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Welcome to this week’s The State We’re In from Liverpool where I am in the thick of it (sorry). I want to talk you through Labour’s flagship announcement for first-time buyers but, first, let me set the scene.
This year, Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool is, as I wrote in my column yesterday, a noticeably more positive affair – and not just because the branding for Burnham’s premiership is “Hope Again”. The mood is lighter, and, aside from a few disgruntled Starmerites, there is, genuinely, more unity in the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Something else is different, too. Burnham’s Cabinet ministers are noticeably more serious and united, this is somewhat ironic given the fact that this was what Starmer’s government tried to project. The vibe has, indeed, shifted.
What we know about Ranulph Fiennes care home row
Once described as “the world’s greatest living explorer”, Sir Ranulph Fiennes disappeared from public view in 2024.
Members of his family allege they have not been allowed to visit him.
Who is Ranulph Fiennes?
- Ranulph Fiennes, 82, is a famed explorer, known for his Transglobe Expedition.
- He is related to actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes.
- In September this year, his relatives raised the alarm that they had not been allowed to visit him.
- Fiennes disappeared from public in 2024 after opening up about his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
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Allegations of a family rift
In September, published its first story airing concerns from friends who alleged Fiennes’ wife, Louise Millington-Cotes, was not allowing anyone else to see him.
The newspaper reported allegations that Fiennes had been moved around multiple care homes under false names.
Campaign to free him
The explorer’s stepson, Alex Millington-Cotes, has said he is desperate to visit Fiennes again, and told the BBC he wants power of attorney removed from his mother.
“He’s not an isolated type of person, and so to see him isolated now is very painful,” he said.
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King urged to help
- Concerned friends reportedly wrote to King Charles, an old friend of Fiennes’, but the Palace was also unable to get through to him.
- Alex Millington-Cotes has launched a fundraiser to “locate and safeguard” the explorer.
Louise Millington-Cotes has not responded to the allegations
When you could buy gene-edited bananas that don’t go brown
Step aside banana bread, scientists at a start-up in Norwich have created bananas that keep their colour in your fruit bowl for longer before turning brown.
The flashy new fruit can even stay yellow for up to 24 hours after peeling.
Everything you need to know
- Tropic Biosciences has developed gene-edited bananas which can last longer.
The start-up used the CRISPR-Cas9 process to tweak three genes which make bananas turn brown.
It means the fruit does not produce the polyphenol oxidase enzyme responsible for pesky fruit-bowl browning.
The bananas have marketing approval from the environment secretary but must pass the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) checks before they can go on sale.
Why is this significant?
According to Gilad Gershon, the CEO of Tropic, the edited bananas can resist browning by an extra day or two. He said this would “open up a lot of value in reducing waste”.
It is not known how long it could take for the FSA to approve the bananas for safe sale in the UK. If they make it through, they will need to be labelled as “gene edited”.
How long will the warm weather last for?
Tuesday is set to be warm and sunny, with a brief spike in temperatures, but later in the week, the mercury will struggle to get beyond 20°C.
Warmer than average
On Tuesday, temperatures are set to hit 26°C in London and parts of the South East, continuing into a muggy night.
Met Office meteorologist Clare Nasir forecasts:”A breezy day, but also a warm one… temperatures today will be well above average for this time of year, particularly for England and Wales.”
Fresher end to the week
- Nasir warned there is a risk of “some intense bursts of rain” followed by showers on Wednesday.
- The Met Office forecast that the weather will turn “a little fresher from Thursday with showers or longer spells of rain at times, mainly in the west”.
- As the week goes on, temperatures are set to drop, with very few areas expected to reach 20°C or above.
Snooker champion Graeme Dott jailed for child sex abuse
Former snooker world champion Graeme Dott has been found guilty of sexually abusing two primary school-age children.
In August, he was found guilty of two counts of lewd, indecent and libidinous behaviour and on Tuesday he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
What you need to know
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how Dott subjected a girl and a boy to multiple incidents of abuse, with the girl targeted between 1993 and 1996 and the boy between 2006 and 2010.
The jury heard Dott exposed himself in front of both children, touched them inappropriately and kissed them.
What did the victims say?
- One of Dott’s victims, now in her 40s, told the court Dott had sexually abused her on multiple occasions.
- The second victim, now in his late 20s, also said he was sexually abused on multiple occasions.
- Lord Harrower, the judge, told Dott he had “robbed the complainers of a significant part of their childhood”.
- He added the behaviour bore “the hallmarks of grooming”.
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Men feel happier than women about how they look, study finds
Researchers at the BI Norwegian Business School also found men overestimated their IQ, while British people generally rated themselves less attractive than other nationalities.
What did the study find?
- Men consistently gave themselves higher ratings for physical attractiveness than women.
- Participants scored themselves between 0 and 100.
- On average, men scored 6-8 per cent higher than women.
- How attractive the participants were considered by other people was not part of the study.
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A closer look at the study
The study also found that men and women with higher IQs tended to rate themselves as less attractive.
Britons generally rated themselves less attractive than their American, Australian, Canadian and South African counterparts. Researchers suggested this could be a symptom of British manners, with more emphasis on “modesty or understatement”.
What does this mean?
Professor Adrian Furnham, who led the study, noted men often overestimate their IQ, while women typically underestimate it.
He said the similar gap in attractiveness self-ratings could be another indication of “male hubris versus female humility”. He added that more intelligent people could be “more honest”.
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How the UK could rejoin the EU, step by step
Labour grandees have urged Andy Burnham to start preparing to reverse Brexit – but high hurdles would have to be overcome.
Why is it coming up now?
Sadiq Khan said he wants Britain to return to the customs union “almost straight away” and provision in the next Labour manifesto to reverse Brexit without a referendum.
However, experts are sceptical. Polls indicate a narrow majority of Britons support the idea of rejoining, but it may require more support before we could rejoin.
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What the process could look like
Experts warned it could also take five to 10 years to get back in.
Here’s how rejoining might look:
- A second vote is not technically necessary but leading experts think a referendum would likely be needed to provide a stable mandate to start negotiations with the EU.
- If the UK applied to rejoin, the EU would need to ensure the applicant met the 1993 Copenhagen Criteria.
- If talks then began, there would be a series of big issues to resolve.
- The EU could demand that Britain use the Euro and become part of the Schengen Area.
The expert analysis
Experts disagree on the likelihood the UK could be allowed to opt-out of either the Schengen Area or the Euro. Dr Thomas Sampson, economist and Brexit expert at LSE, suggested it is possible the EU would be willing to let Britain rejoin under the same deal.
But others suggested the EU would want to lock the UK into the Euro to “make it harder for [us] to ever leave”.
- The European Commission would need to approve any deal for the UK to rejoin. A majority of MEPs in the European Parliament would also have to vote in favour and all the bloc’s member states.
- Professor Catherine Barnard, an expert in EU law at the University of Cambridge, thinks negotiations and ratification could take as long as a decade.
- If talks did not start until after a Labour general election victory in 2029, it could be 2040 before Britain was back in the bloc.
Watch more from The i Paper
New treatment for ultra-rare ‘second skeleton’ disorder
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) is a “devastating, irreversible” genetic condition.
What is FOP?
- According to the charity FOP Friends, there are around 70 known people with FOP in the UK.
It is one of the rarest diseases in the world, affecting around one in a million people.
FOP is a genetic condition which leads to the body creating extra bones in locations where they should not form, including inside muscles, tendons and ligaments.
What is the treatment?
A new “disease modifying” treatment has been shown to reduce new bone growth by more than 90 per cent, reduce flare-ups and potentially offer hope for new surgical options in the future.
The drug garetosmab is an antibody that blocks a protein called activin A, which has been found to be critical in the development of new abnormal growth development in people with FOP.
63 adults were involved in the trial, which saw a massive reduction in flare-ups in the groups which received the treatment.
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Writing in , the authors said they expect the drug to enable “long term preservation of mobility and function”.
Chris Bedford-Gay, FOP Friends founder, said the community “has desperately waited for a way to stop FOP in its tracks”. He added this “is the moment a life-changing treatment comes that bit closer”.
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Right, let’s talk about “Your First Home” and what I’ve gleaned so far about how the policy will work.
Announced on Saturday night to kick off proceedings here in Liverpool, setting the tone of Burnham’s first conference as Prime Minister and offering a carrot to younger generations, this is intended to provide an injection of state cash for young people without wealthy parents.
The policy, crucially, is also a carrot for Britain’s struggling housebuilding industry which, as I wrote last week, is in the doldrums.
What is ‘Your First Home’?
This is a cautious refresh of the Tories’ Help to Buy equity loan scheme but, as I have been told by those in the know, with “strict guardrails”.
First-time buyers on what Burnham has described as “regular incomes”, with 2.5 per cent deposits but without access to the Bank of Mum and Dad, will be able to apply for a Government-backed, interest-free equity loan worth 20 per cent of the purchase price of a new-build home.
This is a key point: YFH will only be available for new-builds. Help to Buy was initially available on all homes and that’s the bit of the Tories’ scheme which appears to have caused a bit of house price inflation.
The buyer will then have a 77.5 per cent mortgage with a regular lender. But, once you factor in the government loan, they are effectively borrowing 97.5 per cent of their home’s value which is a huge amount of debt to be taking on.
That said, the Government say that because the equity loan part will initially be interest-free, eligible first-time buyers “could save hundreds of pounds per month” compared with a standard 95 per cent mortgage.
It’s also worth noting that Help to Buy loans went up to 40 per cent in London, so YFH is much more modest.
So, who is eligible for YFH?
This is where we need more information. I cannot yet get any information on how Burnham and his housing team, a) plan to define a “regular income” and b) plan to work out who does and doesn’t have the Bank of Mum and Dad behind them.
For instance, will a nurse earning less than £30,000 a year who inherited £10,000 when her mum died be eligible or not?
A clue on the sort of people we might expect this scheme to target may lie in existing shared ownership eligibility requirements.
The household income limit for shared ownership is £90,000 a year in London and £80,000 outside. So, I think it’s fair to assume that YFH will be in a similar ballpark.
With the average salary of a first-time buyer in the UK being around £36,000, according to Mortgage Advice Bureau, this would mean some couples looking to get a foot on the housing ladder would be ineligible for the scheme.
Capping the deposit required at 2.5 per cent is supposed to give young people who are struggling to save the whopping amounts of cash now required to move a leg up.
What are the potential pitfalls of YFH?
Again, we need more detail. But, like Help to Buy, making the equity loan interest-free at first is appealing but, as I know from personal experience, when the interest does kick in, your costs suddenly soar. My Help to Buy loan currently costs me more than £350 a month.
If house prices continue to stagnate, as they have in recent years, there is also a risk that people who use this scheme will have taken on large debts only to see their home remain at the same value or, worse, because there is a premium on new-builds, dip in value.
This could potentially land them quickly in negative equity, where the value of your borrowing is bigger than the value of your property, leaving them stuck with their current lender or unable to sell their home.
What are the upsides of YFH, then?
Well, it will help people into homeownership just as Help to Buy did. There’s no doubt about that. And, stricter eligibility requirements should stop speculators becoming involved.
This isn’t just about young people, though. It’s also about our economy.
As I wrote last week, Britain’s economic watchdog is considering downgrading the growth score they’d attached to Labour’s housebuilding plans because builders are struggling to get new homes out of the door.
This isn’t just a problem for housebuilders, but for economic health overall. YFH is explicitly intended to be a shot in the arm for the development industry and has already seen share price rises among major developers including Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey.
It doesn’t come without conditions, builders will be expected to pay to be involved. Again, we don’t yet have the details on that.
As ever, the devil will be in the detail. But, when you consider it in the round, Labour have taken decisive action to do something about the housing market which was stalling and, potentially, about to tip into the red zone.
Have you had problems with Help to Buy? I’d love to chat. Email me at vicky.spratt@theipaper.com
Housing crisis watch
There are more major announcements coming from Angela Rayner’s housing department.
Firstly, she is giving councils stronger powers to take over empty and derelict homes and meet council housing need by using them to house people who are stuck in temporary accommodation because they’ve become homeless.
Labour say that the changes could make it simpler for councils to bring some of the more than 300,000 empty dwellings into use to provide essential housing for families in need.
It will all be achieved via empty dwelling management orders (Edmos), which allow councils to take over the management of long-term empty homes and bring them back into occupation for an initial period of 12 months, up to a total of eight years.
In the English Devolution White Paper, the Government committed to strengthen local authority powers to take over management of empty properties.
This is something Andy Burnham pumped funding and resources into when he was the mayor of Greater Manchester. I interviewed him about it here last year. Worth re-reading.
It doesn’t stop there. In her speech today, Rayner also announced beefed up powers for local councils to tackle homelessness which will be added to the Social Housing Bill.
They include:
- A new requirement to notify – reducing much-needed social homes from leaving the sector by requiring housing associations and other providers to notify the council when they are selling a social home, while also doubling the time for this before a home is sold to maximise opportunities for councils, or other social housing providers, to buy the property.
- A new duty to collaborate – compelling public services to work together to prevent homelessness and support those who are at crisis point, mandating early identification of those at risk of or experiencing homelessness, ensuring they are referred into the right support. Learning from Scotland and Wales, where such a duty is already in place, the Government says this will ensure people get the right support they need and support the new national effort to end rough sleeping.
This might sound technical but it will join up the dots in a system which, frankly, is fragmented and chaotic.
Honestly, mostly the booklet you get given at the Labour conference which tells you what is happening when.