Wants to live in the countryside only Monday to Thursday and could “relocate to a Cheltenham townhouse at the weekend” to enjoy shopping, medical facilities, theatres and restaurants.

Just how many houses do people think they are entitled to? Don’t ask about the buses and how to get to the surgery. And all those second homers spoiling the idyll! – Owl

Will Humphries, Southwest Correspondent www.thetimes.co.uk 

A magazine editor who moved to the Cotswolds to pursue the good life has been ridiculed by locals after she publicly bemoaned the lack of taxis, the small size of schools and the presence of farm vehicles.

Jade Beer, the former editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s Brides magazine, moved her family out of London six years ago after growing tired of “the sheer mass of people, weary of battling the daily commute and the long hours”. She wrote in the Evening Standard that they were “blissfully happy” after buying a cottage near the market town of Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, “on a sprawling estate and we had views of cows to the front and sheep to the back”.

However, things took a turn for the worse when she realised that the countryside was not serenely quiet.

“Come summer, everyone who owns a motorbike seems to descend on the Cotswolds in large convoys, ditto vintage cars,” she said. She bemoaned the fact that her village had one taxi driver who needed to be booked “a week in advance” and only offered pick-up times he was willing to do. She also said the nearest hospital was 45 minutes away, and claimed her house was haunted.

She added: “In the immediate vicinity of our home there are half a dozen holiday rentals that are let almost year-round . . . We’ve seen mobile cocktail vans pull up outside for hen parties and cars thoughtlessly blocking shared driveways. If you are unfortunate enough to buy a house next to one, there is little you can do about it, since the owners typically do not live locally themselves.”

Beer said she wished she lived in the countryside only Monday to Thursday and could “relocate to a Cheltenham townhouse at the weekend” to enjoy shopping, medical facilities, theatres and restaurants.

Her comments provoked a storm of local ridicule. “What a ridiculous, small-minded, entitled, pompous moaner,” one person said.

Another said: “I live in the Cotswolds and I speak for many here. Move to Cheltenham if you must or, preferably, back to London and stay there. People like this push prices up and squeeze locals out of the housing market.”

Alun White, mayor of Stow-on-the-Wold town council, told The Times: “People should study an area before they move to it. We are deep in the heart of the country here and you can’t expect inner-city services.”

Beer is not the first media figure to come unstuck in the country. Liz Jones, the Mail on Sunday columnist, had her mailbox shot at in 2009 after she wrote disparaging remarks about the locals in Dulverton, Exmoor. She moved back to London in 2012.

The Conservative party has been asked by the election watchdog to explain how Boris Johnson found £60,000 to pay for the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.

James Tapper www.theguardian.com 

The Electoral Commission said it had contacted the party “to establish whether any sums relating to the renovation works fall within the regime regulated by the commission”.

The inquiries are likely to lead to further tension between the watchdog and some Conservatives. Last year the party’s co-chair, Amanda Milling, condemned the commission as being “simply not fit for purpose” and the party called for the watchdog to be abolished unless it was stripped of many of its powers.

Labour said the prime minister should say whether any “special favours” are owed to donors who allegedly funded his and fiancee Carrie Symonds’ extensive redecoration of the flat they share above 11 Downing Street.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that a “secret” £60,000 payment for part of the work was made by the Conservative party last summer. This was reimbursed by Lord Brownlow, the newspaper reported, but the donation was not declared to the Electoral Commission or the House of Commons register of interests.

Lord Brownlow is an entrepreneur and former Tory vice-chairman who was made a life peer in 2019 by Theresa May.

Symonds’ £200,000 interior redesign is not covered by the £30,000 annual allowance that the prime minister receives for his accommodation, and Downing Street has been trying to set up a charity to pay for it.

Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s press secretary, said earlier this month that “every twist and turn” of the refurbishment would be recorded, but added: “Conservative party funds are not being used to pay for any refurbishment of the Downing Street estate.”

The Electoral Commission sought to play down its inquiries, saying that it talked regularly to all political parties about funding, adding: “We are in contact with the party to establish whether any sums relating to the renovation works fall within the regime regulated by the commission.”

A Conservative party spokesperson said: “All reportable donations to the Conservative party are correctly declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them and comply fully with the law. Gifts and benefits received in a ministerial capacity are, and will continue to be, declared in government transparency returns.”

All the major political parties have been fined by the Electoral Commission in recent years, but it has been targeted for criticism by many pro-Brexit MPs and campaigners.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, said the commission was not trusted to be impartial. Meanwhile, the committee on standards in public life, an independent body which reports to the prime minister, announced last summer it would be conducting a review of electoral regulation including the Electoral Commission’s remit.

The Conservative party submitted a lengthy criticism of the commission to the CSPL’s review, including a call for the commission’s powers to be handed over to Companies House. Others calling for abolition included Jon Moynihan, who donated £100,000 to Johnson’s leadership campaign.

That was followed in October by news that the commission’s chair, Sir John Holmes, a career diplomat, had been forced out of his position last year.

Labour has said that the Tory call to abolish the Electoral Commission is a “harmful and worrying step for the integrity of our democracy”.

Counting at the May elections will be delayed in England because ballot papers will need to be quarantined in case people have sneezed Covid onto them.

Where and how will they be securely stored? – Owl

By Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent www.telegraph.co.uk

Thousands of council seats, along with mayoral elections and Police and Crime Commissioner elections will take place in England, as well as assembly elections in Scotland and Wales, on Thursday May 6.

New guidance, titled Covid Secure Elections 2021, from Lawyers in Local Government – a group which represents council solicitors – “recommends that Ballot papers will be quarantined for 24 hrs prior to being handled by staff”.

This will mean that the count will start on Saturday May 8, not Friday May 7.  

The group said this was “in the pursuance of limiting risk, and making sure the process is as safe as possible given many people used to count are over 50”. The last over-50s are due to be vaccinated just a week before election day.

One of the concerns is that tipping out the ballot papers could allow germs left there by voters to infect people counting the papers.

Jim McManus, Hertfordshire County Council’s director of public health who helped drew up the guidance, told the Telegraph added: “From our perspective, we also looked at what other elections did and will continue to review the evidence.

 “Our continued question is whether tipping out large quantities of ballot papers from boxes can generate aerosols.”

However, Association of Electoral Administrators which represents council returning officers played down concerns about the safety of polling cards which are mailed out to voters ,saying “there is no need to quarantine ballot papers before commencing the verification or count process” as long as usual Covid safety protocols are observed.

It also emerged as many as one in four council workers might not turn up to help with the count. Somewhere in the region of 100,000 are needed to staff polling stations on May 6.

Around 40,000 polling stations will be open to voters from 7am to 10pm on the day, with two or more staff in each.

Some councils are struggling and looking to fill up to 100 vacancies, while others have just a handful of posts outstanding.

The Telegraph has learned that 2,000 civil servants and volunteers from the National Citizen Service have now been drafted in to help deal with the shortfall.

Election teams are also looking to recruit reserve polling station staff, to avoid any last-minute issues should anyone need to self-isolate.

Polling expert Lord Hayward said the final result of the elections might not be available for up to five days after election day this year.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The Government is providing a range of support to ensure these polls are COVID-secure and effective.”

BORIS Johnson and his Cabinet have broken the UK Government’s transparency rules by failing to disclose ministers’ outside earnings, it has been reported.

Laura Webster www.thenational.scot

According to the Ministerial Code, the Government must publish a statement “covering relevant ministers’ interests” twice a year – there has not been one published since July 2020. The last to appear before that was in December 2019.

Payments and other interests worth millions of pounds have now not been published for nine months.

Alistair Graham, the former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has said the failure to publish these interests is “scandalous”.

The failure to put out the information is understood to be linked to the resignation of Alex Allan, the PM’s independent adviser on ministerial standards. He quit the role last year in protest as Johnson refused to sack Priti Patel over alleged bullying.

Allan has not been replaced after four months – it is unclear whether the post was ever advertised.

The revelation that ministers are breaching the rules comes as Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross demands Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation over claims she broke the Scottish Government’s Ministerial Code.

The UK’s latest list on ministers’ interests was due to be published in January and, with Allan’s former position still vacant, it is not clear when this document will be released.

According to OpenDemocracy, it could take months to publish it even once Allan is finally replaced. This is because there is a backlog of 137 ministers to go through, and compiling the information involves interviews and correspondence.

Some ministers have large portfolios to comb through. For example, Jacob Rees-Mogg is estimated to be worth between £70 million and £200m. He also has a 20% share in an asset management firm, among other holdings and investments.

Zac Goldsmith was also included in the most recent Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated net worth of £285m.

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office insisted a new list would be released in “due course”.

Money raised from the sale of council homes will be diverted away from building new social housing under new plans announced by the government.

www.independent.co.uk

Under the policy confirmed by ministers on Friday councils will not have to use the receipts from Right To Buy sales to build council homes to replace those sold off.

Housing and homelessness campaigners have criticised the move and say it will make the housing crisis worse for people on low incomes and lengthen council waiting lists.

Under the announcement, councils will soon be able to use the cash to fund schemes to help people buying houses, which are generally targeted at people on higher incomes.

The cash will be available to use for shared ownership homes, which in some parts of the country can be unaffordable to even relatively wealthy buyers.

It will also be available to fund ministers’ First Homes scheme, which offers market rate properties with a 30 per cent discount for qualifying buyers.

While individual councils will on paper be able to choose to keep funding social housing instead, the ministry of housing acknowledged concerns that there could be “a potential implicit pressure for councils to favour supplying shared ownership properties because of their lower debt costs” with council budgets under pressure.

The ministry said it would explain why this would not be a problem in the future.

Polly Neate, chief executive of the charity Shelter, said the policy was “a step in the wrong direction”.

“We are already selling off more social homes than we build every year. Now the money from these sales will be funnelled into home ownership schemes that are far out of reach for average renting families, rather than building more of the secure and affordable social homes we so desperately need,” she said.

“With more than a million households on the waiting list, and potentially many more people facing homelessness in the aftermath of this pandemic, this new proposal is the last thing we need.

“The government should instead be focusing on building a new generation of social homes that could actually tackle the housing crisis.”

Council homes sold under Right To Buy tend to end up in the hands of private landlords, with an estimated 40 per cent of all those sold under the scheme now rented out for profit.

The number of council homes sold under the policy increased five-fold in six years after David Cameron’s government lifted a cap on the policy and increased discounts.

A pledge by the government that homes sold would be replaced like-for-like is nowhere near to being met, with around two thirds not replaced as of 2020.

As of June 2020, 85,645 homes have been sold through the policy since it was updated in 2012, but only 28,090 built to replace them.

In a consultation response posted to its website, the ministry for housing, communities, and local government said the government intends to “allow local authorities the option to use Right to Buy receipts to provide properties for shared ownership as well as for social and affordable rent.

“Since the receipts consultation was issued, the government has announced the new First Homes scheme, which will enable first-time buyers to access discounts of at least 30 per cent on new build properties in their area compared to market prices.

“Local authorities, who know their local areas best, will have the flexibility to shape the scheme to support those most in need of help in their area. To support them in helping to deliver First Homes, the government will also allow local authorities to use Right to Buy receipts to fund First Homes.”

The ministry added: “We recognise that some respondents were concerned about a potential implicit pressure for councils to favour supplying shared ownership properties because of their lower debt costs, while others noted practical questions not previously encountered in Right to Buy, such as whether receipts from staircasing would count as Right to Buy receipts. We recognise that local authorities may also have questions around using receipts to fund First Homes.

“We will publish guidance clarifying all these practical questions and making it clear that there is no obligation on any local authority to use Right to Buy receipts for shared ownership properties or First Homes and that it will be down to individual authorities whether they make any use of this flexibility based on the needs of the local area.”