Last week, the leasehold and reform bill became law in the UK. This is not the end of leasehold reform. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. This passage of the bill happened against the odds. It was crawling through parliament and when Rishi Sunak, somewhat unexpectedly, announced the general election on July the 4th, campaigners for leasehold reform—a group which yours truly have been loosely working with for a while—thought the bill would be lost. If you want to understand what happens to outstanding bills in the brief final sessions of parliament before prorogation, you need to read to up on something called wash-up. Put simply, it’s the period where outstanding bills are either rammed through as is, or kicked into the abyss never to be seen again. It is a borderline insane policy process, which breaks all the rules of legislation, simply to get the order book emptied as quickly as possible. The leasehold and reform bill made it, just, though without key additions such as a cap on ground rent or a ban on forfeiture. This is bitterly disappointing, especially in case of the former given that an agreement to cap ground rents to £250 pa was virtually agreed by the department and HMT, or so we’re told. But I guess we live to fight another day rather than having to start over.
Read MoreThese exercises inevitably turn into a "look how smart I am" post, but I love when others do them. My friend Jonathan Tepper usually does one every year, and I always find something interesting on it. Tyler Cowen's 2016 non-fiction list is here, and is full of gems. The FT editors’ recently gave their suggestions too, Shane Parris has chimed in, and Toby has listed the favourites of FinTwitter where my suggestions, inexplicably, have been left out. No matter, however, because I have listed them all below.
Some of the titles invariably are from 2015, but I thought I that I would include them anyway. In addition, I should note that over half of them have been consumed via Audible. If you don't already have a subscription, go get one. I have separated fiction and non-fiction. I dare you not to find one or two that would be worth your time.
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