Of the three flats on the corridor where I rent my current Edinburgh home, just off the Canongate, two were lived in and one a holiday let. As of this month, only we are resident and there are two holiday lets. Before this I lived in the Holyrood Park apartment block. Of the 14 flats on the stair we lived on, only 3 were inhabited. Eleven were holiday lets and holiday homes. Our rent was raised every six months until eventually we we were forced out by rent reaching over £1500 a month. A taxi driver taking me home once told me he had never taken an actual resident there before, only holidaymakers; he did not know there were residents.
One Edinburgh website alone boasts that over 2,000 Edinburgh apartment owners use its short term letting service – and presumably a significant percentage of those 2,000 own multiple apartments. The authorities simply cannot know how many Edinburgh flats are holiday lets. It is a huge black market, avoiding income tax, fire, safety and other regulations and very often involving illegal sub-letting. Certainly in the apartment block I now inhabit there are flats used for holiday lets which are supposed to be social housing. The extent of it may be gauged by the fact that, with parking in great demand in Central Edinburgh, we have an underground car park with just one narrow space per flat, but that outwith the festival I have never seen the car park more than 20% full.
It is partly, but not just, an airbnb phenomenon. There are many other websites. A search for “apartments only” in Edinburgh from booking.com for 6-8 November shows an astonishing 877 apartments available – in addition to those already let, or available from a plethora of other sites and agents. There must be a minimum of 3,000 housing units not designed as holiday accommodation, taken out of Edinburgh’s housing stock and put to that purpose. Of these, I know from direct observation most are simply empty for the vast majority of the year, but from just Hogmanay and the Festival an owner can make more money than a working family could pay for rent in the year. The result is, of course, to force rents up across the city for ordinary people.
The impact on the city centre community has been devastating, and the process is by no means ended, with estate agents I have spoken with saying that most city centre properties now sold are still going to investors for this purpose.
Cities like Edinburgh and Barcelona, which are quite rightly huge tourist attractions, need to take urgent planning decisions to prevent the organic life of the city becoming extinct, and their being reduced to Disneyland parks. I have sympathy with those who argue that greedy overcharging in the hotel sector is part of the problem. But having lived as a resident in hollowed-out empty buildings, surrounded by homeless people sleeping rough next to empty homes, it is plain something is very wrong. That is without mentioning the unpleasantness of the stag and hen party culture which forms a significant part of the Edinburgh trade, and amongst which even the most liberal person has trouble living with small children in the family.
State regulation is out of fashion, but I would advocate tackling this through planning consent and simply designating which properties are for residential purpose only, and which for holiday accommodation if a permit is obtained. The latter might then be easily taxed as commercial properties, overcrowding and fire regulation addressed, and the income tax more easily pursued. The alternative is for the community of Central Edinburgh to vanish. I live a short walk from my father’s birthplace in a tenement on Johnstone Terrace. It is now a holiday let.
Pitfalls of living in a popular tourist trap I’m afraid, maybe the new touted tourist tax will be used for housing needs, and not wasted on extending the tram service.
A tourist tax is a no-brainer – if, of course, the proceeds are used for the benefit of the people of Edinburgh. I thought the council, never to be underestimated for their stupidity and corruption, were resistant to it, but it turns out the Scottish government vetoed the introduction of the tax. In fact, a tourist tax is essential.
On what grounds was the Edinburgh tourist tax vetoed by the Scottish Parliament?
It’s gone out to consultation, so it hasn’t been banned .
Tourism contributes £1.5 billion to Edinburgh’s economy, more than one tenth of the total for the whole of Scotland, and supports 35,000 jobs. Some might argue that tourist income raises enough tax already without doing anything that might put them off.
I wouldn’t agree that a tourist tax is a no brainer. As an ex-pat Scot I already find it too expensive to visit the country, so adding to that burden would seem counterproductive. I would agree however that taxation may provide a solution, but the target of such taxation would have to be those who seek profit from the properties that lie vacant.
It would therefore seem that a hefty tax on empty property would be one solution. In this way, to avoid paying tax, those landlords currently responsible for the issue would be incentivised, through market competition, to drop their rents to ensure continued tenancy. A four-fold benefit would then ensue: increased taxation for the council from property that remains un-rented, an across the board reduction in rental prices, an increased occupancy rate of rental properties, and a reduction in (what appears to be) a chronic housing shortage.
I live on a terraced street in Liverpool – nowhere near the centre or anything famous, and nowhere near anything Beatles related.
20% of the houses on our one terrace are now holiday lets.
I do wonder who the fuckin hell would come round our way for a holiday but it illustrates that this phenomenon is gradually spreading everywhere
It should cause HMRC to start investigating and removal of Owner-Occupier exemption from CGT. So much of the GDP calculation has Imputed Rent assigned to Owner-Occupied Housing it is time HMRC started collecting the actual rents or restoring Schedule A……however
http://www.taxback.com/blog/airbnb-in-the-uk-and-rent-a-room-relief
“I do wonder who the fuckin hell would come round our way for a holiday”
It’s probably some sort of tax scam.
All over the country, people unable to afford rents, are living in caravans, cars and campervans parked up in laybys or side roads.
‘Hundreds’ forced to live in caravans and cars in UK as they can’t afford rent
One man who has been living in his truck for eight months said it was his only option as he can’t afford a proper home
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hundreds-forced-live-caravans-cars-13471449
This seat of democracy cannot house its citizens, provide adequately staffed police and fire services, a fully funded NHS and so on.
PS The leader of the ‘Hice’ is currently talking about the difficulty of dealing with children’s head lice. That is Ms Leadsom, a would be PM who would have been as bad or even worse than May.
I read the story that in Silicon Valley, rents are so ludicrous that people in supposedly well-paid jobs are living in cars to save money. Imagine that, you’ve got a good job in tech, and you can only save money by being homeless. Insane, but true.
Spotted this in my inbox this morning:-
Short-term lets amendment goes through
An amendment to the Planning Bill requiring all short-term lets to apply for council planning consent has passed stage two of the Bill’s passage through parliament. Amendment 45 was tabled by Scottish Greens MSP Andy Wightman, and seeks to regulate the rise of short term lets in Scotland, especially through the use of Airbnb. The amendment would see all those who let out their property and do not use it as their main residence have to apply for permission to change the property’s legal status with planning authorities. It was recently reported that Airbnb’s in Edinburgh are proportionately four times greater than in London or Paris.
Things may be changing…..
About time. Well done Andy Wightman.
I appreciate the point made here but as a great believer in property rights I don’t see how you could do anything about it without compromising on those fundamental rights. And on what basis would you impose an additional tax on someone who chooses to rent out their apartment in order to make a living? It seems a bit arbitrary.
It’s refreshing to be able express positivity towards things on here though, rather than the usual moaning I do. I love AirBnB, new technologies generally, the dynamics of the free market, and the new frontiers being created by permutations of all these things. There’s beauty there if you care to look for it.
As for the homeless guys, I think government should build more houses. I’m sure that seems contradictory but I have no issue with government intervention where it has a clear remit for intervention; and people do need houses, just as the free market needs a place to live.
> I think government should build more houses
Sure, but by your belief in a free market, what’s to stop these new houses turning into AirBNB lets?
I can’t imagine the government doing that with them.
Craig said some of the tourist lets were indeed social housing
If that’s the case then I would guess that it’s illegal (or a breech of terms) to rent out a council owned property. That isn’t a housing market problem, it’s a law problem.
Interestingly, if what you’re saying is true and they stopped council tenants from sub-leasing, then you’d expect rent to go up, not down, which would exacerbate the very problem you want to solve.
What’s to stop new properties becoming Airbnb’s? In theory, the market as more and more supply should increasingly satisfy demand and reduce price to a level where it is no longer an attractive option for owners.. Unfortunately, the market is a blunt nd slow weapon and by the time it kicked in, central Edinburgh communities might no longer exist.
Exactly. The last thing we need is more houses devastating the environment whilst so many second homes and informal rental properties are lying vacant.
It wouldn’t happen as the Right to Buy was abolished on Scotland in 2016.
There is no ‘fundamental right’ for companies or individuals to scoop up property purely for the purposes of making money, at the expense of people who need homes to live in, or hollowing out once vibrant cities. All markets are subect to regulation, there is no reason the property market shouldn’t be regulated for the benefit of the overall population and not property speculators.
Banning someone from renting out their own property wouldn’t just be regulation, it would be the end of the private ownership, the free market, and life as we know it. What’s next, caramel logs?
And there’s nothing wrong with making money, purely or otherwise. Perhaps you intend to do away with money too?
What a riduclous response, no-one is mentioning either of those things. Fairly typical right wing claptrap.
“there is no reason the property market shouldn’t be regulated for the benefit of the overall population and not property speculators.”
Look, we’ve already had government regulation of the rented sector which resulted in very low rents for the fortunate few who were renting when the legislation came in and homelessness for everyone else who couldn’t get a place in social housing or afford to buy somewhere because there was no money in renting so all the landlords sold up, with, generally only the worst hanging in there, like Nicholas van Hoogstraten. A success for the class warriors, but otherwise a complete disaster. There is no reason why the same thing wouldn’t happen again.
If you believe in the free market, why should the government be building housing? Isn’t the free market supposed to do that?
Fortunately most people don’t believe that individual property rights always take precedence when they impose significant harm on others. That’s why we have environmental laws, pollution control, zoning, and many other forms of regulation that in one way or another limit the individual’s right to do anything she pleases with her property all the time. You don’t like restrictions on your property rights? Don’t buy real estate.
Some cities are responding to the airbnb problem by mandating that a property cannot be rented for less than 30 days with the owner (or primary tenant) not living there. So someone could rent out a room in their airbnb if they also live there, but they could not rent out a full apartment for less than 30 days. That would eliminate a lot of the holiday rentals.
I have stayed in many full-apartment airbnbs when traveling for work, sometimes for less than 30 days, sometimes for more. I know how nice it is. But someone in this discussion pointed out that the hotel industry could offer the same kind of service – without all the hotel amenities, but with cooking facilities – and while it would cost more than airbnb, it would help meet the need without totally skewing the local housing rental market.
Yes this is happening all over the place. You seem to be describing the rentier economy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism
In which they quote Marx as saying “the means of the extravagant rentier diminish daily in inverse proportion to the growing possibilities and temptations of pleasure”
This would seem to be an inaccurate assessment as property values have increased way in excess of ordinary living expense inflation. Property value inflation does not seem to be included in the ordinary inflation figures. Therefore property owners are free to rent out and spend their profits without much cost to themselves, hence the property ownership fetish. A land/property tax and the long awaited property valuation update could fix this.
Sorry to read about the down side of holiday rentals. Staying in rental apartments is so much cheaper than staying in hotels, not only because the nightly or weekly rate is lower, but also because home-cooking is way cheaper than eating out. The money we have saved by using holiday rentals (including twice in Edinburgh) has enabled us to afford more holidays than would have been the case if we’d had to use hotels and restaurants. Obviously the interests of the residents of any city must have priority, but tourists contribute to local economies so perhaps a happy compromise can be reached.
“the residents of any city must have priority”
Wait. Where did you get that idea?
Then the demand should be for hotels to have cooking facilities. This is the norm in hostels; there are also hotels with kitchenettes.
There is little if any consumer protection or safety compliance at many short-term apartments. The Airbnbs of the world are very, very skilled at hiding the dark side from you. They might call themselves part of the ‘sharing’ economy but one thing they’re not sharing – or taking any part of – is accountability.
There are holiday letting sites other than airbnb which I would never use. A rental apartment with good photos of every room (+ the building) and good detailed reviews is a pretty safe bet.
Airbnb is actually worse than some other sites. For example, if you file a complaint about a property – anything from the property not having the promised amenities (like wifi, which happens a lot) to a dodgy host to non-functioning bathrooms – you get shunted out of the normal feedback system and cannot leave a review. This means future customers won’t know about your negative experience. So they will rent the same property, under the same false pretenses, often with a strict cancellation/no refund policy. The property owner (quite often a nebulous property group, often with a nominal person posing as the ‘host’, with a tax-evading corporate set-up with various foreign shells) can then rent out the property for the same dates as you’ve just bailed on and collect money for double-renting the same property (your canceled dates plus the new mug’s stay) for the same dates. This scenario is distressingly common on that site.
Fortunately, the crackdown in a number of cities has led to changes but it’s mostly the smaller landlords (just a couple of properties) that are looking to get out of that market.
Will you be rethinking staying in a holiday rental next time you’re on holiday, now you realise what the down sides are?
This is a becoming problem all over, though from your experiences seems to be fairly acute in Edinburgh. In my village the availability of affordable rented accommodation is becoming limited by AirBNB lets. We lost two or three perfectly good cottages to this market place. It may not sound like a lot but in a village of about 800 souls (say with 200 or so residential properties) it has a serious impact.
Many of these places lie empty for half the year which is such a waste. Young and old alike who can’t afford to get on the property ladder are pretty much stuffed. There’s also quite a bit of greed involved, many of these places hike their nightly prices during “peak seasons” to eye watering levels that even the old school “holiday letting” businesses would baulk at. There is definitely a need for a change in the laws to catch up with this new environment.
Here’s a radical idea… live somewhere that’s less expensive.
There’s high demand for houses all over the place. There are a few factors involved. House builders and property owners are quite naturally enjoying the increased demand which makes business more profitable for them, and I expect they are lobbying on that basis.
But government doesn’t need to surrender to that sort of pressure, and it could and should build more houses. House building has massive positive implications for the economy too so it’s really something people should give more thought to.
Additionally things like increasing rates of divorce has had an impact on demand, as well as a few other things.
Talking about changing laws and the fabric of society just sounds insane to me. The free market here is more or less performing as it should and you are forgetting that there are many who depend on the dynamics as they are now and would suffer if things were radically altered.
Housing was always a problem, even in the glorious socialist 70s.
Why should we the people quit the best parts of our land?
If we the people didnt choose to sell their properties or rent them out on airbnb in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this pleasant chat.
They aren’t people who do that they are scum.
> Here’s a radical idea… live somewhere that’s less expensive.
*Facepalm* – not that fallacious argument again.
This isn’t about the cost of renting (or buying). My village is fairly reasonable that way (for now), which is why I moved here and not to the city. I was lucky and able to make that choice due to the nature of my work. The problem here is about the availability of housing, not what the rental cost (or mortgage cost) is and the fact that despite there is in fact plenty of housing, it’s being misused as unregulated commercial holiday lets.
Also, despite what you may know – free market-wise – legit rented accommodation (i.e. your typical Scottish Short Term Assured Lease) is actually regulated (rightly so) to protect both tenant and landlord. These laissez faire AirBNB accommodations aren’t which has a negative affect for both the legit housing market and for residents who have to put up with unsociable behaviour in these neighbouring properties.
I’m not a “big government” kinda guy, but reasonable housing is a fundamental right and should have more government oversight to prevent large swathes of our country turning into one big hotel.
It’s about the costs, according to most on here, and it’s about the availability. Building more houses would probably solve both problems.
The government regulations in the housing market couldn’t be flimsier and, despite what you may know, are widely ignored.
I like the dynamics of what Airbnb is doing and, despite what you may know, they do actually have their own regulations too. Also, despite what you may know, the Airbnb review system drives up standards or, at least, provides encouragement in that direction.
If people want to turn their houses and properties into hotels, I really do t see what it has to do with you or government. Referring to other peoples’ property as “large swathes of our country” is inappropriate — do you refer to peoples’ toasters and socks in those terms?
This isn’t the Soviet Union.
“The free market here is more or less performing as it should”.
So should the free market increase the number of homeless and break up communities?
“Talking about changing laws and the fabric of society just sounds insane to me.”
It’s not a question of changing laws. All that needs to happen is that second homes and holiday lets be put into a different use class to purely residential property. If you want to change your house or flat into a hoilday let, or occupy for less than a certain number of days a year, you have to apply for planning permission, same as you do if you are changing it to a commercial premises. Holiday lets are counted as commercial premises already.
“Housing was always a problem, even in the glorious socialist 70”
when we were building houses at a rate that had not been seen since the start of the century: so much for your contention that building more houses will solve all housing-related problems.
Many small cities like mine with voraciously expanding Universities (as they increasingly become places of commerce) have been hollowed out by the ever increasing demand for student lets. As families leave, buy to let landlords, some presiding over small empires of mortgaged properties, take up anything available to divide even the smallest houses into six or seven rooms, charging up to £700 per month for a sardine can. A high percentage of students have cars and while parking becomes a nightmare for the remaining families some of these student houses have seven or eight cars per household. Rent for those living and working in such cities is out of control due to the resulting shortage of housing while new builds are never affordable on an average wage and the noise generated by students usually only begins to subside between 4am to 5 am. On top of that, many such locations have have a high percentage of holiday lets.
Meanwhile, as you say, the number of those sleeping in stairwells, doorways and under bridges keeps climbing. I’ve been amongst them more than once.
This is something not unique to City Centres. Switzerland legislated decades ago to restrict the number of properties which could be owned by foreigners, a small country attracting the very rich and those seeing a ski chalet as a currency hedge.
My view is quite simple: all properties not main Residences must be occupied for 100 days a year or face a tax bill equivalent to the interest payable by a council having built an equivalent property for the State rental sector. This is the only way to stop the State having to fund the excess wealth hording through property.
One of the consequences of this is that those owning three or more properties will have to rent them or sell them (as the rental yield will disappear through taxation).
Bent councillors will be the biggest block to progress, as bung paying will incentivise them to do nothing. Councillors rarely represent their electors, they are placemen for shadowy interests….
That creaking sound, is the stable door blowing in the wind.
And then there’s Student-land. Awful.
I agree that something needs to be done. New Zealand has recently cracked down with people being warned they need to apply for planning permission and advise their mortgage holder and insurance companies that the property is now commercial. You are only allowed a small number of lets per year before this applies.
My sister came from NZ to London and took an AirBnB property in South London and it looked very much like that was this property’s sole function. I would not be surprised to find it was being illegally sublet and read about one guy caught doing that in a string of properties. Knowing that housing supply is a major issue in that London Borough as others I felt bad about being there even though it was not my decision to take it.
Later on our youngest came from NZ to do some scientific work in Edinburgh and took an AirBnB near Easter Rd. That was obviously someone’s home and apparently the owner moved in with is other half when renting it out. I have less of a problem there. We visited and were quiet and tried to move quietly.
There has to be such a market. We know people in St Andrews, Carnoustie and here in the East of Dundee who rent their properties when the Open comes and go on slap up holidays in the period on the proceeds. Provided HM Revenue is notified etc again I have no issues. But flats/houses which could be lived in and especially for social rent being short term let constantly is a scandal.
If there nowhere you can dob those social flats in to? That is really not on to sublet a social let for private profit like that and fraud is almost certainly involved.
This is particularly true in Holland. The main cities are ruined by partying tourists, who care nothing for the country or its culture, and every night is a major party event.
The only genuine residents in the centres of cities like Amsterdam are those who have had family homes there for some time. The rent is absolutely through the roof, and the cost of purchasing property beyond the reach of working people. In cities like Amstelveen the rent is almost as bad, but working people here are disturbed frequently by revelers in the adjoining flats partying it up until very late. They care nothing for people who have to work the next morning.
Maybe if Holland stopped operating as an offshore tax haven then less people would visit.
Yes, that would be sure to stop people going to Amsterdam.
Indeed. Nothing stops a drunken stag party as fast as finding out the country they intend visiting no longer operates favourable off-shore tax incentives to multinationals. It’s all they talk about.
In Thailand, according to a recent court ruling, people who rent out their rooms via Airbnb on a daily or weekly basis are acting illegally.
The court ruled that people renting out their rooms have not obtained a licence to run a hotel business under the 2004 Hotel Act. Only rentals of 30 days or more would be legal.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1467442/airbnb-bookings-illegal-court-declares
I live in a tenement flat in St. Mary’s Street, and the situation here is very much as you’ve described. Of the nine flats on my stair, five have become Air B’n’Bs during the past year or or so. There is now constant noise and commotion in the stair, and noisy conversation and clattering doors at all hours of the day from people coming and going. I’ve seen groups of ten or fifteen people going into flats which have one, or at most two, bedrooms, and which if they were situated anywhere else but the city centre, would be regarded as tiny. And of course, with one exception, I no longer know who any of my neighbours are. My rent has also increased in large annual increments over the past few years, and now outstrips my Rent Rebate by a considerable margin. As the tenant of a private landlord who is struggling to survive on wholly inadequate benefits, I feel powerless to do anything about this situation, but it seems that property-owners have a licence to print money while people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads or are left to sleep in the streets. Something drastic needs to be done. Could a limit not be placed on the number of properties any individual is allowed to own?
You’re not powerless. You could move.
That is not true, for several reasons. How do you suppose I’m going to afford removal costs and a deposit, for a start? That’s at least £1,000 upfront that I don’t have. But even if it was true, why should I be forced to move away from family, work, and the area that’s been home to me for twenty-five years? Why should my needs be secondary to those of wealthy property-owners?
What? Someone is being forced? Where? You’re the one talking about doing “something drastic”.
You say your rent has gone up over the years. If you were in a different area then the rent would go down. Moving would save you money, not cost you money.
And if you are renting then you will know that your landlord can basically kick you out any time. The terms will be in your tenancy agreement.
I don’t see the difference between what your landlord is doing and what the wealthy property-owners are doing.
All those vested interests you argue against, compare their line of argument to your own. Mirror, meet self.
J, if you have a better alternative to the free market, I’m all ears..
Every time people on here have a minor grievance about something they reach for the sledgehammer.
Ten years ago today I was virtually alone in the world arguing that banks should be left to collapse whilst everyone else was saying they had to be bailed out. At the time I said they should nationalise the banks that fail and use the money they save to guess what…. build houses.
The free market works if only we’d stop fucking about with it.
“J, if you have a better alternative to the free market”
There’s no such thing, never has been and there never will be. It was a fairy story for the children. You should be alarmed that you believe it.
J, I agree the free market is largely stifled and essentially doesn’t exist. But there are little pockets of functioning that reveal its dynamism and this is one of them.
Airbnb is a great example.
It’s not just short-term lets such as airb&B. Many apartments, especially in London, but also in other high price centres, are bought as an investment, with no intention by the owners of themselves or anyone else staying in the property.
There is a worldwide trend to take action against the use of housing stock for short term holiday rentals distorting the availability of housing. As noted by BabsP above, Andy Wightman’s amendment is intended to address this in Scotland.
Different measures have been taken/are proposed in a variety of locations depending on existing local laws or needs. The links below relate to Barcelona, San Francisco, Toronto and Dublin. This is not an exhaustive list, only ones I know of – I expect the use of google would show many more.
https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/06/barcelona-finds-a-way-to-control-its-airbnb-market/562187/
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/19/airbnb-san-francisco-listings-cut-in-half/
https://signaltoronto.com/10-things-know-proposed-short-term-rentals-policy/
https://www.thejournal.ie/airbnb-regulations-ireland-4223316-Sep2018/
As an Edinburgh resident of a traditional Victorian stair, I have been arguing this for over 20 years, first with the HMO problem, now holiday lets and AirBnb. The late Margo MacDonald was sympathetic and likewise advised control via the planning system. I discovered that there was planning law (statute) and planning policy (local interpretation of statute) and that planners do have a degree of latitude to interpret law and adapt it to local circumstances and this is called planning policy of the local authority. There are different Use classes, defined by statute, with HMOs and B&Bs being distinguished from hotels, commercial, and residential. In Glasgow the planners came up with a different definition of an HMO than Edinburgh. A stricter one, and I raised this often but it fell on deaf ears. There was a ‘lack of political will’ to do anything about it in Edinburgh, I was informed frankly by a local Conservative councillor. That was when Labour ran the Council. Whether the current SNP-Labour administration will do anything about it remains to be seen, but cries like yours and mine are becoming more urgent.
A flat has just been sold on my stair to an investment company based in Hong Kong. They have appointed a local agent to oversee renovations and rentals. It remains to be seen if this will be a holiday let, but they are stripping it out and replacing everything even though the flat had been tastefully renovated by the previous owner occupiers. So it does not sound good. I was told ‘we always do total renovations on our flats’. Which sounds like a streamlined industry, standardisation, like you get in hotels. I am angry that I have so little control or say so over this even though I am a co-owner of the block.
You’re angry because you don’t get to decide how your neighbour’s flat is decorated?
I’m angry that some football players dive in the penalty box. Can we ban football?
No, we just paid £4k to have the common stair decorated and now they are chipping it to bits. It is not their property alone – there is not such a thing as a detached flat. All flats are in large buildings with common fabric owned jointly by several owners – perhaps an unusual thing in England but very common in Scotland and on the continent. I intend to get a fresh estimate from the painters for repair and present it to them. Fair’s fair. As a neighbourly gesture I will overlook charges for my admin, concierge, and factoring services.
First I thought it was too much “free market” koolaid, or maybe a tin ear problem, but I think @Hatuey is clearly trolling this discussion now.
Sajid Javid has admitted in the HoC today that the Home Office demanded DNA tests from some immigrants to the UK. He apologized.
This was happening under Theresa May’s watch during her period of office as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016. The extent of this barbaric practice was not revealed. Compensation is being paid to those affected.
Javid is clearing his decks before May is toppled.
Home secretary apologises for immigrant DNA tests
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45979359
PS The billionaire accused of sexual harassment is Sir Philip Green. Revolting. Crooked too ref BHS. Green has been named by Peter Hain.
Yes that was half a million well spent.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45981436
Green pushed off to the South of France following his aggressive and truculent appearance before the HoC Select Committee.
https://youtu.be/9brzWfjqIGY
There is 5 hours’ worth of it on another YT!
We, the public, bailed out the BHS Pension Scheme. Our own contributions were used.
What is the Pension Protection Fund and will BHS sink it?
The state-backed pensions safety net offers limited protection against inflation, and this will particularly affect BHS ‘lifers
25 Apr 2016
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/25/pension-protection-fund-bhs-retirement-ppf
I don’t suppose any of the ex BHS staff and suppliers have become billionaires.
Some of the company he kept.
https://goo.gl/images/toq39N
I noticed he employed Andrea Bocelli to sing at one of the lavish parties. Bocelli also performed at the most recent ‘royal’ wedding.
What is barbaric about a DNA test?
I used to live in Oxford where the housing situation may actually be worse. There are companies which manage short term lets for absentee landords which use the Airbnb platform. According to a presentation for prospective landlords I heard about letting out a flat or house using Airbnb can double or more income from renting on a normal short term let to ordinary tenants. For example, a flat on a monthly let of £1500 pm on the usual annual contract could generate £4000pm on short term lets on Airbnb. The customer saves money on a hotel. If for a example a family from Asia wants to come to Oxford for a child’s graduation it is cheaper to hire a house for a week than stay in a hotel. Many houses in fashionable parts of the city now have key boxes next to the front door so short term visitors can let themselves in.Rents were already unaffordable. It’s a housing crisis which is getting worse.
The over-regulation of long term letting, difficulties to get rid of rogue tenants and poor return on buy to rent must be part of the problem. I own a nice house in Brussel, my last tenant left with 20.000 Euro unpaid fees and rent, with little hope to recover these, because of slow justice. Maybe AirB&B would be a better option in the future.
Hilarious to read such whinging from a person who unerringly supports policies that are specifically designed to create and increase such problems.
Did you really think that all problems could be foisted onto the former working classes and that some force of nature would ensure your perpetual immunity to the chaos that you so lovingly seek to create.
Did you know that Edinburgh has approximately 3.85 million visitors per year. Barcelona by contrast has some 32 million visitors. This is quite some difference, and it is not immediately obvious what could explain a choice to link Edinburgh with Barcelona.
There really is no need to cast your net so wide. Blackpool for example is much closer to Edinburgh than is Barcelona. Blackpool pulls in about 13 million visitors per year and 13 million is a lot closer to 3.85 million than 32 million is to 3.85 million.
What could possibly explain a preference to compare Edinburgh with Barcelona than to compare Edinburgh with the much more obvious example of Blackpool.
Here is a wild and crazy idea. The people of Blackpool are precisely the kind of people who are intended to bear the consequences of policies whose long term effects are obvious. The people of Edinburgh and Barcelona by contrast are not the kind of people who should ever have any exposure to the consequences of such policies. This is all the more true given that both Barcelona and Edinburgh are respectively under Spanish and English military occupation.
Spare us from this unmitigated nonsense.
Loony as a foreign tourist to both the comparison makes perfect sense on this topic : one visits Barcelona and Edimburgo but one would have no particular interest to go to Blackpool . I’m sure if you check tourism stats for Blackpool you will find it’s mostly comprised of domestic arrivals and maybe Irish .
Ever heard of the phrase Quod Erat Demonstandum?
Thank you for so succinctly proving my point, and I apologize for my failure to make clear that no-one cares about the Irish any more (and possibly less) than they care about the people of Blackpool. Now Barcelona is such a sophisticated place, why they have an unfinished Church – El Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia… so cultural. Blackpool, by contrast has a few fairground attractions and a lot of drunks – not interested. Who cares where drunks and fairground workers live? Say it loud and say it proud – No-one cares.
…and how do I know that np-one cares about people in Blackpool? Why I have the Daily Mirror to tell me all about it.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-missing-14-year-old-10836108
Just for a second try to imagine the worldwide outrage if someone came forward with evidence that Israeli soldiers were killing young girls and supplementing their wages by chopping them up and selling them in kebab meat.
Now become consumed by the overpowering sound of silence with regard to chopping up a young girl in Blackpool. Now back to the culture in Barcelona…did you know that Picasso once drank in this bar? Look over there maybe that graffiti is an original Joan Miro…blah, blah, blah
O/T FWIW. This item which has just been shown on BBC South Today might be of interest.
‘Russian spy poisoning: Why was Sergei Skripal attacked?
Almost eight months after the poisoning in Salisbury of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, the BBC has pieced together the extent to which he had been briefing foreign intelligence agencies before the attempt on his life.
Far from living quietly in retirement, Skripal had been travelling extensively across Europe and to the United States providing information to Western security services about Russian intelligence, including its alleged links with the mafia.
Richard Galpin has been investigating.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-45979830/russian-spy-poisoning-why-was-sergei-skripal-attacked
I have been pointing out just this, consistently, for some time on here.
Excellent interview by Pepe Escobar in June 2018. @ around 21minutes he talks about the house of Saud and the prince closeness to Israel and how a coup against the prince was on the make by SA and also by the CIA . He was right in his predictions, I believe .
I agree with Craig’s previous post on this topic but disagree that this killing captured people’s imagination . The media , a certain media , doesn’t insist on atrocities that don’t suit an agenda or a well defined plan .
The other topics on the interview are all quite interesting as well . I recommend it .
https://thesaker.is/interview-of-pepe-escobar-the-world-is-waiting-for-the-apocalypse-if-there-is-a-conflict-between-america-and-russia/
So I was right – the accused man is indeed the billionaire thug and racist (and “donator” to Zionist causes) Philip Green.
(Peter Hain had the courage to name him in the House of Lords today.)
One definition of “courage” is that it means strength in the face of pain or grief. another is that it enables a person to do something even though the act of doing such an act is frightening.
I fail to see exactly what courage is required to say something when the speaker is fully aware that his speech enjoys the absolute protection of parliamentary privilege.
If he was courageous then surely he should have removed himself from the protection of parliamentary privilege and made his remarks in a public setting that did not benefit from immunity from the law.
I have no interest in the lives of idiots and so have no idea whether Green’s name should or should not be in the public domain. I have every idea that the manner of introducing his name into the public domain had nothing whatsoever to do with courage.
The salient point is that if you think your politicians have courage then you are in for a big surprise. The UK is, to a large extent, dedicated to the introducing the cult of cowardice as its new, oh so hip, post Christian religion.
@Loony – You’re another participant who prostitutes your intellect. What on earth might your motivation be? Can anyone guess? How droll you are to unpack my word use and then follow up by using the cheap phrases “cult of cowardice” and “post Christian religion”, and the cheap dishonest technique of suggesting that I think politicians in general are courageous. Sure, Peter Hain’s act wasn’t an act of great courage, and I am aware of his own MI6 background, but at least he had a bit more courage than the very many pillocks in the media who have known Green’s name since yesterday and were too sh*t-scared to publish it. Oh and Philip Green has a record of threatening people who might be thinking of crossing him with violence. Why else do you think two of the
victimsNDA signers supported his application to the Court of Appeal? He’s a mafia thug from a family of thugs. Here’s hoping one day he gets grabbed and jailed before he can make it to an airport on the way to his yacht.And are you feeling an urge to attack Christianity all of a sudden?
Re N @ 20.33
Well said, and for the first time I feel I can completely and uncritically endorse your point of view.
You is doing it all so wrong.
Journalists could not publish the information as to do so would have put them in contempt of court. Journalists themselves could have been imprisoned for publishing this information and their employers could also have found themselves liable for substantial fines.
Peter Hain ran no risk whatsoever as he chose to deliver his remarks in a setting that provided him with immunity from the law. He could have chosen to deliver his remarks in a setting that did not provide him with legal immunity – but he did not make this choice.
You described his actions as courageous not me. My point is that I see nothing courageous about Hain at all. You clearly do as you continue to insist that he showed more courage than journalists.
Separately and although you presumably live in a society dedicated to the cult of cowardice I would try not to worry too much about Philip Green. He does not appear likely to be proficient in the art of violence.
“you’re another participant who prostitutes your intellect”
Will you have the courage to name the others?
Look in the mirror.
Good idea. Everyone should look in the Mirror. Try this to start with:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-missing-14-year-old-10836108
Don’t it male you feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game?
In San Sebastian, in Spain, a big tourist destination, the city council assesses the local demand for housing at the beginning of the year. Only after that demand is met can any surplus housing be used for holiday accommodation.
The article and the comments are one sided: a lot of people who vote and support with donations some parties are enjoying much more luxurious lifestyles thanks to what they see as a wonderful property boom.
The UK economy (at least that of the voters who matter) is pretty much based on investing immense amounts in something that produces no output but at the same time returns a huge income. A big “improvement” on extracting scottish oil, which is what supported the UK 1982-2007.
As to the argument that holiday lets are displacing ordinary people from cities popular with tourists, that’s really looking at the wrong side of the problem…
Most ordinary people live in a place not because of sentimental attachments like C Murray, but because they work there. The problem with housing costs for most people is not that there is too little housing where there are jobs, but that the jobs happen to be where housing is scarce and expensive.
In the case of London and the south-east it is government policy to spend colossal amounts of UK taxpayer money (or debt) to attract jobs to where southern english tory voters own property, so that they fleece any incoming people looking for a job.
For areas of special beauty and attraction beyond jobs, having a high density of ordinary jobs there is just a waste. Nowadays places like Venice or central Edinburgh are no longer places where it is sensible to do ordinary work in ordinary businesses, and that’s sad.
What should be happening is a wide distribution of jobs around Scotland and the rest of the UK, so that there be no place where speculators have cornered the housing market thanks to many job opportunities and places where there are few jobs and housing costs are low.
Jobs are by far not the sole reason people live where they do. Thankfully.
What do we have here? Maybe a new post colonial version of geography.
Take a look at a place called Goldfield in Nevada. In 1906 it had a population of 20,000 people. Today it has a population of 268. In 1908 the US had a population of about 88 million. Today the population of the the US is about 325 million.
How then to explain the precipitous population decline of Goldfield when viewed in the context of unremitting increases in aggregate US population.
Most thinking people would explain this by the fact that Goldfield once produced gold – and that this required workers to mine the gold and other workers to feed, clothe, shelter and water the actual gold miners. Once the gold ran out the workers moved elsewhere and population declined.
Thankfully you have an entirely new theory which you seem happy to share. Curiously you do not seem so keen to share the substance of your theory.
Loony, Ian does that a lot. It’s disappointing.
I tutored at university for a couple of years and this sort of thing happened a lot.. first year undergrad’s turn up thinking the world wants to know their opinion on stuff. I was going through 3 red pens a week.
We need more substance on here, we need verifiable sources, we need reason, and we need falsifiable ideas. Opinions and gut feeling rooted in childish definitions of right and wrong, well, do yourself a favour and keep that sort of crap to yourself.
Holiday lets are displacing people from rural areas as well – the problem is particularly acute in National Parks, where there is a high demand and where the amount of new building is restricted. Many of them have banned sales of new properties to anyone who does not live or work there. The same thing should be done in rural areas which are not National Parks.
Note from Australia: Air BnB is having the same effect here. Speaking personally, I entirely fail to understand why anyone uses Air BnB. I’ve met strangers, some are cool, some not so cool, but I have literally never wanted to rent an apartment from any of them. Similarly, I’ve never wanted to rent one out either. If you want to stay somewhere, there are plenty of hotels and motels, which although expensive, generally have to meet legal and health and safety requirements. And if you are renting a property out – that’s what leasing agents do. They are good at it, generally, to the point of being distinct assholes to the renters, of which I am one.
The property flip bug entirely passed me by. Why anyone would want the hassle escapes me, but then I’ve never understood the obsession with money that plagues too many people. Perhaps it has some link to mild aspergers (I’m not willing to use the term autism, having the old fashioned belief that they are still distinct, no matter what DSM version whatever tells me). And the effects of said bug are serious. Currently Australia is going through a managed cooling of the property market. What this means is that banks, which operate as a cartel the world over, have come to an agreement that it’s gotten way out of hand, and so have, in connivance with the Government, whom they pay, tightened lending restrictions. They could have done this decade ago, but where’s the fun in that? I’ll give them some credit for at least attempting to avoid a total catastrofuck, the likes of which would take down the Aussie economy for a decade or more, but their venality is still pretty atrocious. Fie on them.
You have everything back to front. You’re much more likely to get food poisoning or pick up something in a hotel or restaurant, places where lots of people go, than a private house where relatively few people go and you cook to your own hygiene standards for yourself.
Your use of the word “strangers” is interesting. Strangers are to be feared, I get it. But those who own and run hotels are strangers too. And you’re mistaken if you think they are well-meaning professionals who are dedicated to high standards. I’ve seen things go on in restaurants that would keep you awake at night.
You say they could have tightened up lending in Australia a decade ago. A decade ago the world was heading into the economic abyss of the credit crunch. Australia avoided that, so maybe you should be more grateful for what they did do — massive investment in schools and infrastructure made all the difference.
The big picture here is that money is always chasing yield. And there’s now almost no yield available from keeping money in the bank.
The collapse in interest rates, by the central banks, not only created a massive property bubble but also caused funds to find a better yield elsewhere. It is however highly likely that the situation will change as property prices slump in the coming years and investors/speculators start selling en masse. Look at Australia: House prices are currently falling by about $1000 a week in both Sydney and Melbourne.