‘Tis another beautiful summer morning with more sunshine and high temperatures promised. Sadly, the pollen count remains very high, so yours truly is writing this through gritty eyes. Our esteemed MSM are going overboard with wall-to-wall reportages on the Nottingham murder and the grief of the families: “Newspaper headlines: ‘United in love’ and ‘Mortgage rates on the rise’” (link).
It’s interesting that only the FT and iNews have ‘mortgage news’ on their front pages, being the odd ones out yet again. Looking at iNews I note that their exclusive poll shows how homeowners turn from the Tories because of yon mortgage rise:
“Homeowners are turning their backs on the Tories as high interest rates increase the costs of their mortgages, exclusive polling for ishows. […] While the Conservatives have traditionally enjoyed strong support from mortgage holders, the party now finds itself “uniquely vulnerable to the stresses felt by [the group] as we enter the last year before a general election”, […].” (link)
Well, it is going to be hard, not least because inflation is still with us. How a tax-hike Labour regime would make this better I dunno, but then I read the following (all emphases are mine):
“Households with mortgages more than six times their income were categorised as in “extreme danger”, with those holding mortgages between four and six times their income deemed “at risk”.” (link)
How is it even possible that mortgage lenders allow people to take out mortgages six times their income? How is it even possible that people contract such mortgages? There’s more:
“[The polling report] said those in “extreme danger” likely “have little in the way of savings and so literally have no significant financial horizon”, adding that “one financial event would drive them into mortgage default”. Meanwhile, those in the “at risk” category are likely feeling vulnerable to “real financial exposure and fragility” despite stable jobs and comfortable incomes, the polling firm said.” (link)
I am puzzled by the thought processes of yon householders who seem to believe that a Labour government would be able to ‘save’ them. Do they expect Starmer and consorts to tell the big bad banks to lower mortgage repayments because banksters are gangsters and everybody should be protected from the consequences of their own greed and folly? Do they believe that Labour will have pity and alleviate the misery of living with this ‘extreme risk’ which:
“[…] could mean the next general election will be shaped by the “hamster wheel households” living under the burden of rate rises and spiraling [sic] prices during the cost of living crisis.” (link)
Fascinating, isn’t it, how the cause for the ‘spiralling prices’ is generously overlooked, as if the current inflation just happened, out of the blue, like an Act of God. Fascinating, isn’t it’, how the exorbitant home energy prices, starting in the autumn of 2021, are no longer mentioned. Fascinating, isn’t it, how Labour, as much in thrall to Net Zero as the Tories, aren’t painting the energy suppliers as big, bad capitalists, needing to be curbed as much as the mortgage lenders.
But let’s not be too harsh when judging those ‘at risk’ homeowners. After all, thanks to the BoE and government, interest rates here as well as in the EU were practically only nominal if not ‘negative’ for at least the twelve years since the 2008 bank crash. Savers, thus punished, obviously ‘fled’ into real estate while mortgage payments were low.
Economics are difficult, especially when politicians abuse this to promote their own goals such as the ‘negative interest rates’ promoted by EU ‘economists’. Real life circumstances have a habit of biting those who accept the slogans of politicians, that consumption is good for the economy and savings are bad.
I leave you with another piece of ‘news’: the erstwhile PM is hell-bent on destroying his party any way he can. His erstwhile Director of communications penned a piece for the DM, headlined “GUTO HARRI: The anger we’ve seen from Boris this week is nothing to the nuclear fury he truly feels” (link).
Scanning this piece, I got the impression that BJ is now hell-bent on destroying that which he cannot have: the Tory Party. It’s what toddlers do, and what those adults do who have ‘a mental problem’, to be polite and stay away from psychological judgements. But it’s great theatre, just right for the Silly Season.
That’s all I have for today. From personal experience I can tell you that trying to type while being plagued with sneezing bouts is difficult. Forget the pollen though – enjoy the sunshine! Have a good day.
You call that a party.. A few cans, sandwiches. Mean and tidy That’s no party. That photo, Why ?. I’ld be ashamed of that for the factory cat.. At the age of 90 and I’d be bored… What is the matter with them, to keep mouths shut. Sad little forgetable voters.. I support Boris against the pettyfogging, .
BJ is now hell-bent on destroying that which he cannot have?
He should save his energy; they are doing a fine job it all by themselves.
And aren’t people forgetting it was he who wanted an amnesty for illegal immigrants, he who let in 136,000 dependents of students, and he who went green-crap on steroids under this wife’s tutelage and pushed the lockdown/jab buttons probably in cahoots with his, IMHO, nasty globalist Malthusian father?
You are being far too generous to Doris. We are dealing with the scum of the earth here!
On Tuesday I attended a talk by a very senior, recently retired mandarin. I cannot say who spoke as the talk was under Chatham House rules. The speaker said that ‘Whitehall’ was very happy, relieved in fact, that Sunak was now PM and even used the cliché that the ‘grown ups were back in charge’. He was a living caricature, and another illustration that there really is a blob of self-satisfied ‘new elites’. He did make one revealing remark, in response to a question about the effects of governments attending to short term issues only with an eye on the next election, and that was that how to get back to a national strategy, now so absent from both parties, was a conversation they were having in Whitehall! The speaker was blithely unaware how political that statement was and it illustrated perfectly how Whitehall believes it should be running the country with politicians merely front men and women, puppets to their grand strategy and vision. Some limited variation between Labour and Conservative may be permitted, perhaps, but the mandarins really prefer to rule unhindered by anything as messy as democracy. They are Davos men, disciples of the separation of politics and economics. Whatever we plebs may be allowed to vote for it must not interfere with running the global economy.
Populism, whether on the continent or here, is about ‘taking back control’. After the shock of Brexit, they are playing a long game, in consort with the EU and other supranational organisations such as the UN and its various agencies such as the WHO, of making sure we never do get control. And they are winning as they attack and topple the two symbols of populism, Johnson and Trump.
A recent poll shows that as mortgage rates rise so more people turn against the Tories. Result, So don’t expect the economy to be manages to reduce mortgage rates and house prices anytime soon.
Johnson, when he fronted Vote Leave, was an apostate. He was naive in not realising that the greatest animus of all is reserved for apostates, but he realises it now.
Between now and the next election the blob has to decide between Sunak and Starmer. Who do they trust the most? Who will be the best puppet? Who will they want to win? Forget the virtual reality of the media, the chimera that we will be deciding. Sunak has about a year to make his stick with me case as Starmer tries to convince Whitehall that he is their best bet. Harman and Labour in expelling Johnson are signalling it is us. The Tories turning on him are saying look, it us after all that the blob can trust. The next election is a contest for the blob’s favour. It won’t be us deciding the next election whatever the polls say. The running dogs in the media may yet change the national mood. Sunak’s visit to Biden, his Windsor Framework betrayal, were his attempts to enlist international support, for the blob is international.
Thanks for this post, stout, especially for the revealing reply from that nameless mandarin. If Sunak manages to pull together an ‘international’ political programme, thanks to being in bed with Biden and e.g. Macron, and if he manages to shine as acceptable international ‘face of the UK’, e.g. at the G7, then I think the Blob will support him, surreptitiously – especially since Starmer doesn’t look like someone the international coterie will warm to.
Oh for the times when the British empire was “run” by 4,000 ‘amateurs’ in Whitehall …
Undoubtedly 90% of establishment MPs are quite happy to sit back and pretend they are in charge when in fact it is the Whitehall mandarins. But this arrangement needs the continued support of establishment parties by the general public. Should the British people find their cojonnes and a bit of common sense like the German people have done by supporting AFD, then centre Right challenger parties may come to the fore and scuttle the agenda of the man from Whitehall.
There are more us than them!
Stout, In your opinion ( Guess, gut feeling ) the On the basis of basic gut belief in.their own in traditional societies on the ” wild guess basis ”
To what extent do the blob controllers in each sector plus or minus 20% :–, 1 Control their own ranks. 2..Control the media. 3. Control the Institutions 5 Control the Public services 6. Control the committee population 7 control the banking sector/City 8.. Control Manual workers,9. Control the benefits culture. We have all considered biting the hand. ..and finally 10. Yourself.
That’s al ot of thinking and guessing. But it’ll be basic to their mindset
They control their own ranks absolutely. Elsewhere control is often indirect in that mandarins present minsters with choices they vet beforehand and so slant things. At other times they rely on the tendency of people to recruit in their own image. When it occasionally goes wrong, as with Richard Sharp, they leak information and the press does the rest.
. Every strand helps. Thanks
“the cliché that the ‘grown ups were back in charge’.
I read this this morning and I am still boiling with rage, at this remark by this smug parasite on a huge pension off the backs of taxpayers who do real work. I very much hope that the Great Reset backfires on him and bites him on the bum. Big time.
Let’s not forget that the lockdowns and the scamdemic behind them were a deliberate attempt to trash our economy. I’m sure that there is much more to come in pursuit of the UN’s population reduction target. Sadly far too many are still likely to call “conspiracy theory” in spite of the published plans of the globalists.
Shortage of housing caused by immigration is one cause.
Housebuilders and their political friends control the supply of new housing and thus prices. Why sell a house for a small profit when you can sell it for a larger profit in a sellers market? The building land they own is better than money in the bank. As long as the population increases and house supply is restricted there’s big money to be made.
(Maybe this is the reason the government is letting in all the invaders.)
If house prices were to crash, there’d be a lot of negative equity and lots of lenders would go bust as any housing they repossessed would not cover the loans taken out for them. Meanwhile the borrowers would still owe the money.
The other cause is the rise in price of energy caused by the Ukraine war.