Do they think we are stupid?

 Only a few weeks ago Red Miliband was preaching that tenants were struggling in fuel poverty because of evil landlords and that Red was going to make things good with tenants by forcing their evil landlords (unless the evil landlord was the government) to spend £15,000 improving the home's energy efficiency EPC to "C" in order to save victim tenants £240 per year in energy bills. Well the saying goes that a week is a long time in politics and now Red Miliband has allowed Ofgem to increase the energy price cap to £1,849 per year - an increase of £111 per year compared to the last hike that Labour allowed through. So let's wind the clock back to July 2024 when Labour were elected.  They promised to reduce energy bills by £300 by the end of the term. At the time the Ofgem price cap was £1,568.  It then increased to £1,717 in October 2024...again in Jan 2025 it increased to £1,738 and now it will increase to £1,849 in April 2025. So that's an increase to £1,849 from ...

Starmer, in an attempt to appease the angry farmers, has created a Marie Antoinette moment by allowing the farmers to share some of his cake. In 2010, the government spent about £2.4 billion on food and catering services and it is believed to be £5Bn spend in 2025.  He has promised that UK farmers will get £2.5Bn of that £5Bn spend. In Q3 2024 there were 106,900 farmers in the UK (a fall of 1,400 since Q2 2024).   Assuming there are still 106,900 farmers in the UK he is offering to give £23,386 of food business to every farmer. Sounds reasonable although certainly not the millions he will take off them in inheritance tax. Doubtless farmers will be taxed on this extra income.... I think the bigger question is whether £5Bn spend by the government on food is excessive?  It certainly sounds a lot. Schools account for 29% Further and higher education is 29% Hospitals and care homes is 25% Armed forces is 11% Prisons is 5% Government offices is 1%So let's look at the numbe...

Following on from the previous blog about the stupidity of  Labours EPC #C plans , I thought I would do a little more digging into EPCs. To start with I thought about doing an EPC assessor course. Prices are about £1,000+VAT for an on-line (not taught) course.  Pretty steep. I also looked into whether there's an on-line points calculator - the problem is you have to take the EPC report  as gospel and can't challenge it. If you do a quick search on-line you find horror stories where a property was C.  Then the EPC expired requiring a new EPC and the new assessor scored the property "D" - WORSE !!! The problem is EPC scoring is not transparent - you are in the hands of someone that did an on-line course for 3 days.  Has not got a degree in building science and will guess or assume the worst. The EPC assessors must think we are stupid and won't ask questions.... So in short who knows what the real EPCs of my buildings are. You can't discuss things with an EPC ass...

 The wonderful Labour government has very generously given private Landlords until 2030 to improve the energy performance of rental properties to an EPC of C for incumbent tenants.  For new tenants they need to achieve this by 2028. I agree with the idea of energy efficiency in the home but it needs to be economically viable. Ignoring the fact that the EPC scoring system  is a work of fiction (for example installing triple glazed windows doesnt improve scores) I thought it would be interesting to work through the financial side of the EPC targets.  Social and council tenants currently do not have EPC targets of E (the current minimum for private landlords) although Labour seem to be suggesting that there won't be a 2 Tier system and that council and social landlords will also have to achieve C by 2030 (previously it was 2050 to achieve E). Although I suspect the council and social landlords wont have huge fines if they fail to achieve C.  Anyway it seems  c...

 Well it seems Labour is destined to give Mauritius £18Bn to take the Chagos islands off the UK's hands The 280 Chagos  natives of the islands were removed by the British back around 1970.  The compensation they received was £650k (£2,321 each at the time).   In today's money that would be £31,000 each although the average price for house in the UK in 1970 was £4,163 so the adjustment is closer to £125,000 in today's money.  The average Mauritian earns £4,200 per year so roughly they were given 10 years wages as compensation. It's possible to buy a nice house in Mauritius for £34,000 today so they certainly could have back in 1970. Given Mauritius never owned the Chagos islands, it is far from clear why the UK "should give them back" and indeed pay £18Bn "compensation".  The Chagos islands were a French colony that got bundled up with Mauritius for administrative purposes.  The Chagos natives speak a French creole which is different to the Mauriti...