still face barriers to vote.
Our blog explains why automated voter registration is needed 👇
www.generationrent.org/2026/03/10/m...
What if Tom Wambsgans was Travis Bickle. In 1880.
There is no funnier train station sign than "Cambridge home of Anglia Ruskin University". Everytime I see it I'm impressed all over again at the level of trolling.
Once In A Loch Fyne
Savills reckons the private rented sector has shrunk. I think the big driver of that is the capital gains tax cut in 2024, along with higher interest rates.
The Renters Rights Act doesn't change the fundamentals for landlords who play by the rules www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...
Just sent out my free weekend update. This was the most extraordinary week, when the Ukrainians stood up to help the USA and the USA stood up to help the Russians (across the board). Ukraine is saving American lives while Russia is helping end them…
open.substack.com/pub/phillips...
Fact. The screwdriver that tightens the arms of spectacles is only available inside Christmas crackers. Opticians have to pull dozens of crackers to get the tools of their trade, and if you look out the back at Specsavers, you’ll find bins full of wire puzzles, hair bobbles and fortune telling fish.
#homesnotholes
Email from a letting agent
➡️ All tenancies will become rolling on 01/05 & landlords will only be able to raise rent through a S13 notice. Offering long tenancies or fixed rent increases is meaningless!
➡️ Bidding wars will soon be banned & rent in advance limited to 1 month - cant come soon enough!
Your regular reminder that the UK is in fact a high trust society and anyone who implies it isn’t is either selling you a pup or has bought one.
Screenshot of Hansard from the Spring Statement 3/3/26. Robert Jenrick Reform UK, Newark "The Chancellor is like a rogue landlord who keeps squeezing the tenant with higher and higher rent, and all the while, the property is going to rack and ruin."
Robert Jenrick said this one week after his party announced that it would tear up laws limiting rent increases to once per year and making it harder for landlords to evade their responsibilities
Also if you don't like Houses in Multiple Occupation, and there is real concern about landlords switching family homes to accommodate single adults for more rent, then you should want to build a lot of single occupancy flats
Thanks for the update - essential reading as always. Could the situation in Iran affect Russia's supply of UAVs etc?
Petition to ban employees of Number 10 from social media
I thought the Simpsons kids calling Homer "Homer" was a funny bit, but no, it's actually a thing (5+ years after toddlerhood, mine have thankfully grown out of it)
Of course many other factors at play - eg home owning grads are older so less likely to be on terrible student loan repayment plans.
Anyway here's the BBC story (was due to be on Today to talk about it this morning before Iran situation took over)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Interesting chart from @edhodgsoned.bsky.social @moreincommonuk.bsky.social - Labour struggling with renters. May change once Renters Rights Act comes in and if slowdown in rents (reported on BBC today) continues.
Breaking:
*Asif Aziz's mass evictions of Londoners appear to be BACK ON
*Sadiq Khan personally demands immediate response from the landlord
*Leading homelessness charity cuts ties with the Aziz family and refuses donation
*Questions over legality of paperwork
www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...
'Because council tax is included in rent you can't register to vote' (which is nonsense) actually means 'please don't tell the council or HMRC that the property is let out'.
Basically a confession that the landlord is iffy, in the Rightmove listing!
This cottage in Hertfordshire is yours to rent for £1450pm...
...as long as you don’t register to vote.
What a red flag – landlords can't deny your democratic rights.
The big surprise is that the letting agent thinks it’s okay to include in the advert
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...
Looking back at some of the MRPs that have been predicting a Reform landslide, the combined Reform and Conservative vote yesterday was 8 percentage points less than @moreincommonuk.bsky.social had for them in G&D in Jan. Obv a byelection but I wonder how seriously these polls will be taken now.
Ha! I met him back then and that's a fair description
Tenant could say that they'd pull out of agreement and seek the return of the holding deposit on the basis that agent is being unreasonable (which the law supports the tenant on)
