richc

I find it very interesting that all of the members with pork-related names are hoping the muslim candidate wins.

Because the "socialists" in the government are too busy smuggling it all out of the country to line their own pockets.

less than 10% on rent

I just don't get this. Who chooses to live in such a place? I can understand that there are some rewarding careers where being based in London is the only option, but I seriously doubt that anyone contemplating living in an ex-LA property in Pitsea works in such a field. Culturally, London is turning into a third-world cesspit attached to a series of generic, cookie-cutter, identikit British high streets, just like the ones you can find in any other medium sized city in the UK. What is the attraction?

It's a very relaxed environment. Everyone wears their pyjamas in the middle of the day.

Hertfordshire.

The French certainly do have economic problems, but then they don't go around delusionally crowing about their economic "success".

My rent is £2000 per month for a 7 bed house on an acre of land, 25 minutes from Kings Cross. Maybe I should trade it in for a 30% share of a 3 bed flat in Stratford?

I lived not far from there a couple of years ago, and I could see that space having commercial value, but the planning permission is for a residential unit which makes absolutely no sense. It's a very busy location surrounded by bars and restaurants. You would never sleep if you lived there.

The FT article covers this dispute discussed in Estate Agent Today: https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2016/4/otm-disputes-begin-to-focus-on-information-memorandum-and-fees Looks like OTM has been giving massive discounts to recruit more agents to list with them, but it promised initial subscribers that they would receive cheaper fees than those who signed up later.

Everyone has their own circumstances, but this really does seem like a particularly poor time to be buying anything. You would have been competing with the last batch of BTL lemmings buying to beat the extra stamp duty deadline. Waiting a month would have saved you several thousand pounds.

So dated styling combined with tiny rooms and paper-thin walls.

I was listening to Osborne being interviewed a couple years ago on the BBC, and the interviewer gave him a complete open goal by asking him something like "why are you reducing benefit payments while decreasing taxes on the low paid?", and his response, in a dead monotone voice, was something like "oh, I dunno, it sounded good at the time". That was it. In a run up to the election, that was all he had to contribute. I realised, then, that he really is a moron.

Osborne is a moron. Why would anyone with half a brain connect a reduction of disability benefit with a cut in capital gains tax? Truly, an idiot.

Still seems over-priced even with the 75% discount. It looks like they stopped all maintenance on the property when they put it on the market four years ago -- no mention of the golf course in the rightmove listing.

Wow. Are you a compliance officer for an investment bank? Just because you can legally get away with something, does not mean that it is okay to do so. It is not unreasonable to expect current and former politicians to show some strength of character and sense of morality so that they make the right decisions in legal grey areas. Blair, running his PR agency for dictators, is doing neither. He is, however, completely trashing the United Kingdom's moral standing in the world by continuing to be a Grade A a**hole in his desperate drive to accumulate even more money for himself and his family. Blair's current income stream is a direct cost to the rest of the UK's citizens. The loss of moral authority of the UK means that the UK faces higher costs in trying to influence public opinion on the world stage. For a former Prime Minister to be engaging in such behaviour is more than enough reason to make him a social and political pariah.

My partner is frequently in Amsterdam for work, and I spend a fair amount of time there as well. It's not an amazing bargain compared to London if you look at how much of someone's income they spend on housing, but it seems like a big difference for youngish professionals is that they will be living much closer into the city in Amsterdam -- the equivalent of someone in their early 30s being able to buy in a neighbourhood like Chelsea. I have to say that the whole idea of making mortgage interest tax-deductible is completely bonkers. I would expect it of the Americans, but it makes me question the reasoning skills of the Dutch.

I spent 2 hours getting through the border from Austria to Germany earlier today and almost missed my flight returning from a skiing holiday. Delays like that are going to destroy thousands of businesses.

If by historically you mean 1977 or 1992, no it's not that dissimilar to those happy economic times.

The government is borrowing more than 5% of gdp so that the country can grow at less than half that. The UK has the third highest deficit in the EU (higher than Greece). The idea that Brexit is a bigger threat is completely absurd.

I have some friends who just bought and refurbed a house in North London that is supposedly worth £3.5 million now, and every time I visit their house I think how grim their neighbourhood is. The house is nice enough, but a teenager was stabbed and killed 4 blocks away last year. My friend was mugged for her phone six months ago (she actually stomped on his head and pinned him to the ground until the police arrived). Parking is always a hassle. They drive their kids 45 minutes each way morning and evening because the local schools aren't great. It would be one thing if they had a nice house in a so-so neighbourhood because it was a good bargain, but it's not. I just don't get it.

So the EU is about protecting the people? So when the EU helps Volkswagen publish fraudulent pollution stats, it's about protecting the health of the people? When the EU sends off another cheque to millionaire estate owners encouraging them to limit food production, it's to keep food prices lower for consumers? So when the EU encourages UK business owners to import low-wage staff who are treated as slaves, it's about protecting workers? The EU doesn't give a toss about protecting people. Like any organization, it's all about protecting its own interests. The idea that the EU is more responsive to people's needs and desire than Westminster is absurd. Can you even name the party that currently controls the European Parliament? What platform did people vote for when they elected them? Actually, you can't do either because the EP is run by a coalition of diametrically opposed parties whose only unifying goal is to ensure that the EU retains and grows it's power base. The governing coalition represents nothing else.

There is a reason not to have a contribution-based benefits system: That's how the poor live in France (despite an enormous amount of benefits being paid out). There are camps like this all over the country. It's a complete disgrace to leave children in those conditions.

We all share one world. We don't all share one tax system.

There are probably more Hungarians than Czechs in the UK. (I don't have the figures, but I have family in Prague and go there frequently, and my partner speaks a bit of Hungarian, so I've talked to plenty of Eastern European professionals working as wait staff in the UK.) The EU desperately needs a unified fiscal system. It's completely unworkable in the long term, otherwise. Of course, the "In" camp are unwilling to admit this because it would never gain popular support in the wealthier regions of the EU.