Today’s blog-post features two ladies. One, Ms Blaise Metreweli (above) is the new “M” – head of MI6.
It must be said that the new chief is superbly well named for “Blaise Metreweli” could be taken straight out of a spy novel!
The Guardian reports upon her appointment here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/15/blaise-metreweli-named-as-first-woman-to-lead-uk-intelligence-service-mi6
The other is a lady with a name far less likely to be appearing in a spy novel, one Ms Michelle Eames of Helpbox UK. Ms Eames provides an accountancy service and has a most informative and helpful YouTube channel on the topic.
In particular, Ms Eames recent (as of publishing) video (https://youtu.be/s-SqWVIDxQ4) is most concerning to those with residential property lettings. The broader implications related to the concerns of the aforementioned should concern all of us living in the UK – particularly for those of us living in areas such as West Penwith where residential lettings that are NOT holiday lets are as rare as hens’ teeth!
WHY?
Because the requirement to submit quarterly returns plus an annual return will add hugely yo the cost and workload of those landlords. The effects of the new requirements will of course have an inverse effect in terms of landlords. Those large corporate landlords will be little concerned. They have hundreds, even thousands of properties in the multi-million pound portfolios and their in-house management teams will handle the new requirements with hardly any additional work. This however will most certainly NOT be the case with the vast number of landlords with one or maybe a couple of properties. If they manage their own lettings and do their own accounts it will add greatly to their workload. If they contract the management of their lettings to an estate agent and their accounts to an accountant, their costs will increase significantly and thus their return on their capital will be substantially reduced.
Now there are a number of my readers who live locally who would willingly admit that they identify as “Old Labour”, people who have never had any time for Tony Blair and “New Labour”! The attitude of these folk will likely be:
“So what? These capitalist landlords will have to buckle down and do more work for their money!”
My reply to my neighbours is this: They [the capitalist landlords] will not! Will not, that is continue to let their properties. They will evict ant tenant and put the property on the market. When sold they will invest the proceeds into high dividend UK equities. Doing this they will maintain more or less the same (net) income and will have simplified their tax returns – this for dividend income requires submission only on one annual tax return!
What this means is that the supply of residential lettings will decrease even more than it is at present!
This is going to make the UK’s housing crisis MUCH worse!