Money

Friday

Spectator Life

Where to buy property in London

With prices in many parts of the city already beginning to fall, buying in London is a minefield. Striking a balance between liveability and getting a good return on investment is the trick we should all be aiming to pull off. Afterall, buy somewhere that’s already got too many tattooed men selling flat whites and you’ll end up paying the price later when you realise values in the neighbourhood have topped out. Equally, buy somewhere that’s cheap, but far below the radar for cool hunters and you could end up with the same problem. We’ve picked out some areas in the north, east, south and west of the city that

Monday

Spectator Life

The 10 best London boroughs for families

New analysis of house prices and schools across London shows that, out of London’s 32 boroughs, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames are best for families. When comparing size of property, the amount of green space and, most importantly, quality of schools, Sutton soared to the top of the rankings with an average house price of £508,679 for a semi-detached property – not bad considering the average house price in London is £485,830. For this price, families will be getting approximately 100 square metres of property, in an area with the lowest crime rate in all of London. When it comes to giving the kids a chance to let off steam,

Thursday

Henry Wilkins

The six best commuter villages close to London

Staring into a stranger’s armpit on a rush-hour tube train can often lead to thoughts of moving to a tiny village. We imagine that, there, we might find the space to be ourselves. As a description of Louis de Bernieres’ fictional Surrey village, Notwithstanding, reads: it is a place where, “a lady dresses in plus fours and shoots squirrels, a retired general gives up wearing clothes altogether… and people think it quite natural to confide in a spider that lives in a potting shed.” Perhaps it’s just me, but as a Londoner, that all sounds rather liberating. In the interests of bucolic fantasies, we’ve put together a list of commuter

Monday

Michael Fotis

Is mobile banking app Monzo too good to be true?

Innovative, transparent, simple, easy, fair, open, helpful, honest, smart and caring. These are the top ten words customers use when describing Monzo’s culture on Smart Money People. It comes as little wonder then that since launching in 2015, Monzo has picked-up some two million current account customers, is valued at two billion pounds, and now has its sights set on cracking America. Young Brits have flocked to Monzo, and its bright coral card, in their droves, because carrying around a Monzo card is cool. Gimmicks like a rumoured £70 metal card which confers no additional benefits other than looking good in your hand as you pay for your chai latte,

Tuesday

James Max

How would Labour’s proposed tax grab affect your home?

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that Labour’s publication ‘Land for the Many’ is a set of policy ideas that solves the housing crisis. Increasing the supply of affordable housing and freeing up land to build, improving access to existing stock and transparency sounds fair, right? Yet tucked away inside the report, you’ll find a range of measures that could pull the market as we know it to pieces; it’s the most radical sets of property proposals since the mass building plan after the Second World War. The report’s editor, George Monbiot, has not thought through the unintended consequences of the proposals. Just one example and perhaps

Thursday

David Oldroyd-Bolt

The many, many millions of Mogg

I speak to Jacob Rees-Mogg down a crackling phone line. Despite the poor-quality of the sound, his voice is unmistakeable: those rounded Edwardian vowels; the careful, deliberate delivery of phrases which fall slightly at the end, like a gramophone needing an extra turn of the crank. It is as though some enterprising audio-logist had devised the perfectly reassuring voice and presented it, with great doses of warmth and humour, in this double-breasted package. A figure of intrigue (and not a little amusement) in the political world since first standing for Parliament in the safe Labour seat of Central Fife in 1997, there is a side to Rees-Mogg which few in