Mental health check-in from landlords not going to solve rental crisis
Just when you thought that the rental market couldn’t get more dystopian, it manages to outdo itself. The latest bleak new development for private renters? Landlords attempting to lure in prospective tenants with the promise of… mental health check-ins! The irony is painful, like when a tyrannical boss returns from an HR training session and starts telling their colleagues that it’s “OK not to be OK” (but, ideally, not on work hours, please).
This particular proposal, I should add, doesn’t involve your landlord asking you whether you’ve downloaded the Headspace app to do its mindfulness exercises or telling you to “try going for a walk” when they pop round for their mid-tenancy inspection. According to The Telegraph, the build-to-rent developer Moda is trying to win over potential renters at Embassy Boulevard, its latest London premises, near Battersea Power Station, by offering subsidised rates on virtual counselling sessions, as well as laying on breathwork and sleep workshops and “deep rest” sessions.
I have no experience of Moda and am not suggesting that they are substandard landlords, but in general, anyone who has rented long-term will know all too well how the process can really do a number on your mental wellbeing. There’s the way that a sense of impermanence gradually seeps into you, ensuring that you never feel entirely at peace – why would you, when an email from your landlord could turn your living situation upside down? There’s the stress of managing the inevitable problems, such as dealing with an uncooperative lettings agency when your boiler has conked out for the third time this winter, for example, or the lurking horror of a rodent infestation (I’m pretty sure I have some form of post-traumatic condition after rats took up residence in the kitchen plumbing of an old flat – any vaguely scratchy noises in the night still jerk me into fight or flight mode).
And, if you happen to be living in a houseshare, there’s also the tension that often arises when random assortments of people are forced to live in close proximity, with little in common other than a mutual need to access, say, a certain train station for their commute. No wonder, then, that in a study from the campaign group Generation Rent, nine out of 10 private renters stated that the experience had negatively impacted their mental health; another survey from the same group, released back in 2019, found that renters were 75 per cent more likely to experience serious anxiety and depression than homeowners.
So when I first read about this scheme, part of me thought, hey, at least a big property company is making gestures around mental wellbeing. Shouldn’t we be glad that some landlords might be waking up to the fact that their tenants are actual humans with actual feelings, rather than just sentient bank accounts designed to be milked dry? But the very fact that I responded in that way, however briefly, just goes to underline how, in general, tenants have been starved of good solutions to the UK’s glaring rental problem. We’ve been ground down (by private landlords) and overlooked (by politicians) for so long that we’re expected to gladly receive any tiny concessions.
My worry is that programmes such as this one might serve only to position good mental health as some sort of glossy perk or add-on, rather than a fundamental need. There is something a little jarring about seeing mental health check-ins listed as a potential benefit alongside the promise of a karaoke room and a golf simulator. It feels a bit like when employers offer ping-pong tables and yoga classes to try and prove that they are mindful of their workers’ wellbeing (when most workers would probably prefer work-life balance and a pay rise over organised fun).
Rents at Embassy Boulevard reportedly start at £2,600 per month, with a three bedroom apartment costing £4,600. Surely we can all agree that this is a hell of a lot of money to spend on accommodation. Equating renting an expensive apartment with positive mental health benefits just further hammers home the message that mental wellbeing is something that’s reserved for those who can afford it, a luxury rather than an essential.
Mental wellbeing benefits like these feel like a shiny sticking plaster slapped on a much bigger issue. Having to spend a vast proportion of your income indefinitely on somewhere to live is incredibly draining; doing so can force you into living arrangements that are frankly terrible for your state of mind, whether that’s dragging out a relationship that’s no longer working because you couldn’t afford to rent alone, or sharing a tiny space with people you barely know, let alone like. Breathwork sessions sound lovely, but they’re unlikely to offer much more than a temporary respite for a seriously stressed out renter. Fundamentally, they feel like a marketing gimmick, one that would serve landlords (who could pat themselves on the back about how supportive they’re being) rather than tenants.
The only way we can really start to untangle the messy relationship between renting and mental health across the country is to think long-term, rather than to focus on glamorous-sounding add-ons. You know what would drastically improve the mental health of almost every single renter I know? Proper rules in place to stop excessive price hikes year on year. Speedy fixes for problems within the properties. Better tenants’ rights. More affordable flats, rather than luxury ones. All of these changes would likely do more for our sleep than a snazzy workshop. We should be trying to treat the cause, not the symptom – and we can’t let flashy, short-term novelties distract us from that.
The curious unravelling of Virginia Giuffre and why the plot thickens
California-born Virginia Giuffre, a victim of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has said little in the years since she settled a civil lawsuit with Prince Andrew. While Andrew, a friend of Epstein, rejected any wrongdoing and continues to deny claims he sexually assaulted her when she was 17, the settlement he paid her was reportedly around £12m. In a joint statement with Giuffre released at the time, he said he regretted his association with Epstein and commended “the bravery of Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others”.
Yet, three years on from the settlement, Giuffre’s wellbeing is once again of grave concern after the mother of three, now aged 41, posted a distressing image to Instagram showing her bruised and battered face, and saying she had just four days to live after going into renal failure following a car crash.
Giuffre, writing about the crash, said: “I won’t bore anyone with the details, but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn that no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can. I’ve gone into kidney renal failure, they’ve given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology. I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time, but you know what they say about wishes.”
Since then, she has said, via a family spokesperson, that the picture and caption had been mistakenly posted to her public Instagram and was only meant to be on her private Facebook page.
Fresh accounts disputing Giuffre’s claims have emerged almost daily over the last week.Five years since Andrew’s disastrous – and somewhat bizarre – interview with Emily Maitlis, a series of worrying revelations about his accuser are beginning to emerge.
As the crash story made headlines around the world, Ross Munns, the school bus driver involved in the collision, disputed her account of the incident, saying she had “blown [it] out of proportion” and referring to the incident as “a minor collision”. West Australian police also confirmed that there were “no reported injuries” following the incident, which occurred in Neergabby, 20km north of Perth.
Details also emerged that Giuffre had recently become estranged from Robert, her husband of 22 years. A Western Australia courts spokesperson also confirmed that she had been charged with breaching a family violence restraining order for an alleged incident that took place in Ocean Reef, near Perth, on 2 February. The case was first heard in Joondalup Magistrates Court on 14 March, and she is due back there on 9 April.
It is a far cry from the image of a happy couple who were living a blissful life in that quiet corner of Australia. Giuffre met Robert, a martial arts expert, in Thailand in 2002, after Epstein paid for her to fly to Asia to do a massage course. They married 10 days after meeting, and, after a few peripatetic years, chose the sleepy Ocean Reef suburb as their home in December 2020.
In December 2023, under photographs of the pair cuddling, she wrote: “Twenty-one years ago this amazing man rescued me from Epstein [and] Maxwell’s clutches. I thank God every day for putting this beautiful man in my life!”
The image Giuffre projected was of living in this beach enclave, looking after her pets, doing yoga and baking cakes – a lifestyle which once saw her dubbed “the Duchess of Ocean Reef”. Few, then, would recognise the picture of domestic distress that is now emerging.
More than two decades after she was preyed upon by Epstein and Maxwell, who hired her when she was working as a locker-room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Giuffre has become a polarising figure. Some insist that she is a cause celebre for sexual assault victims, while others claim she was always a troubled fantasist.
Even before this week’s bizarre events, a commenter wrote on her Instagram post, claiming: “You’re as guilty as Maxwell in helping Epstein. Lied, lied and lied some more.” This sentiment was echoed by Lady Victoria Hervey, who briefly dated Andrew in 1999, when she waded into the saga on social media on Monday.
“KARMA,” wrote the 48-year-old over Giuffre’s hospital selfie, adding Europe’s 1986 glam rock smash “The Final Countdown” as background music. She then went on to call Giuffre “the queen of the fake photo” and accused her of inventing her accusations, as well as her injuries. She claimed to have heard from “reliable sources” that the FBI was preparing to arrest Giuffre, and that it was “almost time to celebrate” her downfall.
Giuffre was strolling in a beachside market when she received the call from her lawyer in July 2019 that confirmed Epstein had finally been charged with sex crimes in New York. As Giuffre explained in a rare interview in December 2021, she chose to first tell her story publicly in 2011 after the birth of her daughter a year earlier. Giuffre, who also has two teenage sons, told The Cut: “I don’t want my little girl growing up in a world that is so vicious.”
She went on to set up a charity, Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (Soar), to which Prince Andrew made a donation. Today, however, it’s unclear how much time and money Giuffre has personally given to supporting fellow victims.
The speculation around the veracity of her claims has never really gone away. Indeed, the unsealing of a cache of documents last year included a 2016 deposition in which she contradicted an earlier report that she had once flown to Epstein’s private island with former US president Bill Clinton.
Although Giuffre was quoted in a Daily Mail article in 2011 saying she had met Clinton twice and had flown to the Caribbean with him in a helicopter when she was 17, in the deposition she says she was never in a helicopter with Clinton and that her conversation with the Mail journalist was “taken out of context”.
The documents were originally filed as part of a defamation lawsuit brought in 2015 by Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty of helping Epstein sexually abuse young girls and sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2022. While legal experts have previously indicated that victims of abuse and trauma can get dates and details wrong in testimony, multiple media investigations have disputed claims Giuffre has made dating back to her childhood. However, the fact remains that Epstein was facing trial at the time of his death and Maxwell has been convicted for her crimes.
However, the latest story concerning Giuffre grows ever more confusing and worrying. In Australia, 9News Perth reported that Giuffre admitted herself to Joondalup Health Campus in Perth with a pre-existing injury immediately after the car collision. She was discharged the following day.
This week, we were told that she was taken to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital by ambulance and was seeking treatment for pain. It’s understood she has since been discharged. Another television outlet, 7News, has reported that Giuffre’s heavy bruising was the result of a fall. The 71-year-old who was driving the vehicle in which Giuffre was travelling at the time of the crash is also reported to be a carer, adding to the mystery of Giuffre’s current mental and physical condition.
Whether Giuffre is deeply troubled after the breakdown of her marriage or continues to suffer as a result of the abuse she endured in her youth, recent events have raised even more questions about one of the murkiest episodes to envelop the royal family.
Michelle Williams’s raunchy cancer dramedy Dying for Sex is a joy
TV series adapted from podcasts are in search of one thing: intimacy. It is what the audio format thrives on. A familiarity with the voices whispering in your ear that makes you feel like you are amongst friends or with family. Dying for Sex was just such a podcast: the story, told through its host Nikki Boyer, of her friend Molly Kochan and the existential journey she took after a terminal diagnosis. Now the podcast gets sexed up for the small screen, with Michelle Williams taking the lead role in a charming, warm Disney+ adaptation.
Molly’s cancer is back. Back, and incurable. “If you’re dying,” her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate) asks her as she reels from the diagnosis, “why are you weirdly vibing right now?” If the cancer has turned Molly’s life on its head, her subsequent decisions have her spinning like a 90s breakdancer. She leaves her irritating husband Steve (Jay Duplass), putting her care in the hands of Nikki, who she describes as “a beautiful flake”. Then Molly embarks on a “sex quest”, a voyage through New York City’s eligible (and ineligible) men in pursuit of something she has never experienced: a partnered orgasm.
Created by Elizabeth Meriwether, the writer behind New Girl, one of the best sitcoms of the 21st century, and Kim Rosenstock, Dying for Sex could easily have been a knockabout raunchfest. The Bucket List with dildos and riding crops and cock cages. But Meriwether keeps her taste for zany oddballs largely in check here. Molly is thoughtful, curious but, ultimately, played rather straight (Williams has one of the great faces, but is not a natural comic actor). Nikki is a conduit for a more chaotic energy, but even she is played closer to the timbre of Lena Dunham’s Girls (in which Slate made a fleeting appearance) than the overblown mania of New Girl’s breakout character, memeable fuss-pot Schmidt. This is a project in a lilting minor key, where the comedy plays second fiddle to notes of melancholy.
Which isn’t to say that Dying for Sex is a weepie either. The necessity for a box of Kleenex is split quite evenly between the two parts of its title. “There’s a whole world out there,” Molly’s palliative care nurse Sonya (Esco Jouléy) tells her. “If you want it.” And so rather than focus on the gruelling regimen of chemo and radiation, Molly’s story is told largely through a picaresque series of sexual encounters, which often culminate in stolen moments – sometimes involving sexually degrading commentary; sometimes involving tenderly eating snacks – with her vaguely disgusting unnamed neighbour (Rob Delaney). There’s the man who wants to be humiliated for having a small penis (the twist: it’s big) or the 25-year-old desperate for her to “clasp” his balls. Her journey into kink is rendered vividly but palatably: even her human pet, who she pees on, is rather handsome. More Kennel Club than dive bar.
With its interest in fetish, Dying for Sex is, in a way, more explicit than many TV shows that have dealt directly with sex in the past. And yet it has a softness that might blunt its edge for some viewers. The comedy, too, is a gentle thing, more often dictated by the situations in which Molly finds herself (such as Steve’s arrival at her chemo session with his new girlfriend) than big set-piece yucks (though I did laugh out loud at a joke about Bill de Blasio). It feels like there is an emerging model for American limited series – like Painkiller or The Shrink Next Door – which straddle a line between comedy and drama without fully committing to either. The 30-minute format of Dying for Sex makes it feel like it’s in classical sitcom territory, yet it is played with a deep attention to Molly’s interiority (she simultaneously narrates the action) and focused on issues, like childhood trauma and mortality, that hit hard.
It is credit, then, to Williams’s performance, and the lightness of touch that Meriwether brings, that Dying for Sex manages to bottle the intimacy of the podcast form. In spite of its subject matter, it feels soothing, a parasocial balm to the ills of the human condition. It might not be family viewing, but it has a universality. To love, to lose, to fight, to f***: these are the experiences that round out a life. Dying for Sex is, in the end, the ultimate switch: an ode to both taking control and losing it.
What is the Chagos Islands deal with the UK that Trump has approved?
According to No 10, Donald Trump has “signed off” on the highly controversial Chagos Islands deal, drawing to a close the tortuous process of securing the future of the UK-US military base that has been operating on Diego Garcia since 1965.
It means formal sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) will be ceded to Mauritius, and comes as something of a shock to opponents who fully expected Mr Trump to reject the change. The long saga may be coming to a close…
Some of the basics are still unknown, especially as regards money, but the position will be that the BIOT – comprising the Chagos Islands and the military base – will be transferred to Mauritian sovereignty. In return, the UK has been promised a 99-year lease on the islands, with military use by the US part of the deal, in return for an annual fee. The fee has not yet been disclosed, but is thought to be some £90m per annum, inflation-linked.
The small matter of international law. Successive appeals by Mauritius to the UN and the International Court of Justice have left the status of the BIOT in doubt, generally favouring the Mauritian position.
The islands are plainly a colonial possession, acquired from France in 1814 after the Napoleonic Wars. As such they are subject to UN resolutions and decolonisation. The islands were carved out of what was then the crown colony of Mauritius as part of its 1968 granting of independence, but such coercion also violated international law. The UK could carry on ignoring the situation, but this would leave the legal status of the joint base in doubt and thus at risk. In a worst-case scenario, Mauritius could transfer sovereignty of “their” islands to, say, China or India. Generally, civilised nations are expected to abide by international law.
They’ve been shabbily treated for decades, having been forcibly evicted to make way for the base in the 1960s. The diaspora principally lives in Mauritius, the Seychelles and near Gatwick Airport, and have had no vote on the deal. Foreign secretary David Lammy insists they have been consulted throughout.
Not quite. Trump has approved it but the formality of Mauritius and the UK signing the agreement has yet to take place, after which the treaty will need to be approved by parliament and all the costs and clauses will be made public. Given the government’s majority and the backing of the White House, the deal is bound to be ratified.
The Conservatives and Reform UK describe it as such, and object to public money needed for vital services being transferred to Mauritius – but that seems to be the price for settling this long-running dispute. What financial contribution, if any, the US will make is not known. In the current wider context of defence and economic tensions between the UK and the US, the Chagos leasing costs might be considered a useful sweetener in the national interest.
No. Those few empire loyalists who feel passionately about the issue are a minority and would never vote Labour anyway, some because they haven’t forgiven Clement Attlee for giving up India. The often exaggerated cost of the lease (adding inflation over a century to invent a bogus cost in today’s money) is no more than a right-wing debating point. The Conservatives are compromised on this argument because they were in talks to “surrender” the BIOT for years, and no one thinks the deal can be reversed unless the Americans demand it.
It doesn’t feel like it, and the government says not. Nonetheless, there are parallels in their disputed colonial status. Before the 1982 Falklands War, a transfer and leaseback arrangement was freely raised by Britain as a way of ending the arguments in the South Atlantic.
The big shift in both these cases has been Brexit, with one EU member, Spain, having a vital interest in steering EU diplomacy towards regaining Gibraltar and a friendlier stance towards the Argentinian claim on the Falklands. The UK can no longer rely on the EU to back it up at the UN and elsewhere; indeed, the Brexit treaty gives Spain a special role with regard to Gibraltar, and the territory’s land and air border arrangements still haven’t been finally sorted out.
Like it or not, the sun has not fully set on the British empire.
Starmer is right to maintain dignity – and avoid upsetting Trump
The prime minister’s insistence that, in framing the UK’s response to the Trump tariffs, “We will always act in the national interest” was wise and reassuring. The mood at the moment is to “keep calm and carry on negotiating”, and if there is to be a response, it needs to be weighed, and to represent a fully informed choice. Hence the meeting of business leaders convened in Downing Street in the immediate aftermath of the US president’s announcements.
In the coming days, the full scale and nature of international retaliation will become clearer; so too will Donald Trump’s thinking. From his rambling presentation of the new tariff schedules in the White House Rose Garden, it is not obvious whether these punitive import taxes are designed to kickstart a more benign process involving a global relaxation of trade restrictions, or if they are part of a permanent policy shift aimed at restoring American manufacturing and providing trillions of dollars for the US Treasury. There is, in other words, no need for a rush to action.
Sir Keir Starmer is right to try to maintain the dignity of the nation, as well as to avoid upsetting the combustible Mr Trump, by limiting himself to vague remarks about having “levers at his disposal”. Businesses are being consulted on possible retaliatory actions, but that is all – at least for the time being.
However, with the US economy approximately seven times as large as that of the UK – and Britain still heavily reliant on America for its defence – those levers are not especially powerful ones. Unlike, say, China (in concert with Japan and South Korea), the European Union, Mexico or Canada, the UK lacks the necessary heft to inflict much material damage on American producers and exporters. Any effort to join in with an international assault on Mr Trump’s policy would risk attracting the imposition of even higher tariffs on UK exports, with the corresponding harm to British jobs and economic growth – and to European security and the Ukraine peace talks.
Far better, then, for the British government to keep a “cool head”, as Sir Keir suggests: not only does it suit the prime minister’s general demeanour, but it will help to preserve his unusually warm relationship with a man almost precisely his ideological opposite. Britain is set to watch how things develop, and will continue to engage with American officials on trade, investment, and wider economic relations. If an old and valued friend unexpectedly decides to have a spat, the most rational response is not to hit them back and escalate an argument into a violent rift.
Fanciful as it may seem, this crisis can be turned into an opportunity. As the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the Commons, a trade deal of some sort could be mutually beneficial, even if that isn’t immediately apparent to President Trump, who is more “zero sum” in his approach to life (as might be expected from his time in real estate).
Sir Keir says that talks are continuing. He should be encouraged by the fact that the UK is to be subjected only to the lower “baseline” tariff of 10 per cent, albeit with the higher charges on cars, steel and aluminium bringing the trade-weighted average up to 13 per cent. When the two leaders met in the White House, Mr Trump expressed the hope that a deal could be done. Despite intense activity, such an agreement couldn’t be reached in time to avoid the new tariffs, but the process – which has been in train since Theresa May launched post-Brexit talks with the US – has begun.
The outlines of such a deal can already be discerned. Negotiables could include a radical cut in the tariffs on US goods, such as cars and agricultural produce, and easier access for qualified, skilled workers through mutual recognition. The UK might have to compromise on its high standards of animal welfare, hygiene, and environmental protection, but that is a tough choice that could be made, in the expectation that consumers would exercise their right to choose.
More difficult, if not impossible, would be meeting the usual demands for improved – inflated – prices to be paid by the NHS to the US pharmaceutical giants. The American negotiators would also have to be properly briefed on the reality of free speech in the UK, which is protected as a human right by law, save for incitement to hatred against specified vulnerable groups.
The real question is whether the achievement of some sort of economic agreement with America – an outcome that would certainly yield benefits – is worth the sacrifices and concessions that are likely to be demanded by Mr Trump. That includes the effect that any such pact would have on our relationship with the EU, in light of the “reset” promised by Labour at the general election.
Even the possibility of such an agreement with the United States is being touted as a “Brexit bonus”, as is the “favourable” 10 per cent tariff. Needless to say, this is highly debatable. Were it still part of the EU, the UK would probably have been treated more harshly, but it would have had the full weight of the largest single market in the world behind it, along with better access to the EU markets that it has lost since Brexit.
As a member state, the UK would also have been able, ironically, to control its own laws on free speech, as well as to protect the NHS and farmers. In other words, a trade deal with America would have to be radically better than currently envisaged in order to make Brexit remotely worthwhile, even in purely financial terms.
And there remains the terrible truth that the US has downgraded its commitment to Nato, and “switched sides” to align with Russia on the matters of Ukraine and European security.
On balance, Sir Keir can best serve the British national interest by pursuing closer relations with Europe, while declining to enact futile retaliatory measures against America and salvaging as much as possible of the US-UK special relationship. The hope is that the Trump era might ultimately pass more smoothly. In any case, balancing and nurturing Britain’s most crucial relationships won’t be easy.