A row has broken out over the head of a think tank who surprised Labour Party members by being appointed as a candidate in a safe seat ahead of the July 4 General Election.
The Resolution Foundation is a think tank which describes itself as “independent” but now its chief executive, Torsten Bell, has been named as Labour’s candidate for the party stronghold of Swansea West.
As recently as April Bell’s think tank issued a report claiming that no more than one per cent of landlords had quit the sector as a result of interest rates soaring and the sharp increase in buy to let operating costs. The foundation dismissed concerns over the costs to landlords as “scare stories”.
Controversially the foundation said in its report in April - before Bell’s elevation to Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Labour - that popular arguments on what caused rent rises were wide of the mark.
It said the theory that rising interest rates have pushed up the cost of servicing Buy to Let mortgages – forcing landlords to pass on these costs to their tenants – ignored the fact that landlords’ ability to pass on higher costs was ultimately constrained by the wider rental market. If it were so easy for landlords to unilaterally choose to increase rents, they would likely have done so before recent times, said the foundation.
The foundation report also claimed there had also been what it called ”scare stories about interest rate rises and tougher regulation sparking a mass exodus of landlords from the private rental sector, reducing the supply of available homes.” It said this wasn’t true.
However Bell’s appointment as candidate over the weekend has sparked criticism according to BBC reports.
The corporation says former Labour MP Beth Winter said the appointment of Bell was "an insult to party members, an insult to Wales, and an affront to democracy".
The BBC also quotes local Swansea West party members saying they are "angry" and "disappointed" by the decision.
One local member said he was now "seriously questioning" his membership of the party - adding "I'm furious. The party is riding roughshod over the core membership. It’s tone deaf. We have very good potential candidates who live and work here in Swansea, who have driven Swansea through some extremely difficult times in the last 14 years. To parachute someone in makes me extremely angry."
The Welsh Labour Party told The BBC that "Torsten brings a wealth of experience in economic policy and tackling child poverty. He will be real champion for Swansea West.”
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That’s Labour for you. Running rough shod. See what else goes off ( after they win the election- I fear).
The hard left will take over when Labour win the election!
"If it were so easy for landlords to unilaterally choose to increase rents, they would likely have done so before recent times, said the foundation"....
No, dumb dumb, that's just what YOU would do
Maybe a good idea to increase rents before the next government gets in? Thanks for the heads up Torsen.
Labour have already stated they will ignore local concerns about building 🥵🥵 green belt watch out 🫣🫣. It hasn’t occurred to them to limit net migration instead of concreting all the land 🤷♂️
Only 1%!!!?😂 😂.... My ar*e!
Update... I'm one of the "1%"...good news fellow landlords... My court hearing went in my favour on Friday and my tenants have 60 days to leave. It felt like an interrogation! Unbelievable that someone should have to go through this to gain possession of their own property. It's taken me nearly 2 years to get my own property back and I'll no doubt have the same fight with the rest of my portfolo...who'd be a landlord in 🏴 Scotland ?
Excellent news, Shane. 👍 Let’s hope they leave quietly and then you can 🍾🍾🍾
Congratulations Shane!
Good luck to you. I am pleased. It's dreadful you want your own property back and you have all these people that have ZERO CLAIM to YOUR PROPERTY and acting like judge and jury.
Excellent Result Shane, glad you got the property back.
Next Labour will be parachuting (or dive bombing) Ben Twomey of Generation Rent as housing minister!
Or worse still Beadle's About.
Nick, without a doubt Beadle Will Be About with this gang.
Peter, if you are a "responsible landlord" you will have nothing to fear :))))
100% Beadle will be on the gravy train soon, for being a good little boy and following orders
Good luck if they don’t obey the Court Order you’ll have the expense of paying busy Bailiffs another possible delay waiting for their date. I have had that then disappear 2 hours before the Bailiffs arrived but I still had the expense of paying them.
Exactly Michael. It's no wonder landlords are exiting
When all said and done the Labour Party couldn’t have gotten away with what the Conservatives done to us this last 14 years introducing labour’s John Prescott’s Policies.
Nigel Farage has done another somersault he is not standing then he is standing again after checking which way the wind was blowing, maybe 8th time will be lucky but I haven’t forgiving him over Brexit he was all Business then when it happened washed his hands of it, after the damage was done. Poland were clever enough they kept their more powerful Zloty’s didn’t get caught with the rubbish Euro currency like neighbouring Countries of the UK.
I don't forgive him over Brexit at all, but I think we need more of his way of thinking in general rather than what we get from Labour and the faux Tories. No need to discuss Lib Dems, or Greens!
As he said this afternoon, he changed his mind. Has nobody ever noit changed their mind. Once the Brexit vote was won, he had notjing to campaign for and decided to sort his finances. Then came the CVoutts scandal.
REFORM has my vote.
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