National Landlords Alliance on BBC Radio 4 You and Yours

Well done, Larry...fantastic stuff!

From little acorns...

Wow, the interviewer could not have come across as being more biased if she had tried.

She didn't want to hear anything about the Shelter Exec whose company supplied the cladding in Grefell Tower and clearly wanted to avoid every single point that Larry wanted to get across for his membership. I am hopeful that the bias will be equally obvious to the BBC's average listener, so I say well done to Larry for setting up this interview.

Yes, she kept going on about Shelter providing advice. Well that doesn't keep you warm and dry. Shelter should be singing the praises of all of those who provide homes for people - because that's what they're supposed to want.
Instead, all we see is an obsessional level of landlord-blaming and now the threats of litigation against letting agents. This is a huge diversionary tactic to take attention from the bare fact that Shelter provides no shelter; people are slowly going to cotton on and change who they donate to. Similarly, when I found out this month that the Chief Executive of the NSPCC is on £170,000 pa I cancelled my direct debit.

Cut u off short there din't she. Why don't they want to hear the truth?

I thought it was a poor show by Larry; I cannot give him more than 5 out of 10. He should have used the opportunity to explain his position, not to attack shelter (he was never going to win that on this platform).
In my opinion he should have been putting the case that Shelter has become a leading cause of homelessness for the less-well-off by pushing for policies that increase LL costs which have to be passed on to the tenants and the less-well-off cannot afford.
He should have pushed for positive policies from Shelter:
- agreeing that there are bad landlords that need to be tackled, but not at the expense of the good landlords that over 80% of tenants are happy with.
- stating that Shelter should address the underlying causes of the poor PRS housing that does exist, i.e. lack of government funding to enforce the laws we already have against bad landlords, and lack of government funding for the provision of adequate social rented housing.

This was Radio 4 with an intellectual audience; they will be persuaded by reasoned argument but not affected by the assertions of an 'angry' campaigner.

Reply to the comment left by Michael Barnes at 29/11/2018 - 10:43
Could you have done any better in the circumstances?
Have you started a new LLs’ Association to highlight the cause?
Have you managed to set up in interview on a high-profile BBC programme?
What’s your score? 0/10?
Its all very well to sit and criticise, but Larry should be applauded for his efforts to date.
Seldom can an interviewee have their own way in such an interview: the interviewer will have their own agenda, and one’s own script can often get derailed – this is a high-pressure environment, and there is very limited time allocated, as we hear on this occasion.
Well done Larry.

Reply to the comment left by Michael Barnes at 29/11/2018 - 10:43
I suggest you put yourself forward then and firstly secure an interview and secondly get all the key messages across regardless of the questions asked. It is so easy to criticise, but it is people like Larry who are actually getting somewhere.

Michael,
Please understand I was stopped from proceeding. I had to answer her questions and I had many points to make, but couldnt because they were horrified when i spoke of the reality of Grenfell. Incidentally of 10 emails to the station afterwards 7 were v positive.

Reply to the comment left by Larry Sweeney at 29/11/2018 - 12:12
In what way where the emails positive Larry and how do you know?

Thanks Mark, Ros and Freda for your comments. This was a high profile interview and we did well. We will have a lot more to say. I will answer your questions Mark privately rather than on a public forum. Im sure you understand.
Congratulations and good luck on Saturday night.