London housing: Social homes plan to help capital's crisis
Under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, the government hopes to deliver 300,000 homes in total, 60% of which will be social homes.It did not specify what the other 40% will comprise of, but previously confirmed it would "fund other kinds of homes including shared ownership and affordable rent".
The current affordable homes programme ends in 2026, but there are existing concerns about the number of homes being built. In May, G15 - the group representing the largest housing associations in London - said there had been a 66% drop in new affordable homes built in the last two years.In a report, it urged "swift action" in the face of a "deepening housing crisis".It said 4,708 new home builds started in 2024–25, down from 13,744 two years earlier. Between January and March this year there was a 7% drop in new-build starts, compared with the same period in 2023, G15 said.
Meanwhile, Centre for London said the capital was "the epicentre of the housing crisis"."We are home to 50% of England's temporary accommodation population, despite only 15% of the population living in the capital," said the think tank's chief executive Antonia Jennings."Rent in London is 60% higher than the English average. And we have 366,000 Londoners on the social housing waiting list – larger than the household population of Leeds."Sir Sadiq said he continued to work closely with the government to "secure even more national support to help build the level of new housing London needs". "This includes investment in transport infrastructure, which would unlock thousands of new homes in the capital," he added.The government said it was determined to "tackle the acute and entrenched housing crisis".
Experts have also warned that while social and affordable homes are needed, the capital faces problems in their development.New housing regulations, lack of construction workers and materials, and housing associations not having the funds to buy more stock, will make the government target difficult to meet, said Christine Whitehead, Professor of Housing Economics at the London School of Economics.
Shadow housing minister David Simmons said: "We need to make sure that it is delivered in practice. "Bringing that confidence back to the market is the most important thing to address London's housing challenge."The feedback from the development sector, from the builders, from the suppliers of building materials, from across the skills sector, is that this is a difficult, if not impossible challenge."He added that it was about "the right kind of supply"."We know there are lots of people who not only need social homes, but want to get their first foot on the property ladder, and we need to make sure that there's that diversity," he said.
More than 70,000 homeless households in London are currently living in temporary residences provided by their local council, often a hostel or budget hotel room with limited facilities.Vicki, from east London, has been in temporary accommodation with her 17-year-old son for the last 21 weeks.She said more action needed to be taken now."I'm living in a hotel and I'm seeing so many families," she said. "We have no cooking facilities or washing facilities."You're in one room. There's a knock-on effect on education. It affects everything."
'Vital step'
Housing charity Shelter argued that to clear waiting lists and end the use of temporary accommodation, the government needed to build 90,000 new social homes a year for the next decade - five times the figure Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner committed to.Mairi MacRae, Shelter's director of campaigns, said the focus on social housing was "a vital step in tackling the housing emergency and getting homelessness under control", but urged the government to do more.
Rayner, who is also the Secretary of State for Housing, said the government's plans to build 180,000 new social homes in the next decade would "turn the tide on the housing crisis".The deputy prime minister called on the social housing sector to "work together to turn the tide on the housing crisis together" adding that the investment was "the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation".
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Times
33 minutes ago
- Times
Yes we can! A master of political slogans reveals his secrets
There can't be many people working in politics with a CV like Chris Bruni-Lowe's. One morning in late 2018 the pollster and strategist took an unexpected phone call from his old friend Nigel Farage. Together the two men had taken Ukip from nutty obscurity to nearly four million votes in a general election and the EU referendum victory it had always dreamt of. Now, with parliament deadlocked and Ukip back beyond the fringe, a restless Farage was planning his most audacious heist on British democracy yet: the Brexit Party. Now he needed a slogan. To Bruni-Lowe, a shaven-headed thirtysomething from south London, Farage was insistent: he wanted to promise a 'political revolution'. Saying no to Farage is never easy. But Bruni-Lowe did just that. 'I pointed out to him that the politically explosive connotations of the term made it a risky choice,' he writes in Eight Words That Changed the World, a fascinating and timely history of election slogans – some of them his. Instead he settled on a gentler line with a deliberate double meaning: 'Change politics for good.' Farage won the European elections of 2019, Theresa May was ousted as prime minister, then Boris Johnson got Brexit done. 'We had succeeded,' Bruni-Lowe reflects, 'in choosing the right word for the right candidate at the right time.' A couple of pages after this story Bruni-Lowe recounts another of his professional triumphs. 'I was advising Milojko Spajic, a former finance minister in Montenegro … He had resigned from the government six months earlier to found a new political party called Europe Now! and he wanted my help to win the presidential election in March 2023.' Pardon me? What now? Europe when? We thought you were the Farage guy. But no: here is Bruni-Lowe, settling on the slogan 'It's time' to help another upstart party 'overturn some deeply entrenched attitudes' and win an election on a pro-EU platform. It worked. Just how does he do it? In an age of volatile electorates and unpredictable polls, this stuff is more important than it has ever been. At their best, slogans capture the zeitgeist and express in not even a sentence the essence of a politician's mandate. Just ask Keir Starmer. 'Change', one of Bruni-Lowe's eight words, spoke to the anti-Tory mood of 2024, but is proving rather difficult to substantiate in office. Few people know all of this better than the author, a gun for hire whose work has taken him to almost every democracy in the world. There is a little bit of memoir in this pacey, breezily written history of a much misunderstood political art — I almost wanted more — but it is short on baccy-stained anecdotes about Farage. Instead, this short book's great strength is in its breadth and depth. Those eight words are people, change, democracy, strong, together, new, time and better, with a chapter for each — and two bonus choices, great and future, as our introduction and epilogue. Some are invariably more effective, ambiguous and elastic than others, but it of course depends where you are. As the Liberal Democrats have learnt from a century of banging on about proportional representation, lecturing UK voters about 'democracy' is likely to put them to sleep. In embattled states like Taiwan and Ukraine, however, it means something real. Parties that look knackered, meanwhile, can be reinvigorated by the judicious use of a single word. Old rogues like Recep Erdogan in Turkey and Viktor Orban in Hungary have both used the word 'time' to present themselves afresh to exhausted electorates. Political journalists like me are constantly discovering that there's really nothing new in our line of work — and that is also the lesson here. Not least the word 'new', which turns out to belong to rather more people than Tony Blair. Vladimir Putin, Erdogan and the Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko all used it to win the elections that would, in time, turn them into very old-school strongmen. The best slogans are a repository for millions of diffuse — and very different — hopes and dreams. • The 9 best politics books of the past year to read next Take Barack Obama. 'Yes we can' was his clarion call to a restive America in 2008. Even I, the sort of tragic political nerd who watches old Michael Cockerell documentaries on holiday, didn't know that Alex Salmond had used the same slogan for the SNP in the general election of 1997. As Bruni-Lowe notes, drily and wryly: 'It is plain to see that Alex Salmond and Barack Obama had different qualities.' It wasn't so much the slogan that mattered, but the time and place in which voters were reading it. 'The words can work,' he writes, 'but only if they're used by the right person at the right time.' See also: Winston Churchill. Almost absurdly, given how intimately he was then known by the British public, Churchill told voters that it was 'time for a change' in 1951. Despite knowing him only too well — just as they knew Farage by 2019 — they happened to agree. But when the Republicans ran Thomas Dewey against Franklin D Roosevelt with the same slogan in 1944, Americans laughed him out of the room. Yes, Roosevelt was running for an unprecedented and controversial fourth term — but the business end of the Second World War was not, it turned out, the ideal time for a change. Perhaps my favourite one of all is the frankly deranged slogan employed by the Japanese Social Democrats in 2021: 'Change is fun!' That may be the implicit logic of every 'change' line, but in this case the voters did not agree. They won one seat. As South Africa prepared for its first multiracial elections in 1994, Nelson Mandela — not a man we imagine as a ruthless electioneer — learnt a similar lesson. He told his American strategists, Stan Greenberg and Frank Greer, that he had come up with the ideal slogan for the African National Congress: 'Now is the time.' They duly polled it and found it resonated only with hardcore activists from the ANC. Mandela, 75 but ever conscientious, did not much like that. 'He really wanted to unite the country,' Greer, one of many gnarled veterans to speak on the record, tells Bruni-Lowe. 'I've never been a candidate,' Mandela would say. 'I want to learn how to be a candidate.' That resulted in a slogan befitting of a father of the rainbow nation: 'A better life for all.' • Read more book reviews and interviews — and see what's top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers List As Bruni-Lowe rightly concludes, the election slogan has never been more important. With everything up for grabs in British politics, his comrades in the polling fraternity should study his book. I bet Farage will. And if that scares you, read to the very end. The author's parting shot should terrify well-meaning liberals even more than the prospect of a Reform government. The reader we should worry about isn't an unscrupulous politician but ChatGPT. The future, Bruni-Lowe warns, is a world of 'hyper-targeted slogans', written by AI, mashing his eight words together in different orders for each individual voter and smashing our national conversation into tens of millions of pieces. That's certainly new. It will be a change too. And it's about time politics caught up with technology. But is it democracy? Eight Words That Changed the World: A Modern History of the Election Slogan by Chris Bruni-Lowe (Biteback £20 pp272). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
Telegraph
37 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The battle to save a high street giant from Woolworths' fate
The new owners of WH Smith's high street shops have vowed to arrest decades of decline after swooping on the business in a cut-price deal. Trading under the fictitious new name TG Jones, hundreds of stores are poised to be revamped with postal and banking services as part of a bold attempt to emulate Boots and become 'a vanguard retailer' that is part of the 'lifeblood' of communities. The changes are at the centre of a comprehensive restructuring plan put together by the investment firm Modella Capital, which completed a takeover of WH Smith's estate of 464 shops on Monday. The deal excludes branches in train stations and airports, which will continue to operate under the WH Smith name. Modella's buyout followed months of intense negotiations, including a last-minute reduction to the price tag after a deterioration in trading. The shops will continue to be run by Sean Toal, the managing director of WH Smith's high street arm since 2019. The introduction of vital services alongside everyday products is 'really important', if the shops want to become more relevant and the business is to avoid the same fate as other high profile retailers that fell out of favour, said Steve Curtis, Modella's chairman. 'We think there's a really exciting story here for a business that could have been Woolworths Two…There's no reason why, with the proper love and care and a bit of support, it should ever close. It should be in rude health,' Curtis added. Woolworths was a familiar presence on British high streets for more than 90 years until its collapse in 2008. Toal said: 'The high street is crying out for more services. There is a sense that the average high street is sort of being hollowed out. And a lot of the stuff that really makes a high street is just kind of fast disappearing.' Curtis added that the Post Office already has counters in nearly 200 branches, but the ambition was to have one 'of some size in every single one of our stores'. Modella points to the way Boots has managed to remain an enduring feature of town centres by providing prescriptions, vaccinations and advice for minor health ailments. Shops will be further rejuvenated through tie-ups with Hornby, the toymaker behind brands such as Airfix and Scalextric, as well as fantasy games sensation Warhammer. There are also plans for a fresh push into music after WH Smith reintroduced vinyl last year following a 30-year hiatus. Pick-and-mix – once a staple of Woolworths' shops – could make a comeback too. Curtis likened its ambitious plans to pointing a 'great old tanker' 'in a slightly different direction'. The changes will 'take a period of time' but 'by the time you get to the end of it, it's going to look quite different – it'll be a different vibe'. 'Grand old institution' WH Smith has faced enduring ridicule for allowing its stores to become tired and rundown. Eventually, the neglect became the inspiration for a Twitter account called @WHS_Carpet, which dedicated its time to naming and shaming the shabbiest premises. she's a beaut — carpet (@WHS_Carpet) June 19, 2025 When its plans to exit the high street were unveiled in March, industry figures expressed fears that as many as half its shops would be quickly jettisoned – but the opposite is true, Modella promises. A longstanding policy of shrinking the estate by shutting the worst-performing stores will be paused. Some are now in line for a much-needed facelift. Modella, which also owns Hobbycraft and the Original Factory Store, will pay £40m to take control, down from the £52m that was agreed when the deal was first unveiled, for a business that made £15m of operating profit in the preceding six months. Its revival rests on an ambitious cost-cutting plan in which landlords are persuaded to sign up to more affordable rents, and suppliers agree to more favourable terms. Money saved will then be reinvested in the turnaround. 'We're going to need help from a group of stakeholders to help us rebuild this grand old institution into something that it deserves to be,' Curtis said. 'Who the hell is TG Jones?' With the WH Smith name still appearing on hundreds of shops at airports, train stations and hospitals, Modella was forced to come up with a new brand for the shops, which have operated under the same name since the first WH Smith shop opened in Mayfair, central London, in 1792, when George III was on the throne. The 'TG Jones' name was invented by Modella directors. Marketing experts have cast doubt on the rebranding exercise, while the reaction of shoppers suggests it will be a battle to convince some that the business still has a future after its relaunch. A goodbye video posted on WH Smith's official Instagram account prompted a flurry of negative responses: 'Yeah, you've just killed the whole business mate. Nobody is going to TG Jones,' one reportedly said. 'Who the hell is TG Jones?' asked another, while a third described the redesign as 'horrific'. In a letter to staff, Modella said: 'As a very well-known surname in the UK, Jones feels like a worthy successor to Smith and carries the same sense of family.' With a logo made up of the same blue and white colours that have long been a feature of the WH Smith branding, customers will soon be won over, Curtis predicted. 'If you're in a town, you've lived there all your life, and you've walked down that street all your life, and the cover facia is still exactly the same white, exactly the same blue, you probably won't notice it,' he said. The signage on the stores will be changed to 'TG Jones' over the coming weeks and negotiations with landlords will begin in earnest, with Modella hoping to persuade them to grant more affordable rents. Shop owners will be coaxed with the offer of longer leases than they've become accustomed to under WH Smith. Building a future Around 350 stores are on leases of less than two years but Modella believes that by signing up to longer contracts – perhaps 10 years – landlords may agree to an initial period that is rent-free, which would release cash to re-invest in refurbishments. 'If we go to that landlord and say ... 'We'll use all that cash and we'll make that shop look really beautiful'… what that's doing is improving the asset. It also gives us a long-term partnership. So it's investing together,' Curtis said. 'Vacancies on UK high streets are running around about 14pc ... There's a lot of vacant units, so if they [landlords] can work with a partner that's prepared to put a long-term commitment down ... For some of these landlords these are pension funds for their families ... it creates security,' Toal said. There are even plans for several new store openings. 'We're not in Manchester city centre ... We should be ... and we're under-represented as a retailer in London,' Toal said. The last time WH Smith opened a store on a UK high street was decades ago. 'We want to send a message to the market ... We want to open stores where it's viable to do so,' Curtis said. Modella is betting that suppliers will be similarly receptive. 'I think suppliers thought this business hasn't got a future. They now think, 'boy, has it got a future' ... which is brilliant for them, because rather than supplying 100 stores in three years' time, they're hopefully going to be supplying 500 – that's massive for them,' Curtis said. This optimism isn't necessarily shared everywhere. Some retail figures believe the business has a slim chance of survival. Meanwhile, the Communication Workers Union has expressed fears that Modella could even be 'looking to asset-strip it'. Such suggestions are rejected. 'It generates cash. It's got a solid level of profitability ... There's much more value for us here in growing something that makes X today, and Y tomorrow ... If we are on the up in 10 years' time, there's no reason why we couldn't float this business, because it could be worth a lot of money,' Curtis said. 'We could easily just say that they should quietly close this over the next couple of years but you don't need to ... and we don't want the high streets of this great nation of ours to be proliferated with charity shops, vape shops and coffee shops,' he added. 'We're in a lot of locations. If we're not there, then who else is going to come in?' Toal said.
Telegraph
37 minutes ago
- Telegraph
How dare entitled MPs say the ‘middle class' doesn't deserve financial help
This week, 11 MPs on a combined salary of £1,032,944 decided one of the only saving products to help first-time buyers should be scrapped because they fear it is used by too many middle-class people. The Treasury Committee urged Rachel Reeves to 'consider the future' of the Lifetime Isa (Lisa), a tax-free saving product that allows people under 40 to invest up to £4,000 per year, which is matched by a £1,000 contribution from the Government. They took particular aim at the 25pc bonus, suggesting this £600m outlay was not a good use of taxpayer money given the 'current strain on public finances'. Of course, these MPs, who were handed a £2,558 pay rise in April, are spot on. It has never been easier for young people to get on the housing ladder. Everywhere you look young people are buying homes like never before! Walk down a residential street in Britain, all you can see are happy young people moving into their first homes. It's about time we stopped this Lisa racket and stopped giving the bloody middle class a hand up in getting on the property ladder. Are these really the thoughts that were racing through MPs' heads? I have to confess I am one of those young people, aged 25, hopefully saving into a Lisa each year, but stuck at home with little hope of getting out. According to NatWest, I'm not alone. They found the average person now lives with their parents until the age of 28. House prices are now eight times higher than median wages – more than double what they were in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the average age of a first-time buyer is creeping ever closer to 40. It now averages 34 in England and 35 in London, according to the English Housing Survey. These figures have become almost meaningless today. They are rattled out all the time. Half of them were even in the Treasury Committee report. But clearly these MPs don't understand the significance of them. They don't understand that while they collect a salary of £93,904 per year, while also being able to expense their rent and travel, millions of young people are sitting in their parents' basement growing ever more disillusioned with their future. The lifetime Isa, launched in 2017, offered a way on to the housing ladder. It certainly isn't perfect. The purchasing cap of £450,000 has remained frozen since its inception, leaving many home buyers in the South East facing a punitive 25pc withdrawal fee if they buy a home above this price. The cap would be £600,000 if it had risen in life with inflation. But again, the Committee squirmed at the idea that the Government should support anyone but the neediest in owning a home. They said the frozen £450,000 cap was justified because it 'ensures that Government spending supports those who need financial assistance the most'. It is such an infantile argument to suggest that the Lisa should be reformed because it's not used by the poorest in society. Any form of savings account will always be disproportionately used by those who have more money because they can afford to put aside some of their salary each month. By that logic, you might as well scrap all Isas. Just scrap all savings accounts, and we can all be poor and equal. There is no doubt the 25pc bonus is generous. No other savings account will pay out such a return, but rather than this being a poorly targeted support that aids the super wealthy, it is in fact a great leveller. There are 1.4 million active Lisa holders. Since 2018-19, 228,000 people have used Lisas to buy 182,500 homes, which equates to an average of 38,000 homes purchased each year. These are not the super-rich, but the hard-working middle class. Moneybox, one of the largest providers of Lisas, said 80pc of its account holders earned £40,000 or less. Tembo Money found its Lisa customers earned £41,000 a year on average, and were able to buy a home four years earlier than those without Lisas. Be in no doubt – these people would have been less able to afford their home without the 25pc bonus. It's hard to understand what message this cross-party group of MPs therefore are trying to send to young people. Dame Meg Hillier, a Labour MP and chairman of the Committee, questioned whether it was 'the best way to spend billions of pounds over several years'. But £600m is a drop in the ocean of the £3bn about-turn Sir Keir Starmer has made on personal independence payments. And it doesn't compare to the £1.25bn winter fuel farce either. Chancellor Rachel Reeves would do well to ignore almost every one of the 64-page report put together by the Treasury Committee. There is a breaking point at which young people will stop paying for about-turn after about-turn from their parents' basement.
