Rather amazingly, The Daily Telegraph has published a YPP Party Political Broadcast...

If you're under 30, bad luck. You're screwed.

YPP meet-up, Friday 14 November

As usual, The Brewmaster nr Leicester Square Tube (Exit 1 and turn left at the top of the stairs into "St Martin's Court") from 5.20 onwards.

We put a yellow YPP leaflet on the table so that you can recognise us.

Given how cold it is, we might have to retreat inside.

Agenda: The 2015 Constitutionalists UK Party, Something New Party, the Pirate Party, the app.

Like lambs to the slaughter

From City AM:

Private landlords’ property is worth £930bn – and is set to reach £1 trillion next year on the sustained rise in UK house prices, according to estimates by Kent Reliance...

And that has accelerated in the past year, thanks to rocketing prices. The average return over the past year in London was 21.4 per cent, with 16.4 percentage points of that coming from price rises.

“Private renting isn’t a flash in the pan, and 80 per cent of new households since 2001 have been accounted for in rental properties,” said Andy Golding, chief executive of OneSavings Bank which owns the Kent Reliance brand.

“While for many it is a lifestyle choice, the ongoing squeeze on wages, rising house prices, not to mention difficulty in obtaining sufficient mortgage finance is accentuating this shift in tenure from owner-occupation to long-term renting.

"In many ways, Britain is becoming a more normal nation, much more like its continental neighbours as a result."

Apart from the fact that most of our "continental neighbours" have rent controls, of course...

YPP meet-up, Friday 7 November

I suggest, as ever, the Brewmaster nr Leicester Square (Exit 1 and turn left at the top of the stairs into "St Martin's Court"). We put a yellow YPP leaflet on the table so that you can recognise us.

Given how cold it is, we might have to retreat inside.

Agenda: The 2015 Constitutionalists UK Party.

YPP meet-up, Friday 31 October

We are back on at the Brewmaster, nr Leicester Square Tube Station tomorrow, 5.20 onwards.

Agenda: Our man in Rochester had to withdraw from the by-election, so we will sit around and commiserate. Not much else, really.

Scary Halloween costume optional.

YPP meet-up Friday 17 October

Only three of us last week, not to worry, onwards and upwards.

Usual haunt, Brewmaster Pub near Leicester Square Tube station, alleyway at the back, tomorrow from 5.20-ish.

To discuss: Rochester by-election and Gareth's do at Henry George Foundation on Saturday 18 October.

Reader's Letter Of The Day

From todays Evening Standard (page 55):

Stamp Duty needs to be rethought entirely. It damages labour mobility and discourages pensioners from downsizing, reducing the supply of family housing among other ills.

A much fairer and efficient way to collect from the currently untaxed and unearned housing riches is via unavoidable annual taxes such as council tax. Unlike equivalent taxes in many of our peer cities around the world, [the value taken into account in calculating the tax] is currently capped at the equivalent of about £1 million in today's values.

At a time when people earning £10,001 incur a marginal tax rate of 32% in income tax and national insurance, I find it morally questionable to leave annual property taxes untouched.

Is this politically difficult? Most Londoners rent and have no realistic chance of living in a multi-million-pound-house. The middle classes have nothing to fear from higher property taxes and everything to fear from further increases [in taxes] on their earning power.

The asset-rich, cash-poor who do not wish to downsize can be accommodated by a roll up, which even over 30 years will only equate to the last five years' unearned capital gains.

All the better if extra council tax is kept in London: a big boost to local democracy.

Joe Momberg, Young People's Party.

See also the excellent, fact-filled article by Ben Chu (page 44) which says much the same thing.