British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves remained under pressure on Friday even after her realtor took the rap for a breach of the housing code after she rented out the family home in South London without a permit. File photo by Andy Rain/EPA-EFE
Oct. 31 (UPI) — An upscale London real estate firm has apologized for failing to apply for local authority approval for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to rent out her familiy home in South London after offering to take care of it.
Gareth Martin, owner of Harvey & Wheeler, based in South London’s exclusive Dulwich Village, said Thursday that the firm’s then-property manager had promised to obtain the $1,250 “selective” permit required from Southwark Council, but the application was never submitted.
“We deeply regret the issue caused to our clients as they would have been under the impression that a license had been applied for,” said Martin.
Martin said the manager unexpectedly quit the firm just days before the house was leased and nobody else in the office picked up on the fact the application to register the property as a rental remained outstanding.
He stressed the firm did not normally deal with the permits as compliance with housing codes was the responsibility of homeowners but the offer was made in this case in order to be helpful.
The mix-up led to Reeves having to issue a written apology to Prime Minister Keir Starmer amid calls from opposition lawmakers for her to be investigated or fired over the infringement for which the borough could impose an unlimited fine on Reeves or Harvey & Wheeler.
Southwark Council said it would not be taking action against either party, explaining that it usually sent a notice to landlords reminding them they are required to apply for a change of use and that it only resorted to prosecution as a last resort.
However, Reeves was still facing questions over the issue Friday because in her apology letter to Starmer she said had not been aware a permit was necessary.
Hours later, she was forced to issue a clarification, writing in a second letter to Starmer, that Harvey & Wheeler had informed her husband a license would be required, but that they would deal with the application. Reeves said she took full responsibility for the oversight.
Starmer has staunchly backed Reeves, saying Sir Laurie Magnus, his independent adviser on ethics, had ruled that it was an inadvertent oversight and that she had not broken the ministerial code.
Presented with the emails between Harvey & Wheeler and Reeves’ husband when consulted for a second time late Thursday, Magnus’ advice remained that he found “no evidence of bad faith.”
Magnus was appointed to the role by the previous Conservative administration of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Starmer offered only a mild rebuke of Reeves, who is set to deliver a watershed budget for the government in less than a month, in which she will lay out how she plans to plug a fiscal hole of as much as $40 billion and boost lackluster economic growth.
“Clearly it would have been better if you and your husband had conducted a full trawl through all email correspondence with the estate agency before writing to me yesterday,” he wrote, but said he accepted it was a mistake and that no further action was necessary.
However, Reeves’ defense that she did not know she needed to get a permit has also come under scrutiny because in recent days she posted on social media praising the regulations and saying they should be adopted more widely.
In a series of posts on X on Oct. 20, she hailed a city hall decision in the district in northern England she represents to extend the licensing scheme for private landlords to more areas.
“I welcome Leeds City Council’s decision to expand their selective landlord licencing policy to include the Armley area. While many private landlords operate in the right way, we know that lots of private tenants in Armley face problems with poorly maintained housing,” she wrote.
Opposition Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch said Labour had been mired in a series of scandals but there should now be a formal investigation by the ethics adviser, saying she would accept the outcome whatever was conclude
“She is the Chancellor,” she told the House of Commons on Thursday.
“This is an offense that she is supposed to have committed as Chancellor, a criminal offense, and maybe it is the letting agent’s fault. But isn’t it funny with Labour, it’s always somebody else’s fault. Always. It’s never their own fault,” said Badenoch.
Reeves put the family home on the market for $4,265 a month in July 2024 after becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer when Labour won a landlside general election victory.
The position comes with a residence in Downing Street, at no. 11, next to the prime minister’s.
Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where after one last rain-soaked showdown in South Bend, we pour one out for one of the great rivalries in the history of college football. After a century of meeting on the football field, USC and Notre Dame are not currently scheduled to meet again. This, by all accounts, is a terrible shame.
Outside of L.A., the college football world has placed the blame for the rivalry’s demise squarely on USC’s shoulders. Notre Dame made sure that was the case when its athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, ran to Sports Illustrated last spring, immediately after USC made an offer to renew the series for one year.
Fight on! Are you a true Trojans fan?
As PR moves go, it was a smart one: By firing the first missive, Bevacqua knew that Notre Dame could shape the narrative around negotiations. And ever since, as Bevacqua hoped, Notre Dame has been cast by much of the national media as valiantly attempting to save the rivalry at any cost, while USC looks like its running scared away from it.
Which is really quite ironic, if you know the recent history of how Notre Dame has handled its rivalries.
Thirteen years ago, minutes before the two schools were set to face off in South Bend, former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick famously handed then-Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon a letter as notice that Notre Dame intended to cancel the remainder of their rivalry series. It was as passive aggressive as scheduling changes get. Brandon didn’t even read the letter until after the game.
These two teams went way back, before USC even first fielded a football team. The two Midwest rivals first faced off back in 1887, when Michigan literally taught Notre Dame how to play football. (Not kidding.) Not to mention it was actually a Detroit Free Press columnist who first called Notre Dame the “Fighting Irish.” (Imagine the royalties!)
But in 2012, Notre Dame declared without any further conversation that it was backing out of the game. The reason? As part of its move to the Atlantic Coast Conference in every other sport, the Irish football program agreed to play five games against ACC schools every year.
No one at Notre Dame seemed all that concerned about history and tradition then. Swarbrick, at the time, called canceling the series “a necessary precaution,” given the future uncertainty surrounding its schedule.
Sound familiar?
Except, in this case, Notre Dame kept Purdue on its future schedule. And Michigan State. It chose to maintain its series with Navy, which had beaten the Irish just three times in the previous half-century, as well as Stanford. I wonder why.
Months later, then-Michigan coach Brady Hoke told a crowd at a booster luncheon that Notre Dame was “chickening out” of the rivalry. And he was right.
A dozen years later, Notre Dame is floating the same accusations about USC.
Except, in this case, USC has made efforts to maintain the series after moving to a much less flexible and more difficult schedule in the Big Ten. It has tried to keep the game going despite being locked into nine conference games — and with far less incentive to add strong non-conference opponents than there was in 2012. USC even amended its initial offer to extend the rivalry for multiple years, instead of just one, as a compromise.
Look, USC isn’t blameless in all of this. But no one seems to have acknowledged yet that Notre Dame hasn’t exactly helped negotiations along. It doesn’t want to move the game from October or November to September, as USC has asked — not because of tradition, as has been suggested, but purely because it’s much more convenient to Notre Dame to keep USC later in the season, when no other top programs want a team such as Notre Dame smack dab in the middle of its conference slate.
Who cares about the tradition of when the game is played, if the other option is it’s not played at all? If the Irish are so concerned about maintaining the USC rivalry, why didn’t they insist that Clemson — a team it has much less history with — play their newly signed 12-season series in mid-October?
Because Notre Dame is used to dictating the terms of engagement and getting its way. It has the flexibility of being without a conference. And it also knows it has the narrative firmly on its side. So why bother budging when the pitchforks are already pointed toward USC?
I don’t expect that to change any time soon, even as both athletic directors say they’re “optimistic” an agreement can be reached. Not unless USC is ready to capitulate. Until then, the public pressure will remain on the Trojans alone, while Notre Dame points across the bargaining table and cries chicken. Irony, be damned.
Yes … technically.
If USC wins each of its next five games to finish 10-2, you can count on the Trojans being in the 12-team field. But anything less than that, and they’re going to have a tough time making a case.
Let’s say USC only loses on the road to No. 6 Oregon from this point on. That would put the Trojans at 9-3, with just two Big Ten losses — and three overall. That’s a good season! But no team with three losses has ever made it into the Playoff, and while there’s a legitimate argument that this year will be the first, USC presumably wouldn’t have enough marquee wins to move the needle with the committee.
Michigan is currently USC’s only win over a team above .500. Nebraska, Iowa and Northwestern are all 5-2, but only one of the three has a top 25 win this season — the Huskers won their opener against No. 21 Cincinnati. The toughest test left aside from Oregon could very well be UCLA, which has won three in a row after starting 0-4.
Perhaps there’s a world where USC, with one conference loss, could end up in the Big Ten title game. But in addition to beating the Ducks, that would also require moving past either Ohio State or Indiana, neither of which have looked particularly vulnerable of late.
However you try to spin it, getting USC into the Playoff requires serious finesse. By losing to Notre Dame, the Trojans closed off the easiest path to a postseason run.
More than likely, USC’s hopes now hinge on running the table. But nothing I’ve seen recently suggests that’s a likely option. Instead, with each passing week, my 8-4 prediction is feeling just about right.
Jayden Maiava throws a pass under pressure in the second quarter against Notre Dame.
(Justin Casterline / Getty Images)
—Stop asking if Lincoln Riley is going to give up playcalling. It ain’t happening. It wasn’t that long ago that Riley’s playcalling was the main reason for his historic rise through the coaching ranks. That felt like ancient history on Saturday night, as Riley dialed up a failed trick play to star wideout Makai Lemon that ended in a game-altering fumble. Riley admitted after the game that it was “a stupid call,” which is the closest he’s come to accountability in that department. He added later that his two failed fourth-and-short calls weren’t very good either. “I’ve gotta be way better for our guys,” he said after. It’s good that he recognizes his shortcomings in this situation, but how we’ve gotten to this point, with Riley’s playcalling having a clear negative affect, I can’t quite explain. Riley has had impressive moments calling plays this season, which are easy to forget after such a bad performance. But the fact that he seems to be at his worst in the biggest moments is not the best sign for turning things around in the future. All that said, it would presumably take an intervention from one of his bosses to hand off those duties to Luke Huard. The ego hit would simply be too significant for Riley to initiate that change otherwise.
—USC struggled to protect Jayden Maiava, and it paid the price. The Trojans’ front allowed a season-high 17 pressures to Notre Dame, and Maiava completed a meager 31% of his passes and threw both of his interceptions when under pressure Saturday. The good news is that reinforcements are on the way. Starting left tackle Elijah Paige dressed for Saturday’s game, but was only available in case of emergency. Center Kilian O’Connor, meanwhile, was surprisingly listed as questionable against Notre Dame. Both should be good to go when USC takes on Nebraska in two weeks.
—USC has lost 11 straight on the road to top 25 teams, six of which came under Riley. The last win USC had against a ranked opponent on the road came in November … of 2016! And USC’s last chance this season to rectify this terrible streak will likely be in Eugene next month — a game the Trojans are, as of now, unlikely to win. That means we’re staring down the barrel of an entire decade without a win over a ranked team on the road, which is totally unacceptable for a team that sees itself as a blue blood of college football.
—After having zero rim protection a year ago, USC might have one of the best rim protectors in the Big Ten this season. Just take a look at the statline for new 7-foot-5 center Gabe Dynes from USC’s exhibition against Loyola Marymount. Dynes had six blocks, three of which came in his first 10 minutes of the game. Dynes also had nine points, eight rebounds and even three assists, as the USC took care of business in a 60-51 win. The Trojans shot just 33%, but showed that their defense can be a strength by holding Loyola Marymount to just 28% from the field. Dynes will be an important part of that equation and if he can contribute on offense, well … the sky could be the limit for the 7-footer.
Olympic sports spotlight
After losing four of six to start its Big Ten slate, USC’s women’s volleyball team bounced back in a big way over the past weekend, winning two critical matches on the road. The highlight of the weekend was a 3-1 win over No. 9 Wisconsin, USC’s best win yet of this season.
Redshirt freshman outside hitter London Wijay had a career performance in the win over Wisconsin, tying a career-high with 24 kills, while freshman libero Taylor Deckert tallied back-to-back 20-dig performances over the weekend. USC also handled Iowa in four sets, to bring its Big Ten record to 4-4 on the season.
Jason Bateman as Vince, Jude Law as Jake in “Black Rabbit.”
(Courtesy of Netflix)
The last time Jason Bateman got in with the wrong crowd on a Netflix show, one of the best shows of the last decade was born. I didn’t want to place “Ozark”-level expectations on “Black Rabbit,” Bateman’s new show on Netflix with Jude Law, but after watching the first two episodes, I can say with confidence that it’s off to just as strong of a start.
Law stars as a New York restaurateur whose life is upended when his estranged brother, played by Bateman, suddenly comes back into his life and drags him unwillingly into New York’s criminal underworld. The show’s tone is about as tense as it gets — think “The Bear” meets “Uncut Gems” — but if you’re in the mood for a thrill ride, then this show is worth your time.
Until next time …
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected], and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
