As someone who is paid by our client to do a job, the idea of being 'a cab for hire' isn't immediately an uncomfortable analogy. However, when used by an MP who is shortly going to ask for your vote, it takes on a much less attractive meaning. April will be full of Election chatter and we have a couple of things to say on the subject too. Looking back over previous elections it is difficult to suggest that the housing market does any better or worse under a particular party. One thing we can be sure of is that the worst outcome for the market would be a 'hung' parliament.
We had a so-called 'Robin Hood' budget last month (see our comment on Stamp duty) and we have been promised a second, harsher budget by both the main parties shortly after the election. A hung parliament or minority administration is not something that we British do well - in the way that say the Italians or Israelis seem to. In the event of a coalition, we can expect argument and disagreement through the summer months, a falling out in November and in all likelihood a second election followed by a third budget in December.
It is tempting to think that if property is your business, then you may consider it best to take the rest of the year off and come back in 2011. However as our guest writer, the ever-incisive journalist Graham Norwood suggests, the person the property world would like to see in Nº10 isn't as obvious as you might think. An election may bring change, it may even eventually help clear up the image of MP's but all that will take time. Meanwhile uncertainty brings opportunities and the clients who hire our services do so because like London’s great cabbies, we've got the knowledge!
Lucy Morton, Managing Partner
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