Deputy leader of Reform Richard Tice has claimed that reports his property empire avoided almost £600,000 in tax is “a desperate Establishment trying to smear” him. Of course, exploiting rent from people’s need for housing with net property assets of over £30 million is entirely anti-establishment and doesn’t epitomise the housing crisis the country is facing.

Tice chats shit

According to the Times, Tice channelled shareholder dividends into an offshore trust and dormant businesses. Doing so, he reportedly avoided hundreds of thousands in tax from the majority of 2018 to 2021. And that’s on multi-million pound profits.

Apparently, a thriving member of the rentier neoliberal capitalist class who treats the essential of housing as an asset is going to help struggling Britons with the cost of living.

Tice recently said:

The cost of living is the number one concern of everybody, and everything that this Government does is just adding to costs for businesses, and they have to pass it on to consumers.

Labour has added ‘costs’ to businesses. But the issue with the government’s rise in employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) is that they were flat rather than progressive. Labour’s business tax rise impacted less profitable small and medium size outfits. Whereas, highly profitable businesses can afford to pay more in tax to address inflation (through reducing available pounds – the main function of tax).

For example, private equity and venture capital UK firms make as much profit as £5,206,406 per employee. Meanwhile, real estate – like the company Tice owns – is the most profitable overall industry in the UK.

Instead, housing design, location and features should be provided at cost price by the state with that amount paid off in monthly installments. It should be a not for profit industry.

Featured image via the Canary

South East Water has said it cannot provide water for new homes planned in the area it’s supposed to provide for. Yet in 2024 it wasted more than 100 million litres of water every day through its creaking pipes.

South East Water put profit over infrastructure

The water company has spent significantly more servicing its debt and paying shareholder dividends than it has on upgrading infrastructure. In the two years to March 2022, South East Water paid £156 million in dividends and £72.8 million in interest. Yet it spent just £179.8 million on infrastructure improvements.

This highlights that water privatisation is the key issue preventing new homes from having water in the area.

If the water company were nationalised, it could be funded by government issued, debt-free flat currency with increased taxes on extreme wealth to control any inflation from the central money creation. Even if the infrastructure were funded by the current system of government borrowing, that has a lower interest rate than the private sector takes on. So debt would be zero or lower under public ownership – offering tens of millions in funding for infrastructure improvements in those two years. And the £156 million in dividends could also have gone on infrastructure improvements.

“Cannot accommodate” housing

A spokesperson for South East Water said:

From our review of the latest housing forecast figures, we have identified that we cannot accommodate additional growth beyond what was assumed in our Water Resources Management Plan 2024 in areas where we do not have a supply-demand surplus… Specifically, in the Tonbridge and Malling area, where we currently lack available headroom in our supplies, we would be unable to accommodate any growth exceeding our 2024 forecast assumptions throughout the entire planning period.

Perhaps there would be enough water supply if the company had invested in infrastructure such as pipe maintenance and reservoirs.

Shambles

On top of being unable to provide new homes with water, the company left 30,000 homes without water in Kent and Sussex in January. And that’s not the first time. In 2023, South East Water left thousands of homes without running water.

It’s clear the profit motive is incompatible with the essential of water.

Featured image via the Canary

In 2026, High Street chains are continuing to close due to a lack of consumer spending power and the move to online shopping. River Island plans to shut 32 of its stores this year. And there were 30% less High Street stores in 2024 then there were in 2014.

But maybe that’s a good thing? Arts venues, independent outlets and community spaces could replace Big Brand consumerism, turning the centrepiece of towns from dull shopping centres to vibrant creative development.

The number of grassroots music venues (GMVs) is still shrinking, but they are making a comeback – unlike High Street chains. That perhaps shows an appetite for the move away from such consumerism and towards creative nourishment. In 2025, the number of GMVs shrank by just nine, the lowest since 2018. Half of GMVs make no profit.

Questionable losses

The thing is, charity shops and stores like Poundland are also closing. Low income people rely on these places for basic goods. While the existence of charity is a sign the system isn’t working, it’s better than nothing. Cancer Research UK plans to close around 90 of its shops by May. At the same time, the government can always take a stake in such necessary outfits, lowering prices and reducing inflation. It can also provide more funding towards cancer research, a disease responsible for over a quarter of all deaths in the UK.

Your town, your choice?

The direction of the town centre could be delivered through people’s engagement with the city council, making each town different rather than endless boring chains in every part of the UK. While Neighbourhood Planning is already a thing, big capital often takes priority under the current system. Another issue is people are too busy working long hours on low salaries.

We can do better than our town centres consisting of people working retail hours on the minimum wage in grey, lifeless buildings. They should be places of excitement, varied education and community, but spaces that still recognise the individual. Pubs and cafes, definitely – but also arts venues, independent stores, and grassroots spaces.

Featured image via the Canary

On Tuesday 17 March, Quakers will hold a silent Meeting for Worship outside New Scotland Yard. They’ll then join a mass lobby of parliament to defend the right to protest.

The meeting follows two police raids on Quaker premises. On 5 March the Metropolitan Police raided Westminster Meeting House, arresting 15 people attending a nonviolent direct action training session.

No one has yet been charged. No one from the first raid, less than a year ago, was ever charged either.

The Quaker meeting takes place at 11.45am at the southern end of Embankment Gardens, with supporters invited to meet from 11.15am. There will also be a livestream.

Quakers – 350 years of resisting oppression

Caroline Nursey, clerk of Westminster Quaker Meeting, said:

Quakers have been accustomed to oppression by the state for over 350 years. We will continue to hire space to explicitly nonviolent groups, just as we always have.

After the meeting for worship, participants will join a mass lobby of parliament from 2pm. Amnesty International UK, Greenpeace, Liberty, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Quakers in Britain, and major trade unions have organised the lobby.

At meetings in Westminster Hall, they will urge MPs to reject the “cumulative disruption” clause in the Crime and Policing Bill. This clause is dangerously broad and undermines human rights. In particular it threatens the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.

Though its primary target is Palestine marches, it could sweep up campaigns on peace, climate justice, and much more.

Police could ban an anti-racist march from Whitehall because of a previous farmers’ protest. Or they could restrict a pride march because a far-right demonstration recently happened in the same town.

The Crime and Policing Bill is part of a broader trend in the UK of cracking down on those who disagree with the government.

The UK is already the only western European country which Civicus has rated “obstructed” for civic freedoms. And a United Nations Special Rapporteur has criticised the UK’s approach.

Gina Romero, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, will attend the mass lobby and hold separate meetings with MPs.

Find full details of the Quakers’ event here.

Featured image via the Canary