Money Makeover: ‘The landlord game is over, how should I invest my £755k profit?’
Matt Stimpson became an accidental landlord in Warwickshire nearly 20 years ago when his job took him abroad to Australia, Thailand and the United States. For 15…
For sale: A £15m Surrey estate that was owned by King Henry VIII
Henry VIII was a man of insatiable appetites. The historian David Starkey aptly dubbed him “the king whose shape everybody remembers”. He was famously fat, famously free…
Plunging prices mean investors should flock to technology shares
Elsewhere, analysts at the investment bank Jefferies ranked Chrysalis Investments, a trust that specialises in privately-owned tech companies, as a buy earlier this month when the shares…
Tax woes force a million to abandon the self-employed dream
The decline began in 2020, when 700,000 freelancers gave up self-employment after the pandemic hit their incomes and caused average earnings to fall by close to a…
‘I bought a house I couldn’t sell’: nightmare stories and advice for first-time buyers
A year after moving in she met her now-husband, Alex Martin, 42. In 2012 they decided to get out of the city. East London was in the…
Electric off-road motorcycling – the unbridled joy of the countryside with zero emissions
They are easier of the terrain, as well as the eye. “They won’t tear up trails as weightier petrol machines risk doing,” says Martin. “For the rest,…
The A to Z of motorcycling in winter
I collected the latest entrant to the English “dream garage” last week, a Honda C90 E Cub. January might not be the best of months to be…
It’s not so much my son’s football club that I can’t stand – it’s the other parents
I used to roll my eyes at the parents wrapping up warm and trudging onto football fields on rainy winter weekend mornings. But now I am one….
The biggest and best new drinks trends for 2022
Dry January is finally over. Were you a paragon of mindful drinking the whole month or was denial and restraint too much in the bleak midwinter? Perhaps…
Not all drugs are created equal
The impressive “armamentarium” of more than 4,000 drugs that doctors can prescribe is, in part, deceptive as the vast majority are so many variations on the theme…
Is your health suffering because of the ‘winner’s curse’?
“I loved the job, even though it had always been a demanding one,” says Uzzell, 51, who lives in Norwich. “But, like many people, in lockdown, I…
Five surprising health benefits of statins you probably didn’t know
Statins are widely prescribed for reducing ‘bad’ cholesterol, and thus helping to prevent heart attacks and strokes, but their use – and questions over side-effects, such as…
It’s been ten years since I slept with my husband
My diary tells me that it has been a decade, a whole 10 years since my husband moved out – not from our home, but our bedroom….
Why it’s fine for our children to be anxious
They say you are only as happy as your least happy child, to which a very wise psychotherapist friend of mine often replies: your children do not…
Ordinary households are working nearly two decades to pay off the taxman – it’s time for a rethink
We can stop trying to guess, at least. The Prime Minister and Chancellor have jointly confirmed that the planned National Insurance hike will go ahead, increasing the…
We’ll lose more than a few broken antiques if traditional skills die out
From the grandfather clock that stood in the gloomy hallway of my grandparents’ house in Carlisle, to the wood-cased mantel clock that chimed the quarters in my…
Sir David Amess’ seat deserves a proper by-election
By-elections to the House of Commons are important affairs, especially when held in the middle of a parliamentary term. They can shake governments, give rise to novel…
There was no smoking gun in the Sue Gray report
“Waiting for Sue Gray” has become a Beckettian motif in British politics over the past couple of weeks. From the Prime Minister down, it has been used…
Does the Labour Party have a problem with women?
Under Jeremy Corbyn female MPs were subject to online bullying because of their opposition to Labour’s then leadership. Luciana Berger, the Jewish Liverpool MP, even had to…
Boris isn’t off the hook yet
Just a few hours ago, the operation to rescue Boris Johnson appeared to be going according to plan. The interim Sue Gray report – or, as she…
Thank you, Joanna Lumley, for being brave enough to say what everyone’s thinking
“This is a horrible thing to say, but I think the mental health thing is being overplayed at the moment. Because anybody who is even remotely sad…
Justin Trudeau’s woke agenda is tearing Canadian society apart
The “freedom convoy” that has descended on Ottawa began as a revolt against new requirements that unvaccinated Canadian truck drivers returning across the border from the US…
Team Boris supporters were confident they had backed the right horse. Then he opened his mouth
Poor Boris. Just when you think he is out of the soup, he falls flat face back in it – and once again, he tripped over his…
Sue Gray’s report was a bureaucrat’s dream, but a nightmare for Boris Johnson’s critics
The truth is that no one is waiting, except Boris Johnson’s backbenchers. The public have drawn their own conclusions and will deliver their verdict, with characteristic brutality,…
Britain cannot remain a military power while spending so little on defence
As a percentage of GDP we spend about 2pc, which happens to be the NATO target. Mind you, with the exception of America, the UK and France,…