SKY News presenter Kay Burley appeared to launch a bizarre attack on the Spanish prime minister on his plans for second homes.
We told on Tuesday how Pedro Sanchez is planning to stop people from the UK buying second homes in Spain in a bid to address a housing crisis.
The announcement to prevent people outside the EU from buying housing in Spain unless they reside in the country follows his proposal last week to put a tax of up to 100% on such property deals.
Kay Burley, on the Spanish PM: "So take that, socialist prime minister!" pic.twitter.com/fRAirEv8CZ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 23, 2025
Speaking to travel expert Simon Calder on Sky News, Burley asked about the plans from Sanchez. Calder replied: “I don’t think he was singling out the UK, he was singling out anywhere that isn’t in the EU because he can’t actually do that.
“I think it’s perhaps Kay the old trick of blaming foreigners for all the domestic problems. In fact, British property owners don’t tend to look in the sorts of places that Spanish people want to live in.
“There is a huge problem with property and finding enough places for people to live in Spain but that tends to be in places like Barcelona where so much has now been given over to apartments on platforms such as Airbnb.
“And actually, since Brexit, since we decided to limit ourselves to a 90-day stay, there’s almost an opposite problem which is a bit of a property slump as Brits try and offload their properties in order to perhaps find somewhere where they can stay throughout the entire winter.”
In her response to Calder, Burley said: “Yeah, so take that socialist Spanish prime minister.”
Sanchez had said that non-residents from outside the EU bought around 27,000 houses and apartments in Spain in 2023.
He has been attempting to address anger in Spain over soaring property prices and a lack of housing with rents in Madrid having risen around 60% in the last decade.
