Rachel Reeves vs The Snails
Plus the Omaze mansion tax, curious London transport theories, and dubious landlords: A weekend edition featuring updates on some of London Centric's ongoing stories.
There are many news outlets that claim to be changing the world with their journalism. Only paying London Centric members can say their subscription has helped spark multiple debates about snail sex in the House of Commons.
This week we’re grateful to Phil Brickell MP, who read out chunks of our recent investigation into mollusc tax avoidance in the House of Commons during the debate that followed Rachel Reeves’ Budget speech.
Meanwhile, Kensington and Bayswater MP Joe Powell, who has also told the Commons about our dive into the world of amorous gastropods, was personally thanked by Reeves in her speech for highlighting the impact of tax evasion on high streets.
Powell has previously urged Reeves to act on London Centric’s story about central London’s blatantly tax-evading Harry Potter shops.
The London Assembly has also passed a motion urging Sadiq Khan to act on our reporting, with the assembly member who proposed it warning that “business rates avoidance schemes like bogus snail farms to fake places of worship drain millions from vital London services and undermine honest businesses”.
All in all, people are starting to notice what’s going on here.
It’s become fashionable to sound off about “money laundering fronts” filling London’s high streets. While this is undoubtedly part of the mix, cryptocurrency is often the favoured route for organised criminal gangs who want to move illicit funds to Dubai without the hassle of setting up a physical shopfront.
If you want to sound smarter, start by reading our past reporting on how the economic forces behind low quality shops are just as likely to involve brazen tax evasion, dodgy goods, and attempts to avoid business rates. If the government wants to raise revenue and boost the quality of high streets, then encouraging tax inspectors to walk down the high street is the real win-win. Canny politicians are increasingly making the link.
A phone call with the Snailer-in-chief
I gave Terry Ball, the UK’s leading snail farmer and tormenter of Westminster council, a ring this week. I wanted to see whether he’d had any response to our piece about his tax avoidance business and his Italian mafia links.
“Are you trying to make me famous?” Ball asked when he picked up the phone.
Ball couldn’t stop chuckling, saying he’d heard from people in America who had read the article. He laughed when told it had been a massive story in France, where tales about les escargots count as national news. Admittedly the 80 year old’s cheeriness might be because he had just drunk “four or five” pints after a successful morning in the office.
Ball had only one objection to the coverage — some of the outlets that had followed up our reporting had accused him of illegal tax evasion. He wanted it to be made clear that he considers himself to be an honest-to-god tax avoider utilising what he believes to be a legitimate exception to deprive London’s boroughs of millions of pounds in revenue.
I told him that London Centric reporter Polly Smythe had been in the Royal Courts of Justice this week to watch as one of his snail farm shell companies was wound up in a matter of seconds by a high court judge over unpaid debts to Westminster council.
This was all news to Ball, who hadn’t bothered to find out about the hearing, because he’d never had any intention of paying the tax demand. Instead, he pivoted to arguing it was immoral that Westminster council had continued to charge business rates during the pandemic lockdown.
As we ended the call Ball offered to have another chat about his future tax avoidance enterprises, adding: “You can’t take life too seriously, can you?”
Stuck for Christmas present ideas? Why not buy a London Centric subscription as a gift.
Why not give the gift of local journalism? Click this link to buy a gift subscription for your nearest and dearest and you can schedule it to start after Christmas Day. Then drop us an email or WhatsApp and we’ll also post you a physical festive gift card to hand over on Christmas Day itself.
Preposterous property of the week
When we highlight the strangest, most expensive properties available to buy in London we like to dig deep to find those in the worst possible taste and marvel at the stories of the super rich trying to offload them.
This is a little different.
For just £2m you can live in this two-bedroom house. For your money you are not getting a lot of space. There is a shower squeezed into an alcove in the basement kitchen. It appears to be fitted out ready to film a BBC adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
But its location? On a hidden alley between St Martin’s Lane and Covent Garden that’s some sort of Olde London Instagram dream. The property is “currently undergoing a planning application from commercial to full residential status”, meaning it has yet to be assigned a council tax band. But its price tag means it could become one of the smallest properties in the country to be hit by the incoming mansion tax.
OK, so what did London actually get in the Budget?
As the area of the UK with the most high earners, the capital will be most affected by decisions such as freezing tax bands. At the other end of the financial spectrum, around 260,000 children in London could be better off thanks to the abolition of the two-child benefit limit.
Some sections of London will be disproportionately affected by the ‘mansion tax’ on houses worth over £2m because it’s where you’d find the vast majority of British houses worth over £2m. If you want to see how many people in your neighbourhood will be paying more in 2028 then you’re best browsing the map created by Dan Neidle’s team at Tax Policy Associates.
The one big London pledge was government backing for an extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead. But there’s no sign of funding for other big infrastructure projects sought by Sadiq Khan such as funding for the West London Orbital railway or the Bakerloo line extension.
There will be the introduction of a nightly tourist tax on hotel and Airbnb stays. London’s councils are asking for half the money it raises but don’t expect the mayor to willingly give up control over a new pot of cash.
One of the more interesting side stories was in the New Statesman, which in a profile of Rachel Reeves claimed the chancellor cut short a meeting with Khan and told him “get out of my office” after failing to give him the money he wanted for the capital. It’s always worth asking who benefitted from that story being briefed to the media. In this case, it’s probably of help to both Reeves and Khan. Both can claim they are fighting for their constituency, whether it’s the capital or the wider country.
Won’t someone think of the Omaze raffle winners?
The national obsession with Omaze property raffles provided the subject of one of London Centric’s most read pieces, a deep dive into the history of an ex-council house in Borough Market. With most of the company’s house competition prizes, including this one, priced at close to £5m, winners could be looking at an ongoing additional bill of almost £7,500/year if they choose to keep their new home.
Something for all the people who want more positive news
Katherine Miller Brunton gets in touch: “I just wanted to drop you a message to let you know that, thanks to your recent article on phone thieves burying phones in gardens, I have retrieved not only my own stolen phone, but two other people’s as well!”
She continued: “My phone was snatched from my hand by two men on an e-bike on Old Kent Road… I could track it in FindMy, but when it finally stopped moving I assumed it was inside a flat and I’d lost it for good. Read your article overnight, went and had a rummage in some bushes outside a block of flats just off Bricklayers Arms roundabout this morning, and found all three phones stashed together behind a wall. Am now trying to reunite the others with their owners.”
“Sharp practice” in the world of London property
There are some stories that are never going to be the most read thing we publish but matter even more as a result.
That’s the case with our investigation into James Gold, the east London property developer who is privatising social housing blocks across the capital using what one lawyer has dubbed “very sharp practice”. Ella Jessell of the highly-respected Inside Housing has picked up our investigation and run with it. She reports that local MP Rushanara Ali is now urging central government to intervene. In response, Gold is threatening to sue the residents for enormous sums if they stop him buying their property.
Elsewhere in east London, Tower Hamlets councillors voted to refuse a planning application to knock down the historic Genesis cinema near Whitechapel station that we reported on earlier this year. Councillors agreed with officials that the damage to a historic asset and lack of affordable student accommodation in the plan meant it was not justified.
What’s wrong with a little gift to residents?
Lambeth council has intervened in the increasingly bizarre situation involving thousands of people who live on south London’s Loughborough Estate. Estate management boss Peter Shorinwa has publicly claimed that the local council tried to assassinate him, says he cannot meet residents in person in case violence breaks out, and faces questions over hundreds of thousands of pounds of gifts handed to residents.
In response, Lambeth council has now referred Shorinwa’s management organisation to the Financial Conduct Authority for potential misappropriation of funds.
And finally, five big thoughts about what’s really going on with transport in London.
The debate over the state of London’s transport continues in a sprawling comments section beneath last week’s piece about how people move around the capital.
Our favourite reader takes, both on the site and via email, include:
Londoners travelled more when they bought a weekly travel card rather than using contactless fare caps, because every extra journey felt ‘free’.
There are more Lime e-bikes on the streets of London than the company has publicly admitted or are being picked up in TfL statistics.
People aren’t avoiding London buses because they’re too slow, it’s that the seats are too uncomfortable.
Cyclists are skipping red lights because cycle lanes are over capacity and so the answer might be to remove some of the red lights.
This news outlet is a secret pro-Lime bike influence operation that fails to mention their downsides.
We’ll be back with more original members-only investigations over the coming weeks. If there’s anything you think we should look into, get in touch via email or WhatsApp.
London Centric is one of the only emails I always open and read everyone article you publish. I hope lots of people get a subscription for Christmas this year!
Hi Jim, there seems to be something else odd happening in our high streets. Following the proliferation of half-empty barber shops, nail bars and vape emporiums, we now have Gyms. Muscling in (sorry) massively, there are now five in the Swiss Cottage section of Finchley Road, plus the one in the Swimming Pool complex. Is this the insidious influence of Andrew Tate, or are they a cover for practices more nefarious than snail farming?