As interest and mortgage rates soar, London’s renters would be forgiven for thinking “welcome to our world”.
Over the past two years, the average rent in the capital has risen by £490 a month, taking it to more than £2,000, according to Zoopla. Meanwhile, boroughs with high levels of deprivation such as Newham and Tower Hamlets are seeing some of the largest annual increases.
The news nationally is hardly better. Rents for new lets have outpaced earnings for 21 successive months. Little surprise, then, that rental affordability is at record lows. The result is a devastating housing crisis, one in which 34 per cent of tenants are pouring more than half of their salary on rent, according to a study last month by Spare Room. Traditionally, spending more than a third of take- home pay on housing was considered burdensome.
At root is the vast differential between housing supply and demand, particularly since the pandemic, exacerbated by the impact of rising mortgage repayments for buy-to-let landlords and high levels of migration.
But at the end of the day, London and Britain more widely do not have enough homes of all types: to rent, to buy, for families and for younger people.
Until that changes, renters will continue to experience high prices and fierce competition, even when mortgage rates eventually fall.
End of the Odey era
The speed of the collapse has been remarkable. Crispin Odey dominated London’s hedge-fund sector for longer than many investors can even remember. Now he has left his eponymous fund, following allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies. Customers rushed to withdraw their funds, companies that provided vital services severed ties and the enterprise faces being broken up.
This was not the first time Mr Odey had faced claims and complaints over his behaviour. Indeed, in 2021, he was found not guilty over an accusation of indecent assault which allegedly took place in 1998. Yet again, this episode serves as an example of when a torch is shined, how something so solid can seemingly disintegrate in days.
Big Lie not for Glasto
The decision by Glastonbury to cancel a screening of Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie is the right one — but festival organisers should never have come close to it.
This film fuels an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jeremy Corbyn’s downfall was due to nefarious and organised actors, not least Britain’s Jewish community. This is wrong on every imaginable level.
Corbyn failed to become Prime Minister, and is now no longer even a Labour MP, because of his own beliefs, mistakes and decisions. With anti-Jewish prejudice rising in this country and around the world, we ought to be alive to tropes that promulgate such mendacious myths, not air them at music festivals.
