‘And if the market is too high, we build new houses and apartments each month.’

  My estate agent lady put in, ‘There are a hundred thousand large rooms empty in Britain, above the shops in the High Street. Convert them, many of them, and that keeps rental prices down. Do that in London and the south east and the rental income is huge.’

  I nodded at that idea. ‘Lucas, do the maths, plan “A” and plan “Z”. Plan “Z” will be us trying to make as much profit as we can from housing sales and rentals, plan “A” is my current plan, to help poor families.’

  I faced David. ‘We bank with Barclays?’

  ‘We do.’

  I called directory enquiries, and the lady put me through to Barclays Commercial Loans Division in London. I got a confused young girl, then a middle manager, finally a senior man.

  ‘Yes, this is Ricky Roskov in Leicester, we bank with you.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I want to meet with your team and discuss commercial mortgages. We normally use cash for everything, but we aim to buy a great many domestic houses, apartments and commercial buildings.

  ‘We’d then want mortgages on additional properties, secured against what we bought.’

  ‘How many additional properties were you thinking of?’

  ‘Fifty thousand domestic houses and apartments.’

  After a pause came, ‘Oh. I’ll … pass this on and someone will get back to you.’

  ‘Thanks. Ask for David Hutton, our legal director at the charity.’

  Call ended, I told Bill, ‘Go ahead and step-up the buying of houses around this area, renovated and rented out, here and Nottingham and Derby and Coventry, east side of Birmingham.’

  I faced my estate agent lady. ‘How many people are on the waiting list for council houses in Leicester?’

  ‘Thousands.’

  ‘And the Midlands?’ I asked.

  ‘Thirty-forty thousand. Leicester council will sell some stock and use the rest, for those people that have been on the list the longest. You can buy the surplus.’

  I pointed at our main Swedish guy. ‘Your view, of the market, and the effects we might have on the market?’

  ‘If you buy council houses you affect only a few large cities, and poor houses inside those cities, you do not affect better quality housing stock. That effect in the cities is … minus one.

  ‘Convert these rooms above shops and that is minus one on house prices as well. Buy up all the excess stock and old houses … and that is plus twenty.

  ‘If the Labour Government spend, and you have a feel-good factor, that is plus four. More of these buy-to-let mortgages and that is plus six.

  ‘The greatest pressure upwards on house prices will be buying up stock in bulk, so you must use stealth and do it slowly. If you do nothing but sit here … after two terms of this new Labour Government we have house prices twice what they are now.’

  ‘Twice?’ David queried.

  ‘It will happen,’ my estate agent lady put in. ‘These buy-to-let mortgages means that anyone with a house gets a second house.’

  Bill put in, ‘I own two houses, good houses, I could get four new small houses buy-to-let and become a fucking landlord!’

  I pointed at our roving purchase manager. ‘Your opinion.’

  ‘I think we’re heading back to Victorian times, the very rich and the very poor, the land owners and the tenants. The gap is widening, and these buy-to-let mortgages mean that any rich twat can buy ten houses tomorrow and become a landlord.

  ‘As it stands, France and Germany have a good level of equality, not so much a class system, but our old class system – which was in decline – is coming back, the land owners and the peasants, the gap widening.

  ‘If you can persuade Tony Blair to stop buy-to-let mortgages then do so, or it will widen the gap and we all go back to Victorian days, and no one under thirty will ever be able to afford a house.’

  ‘And when the music stops?’ I asked him. ‘No more first time buyers?’

  ‘Either they all rent, or house prices crash and the economy is fucked.’

  ‘I’m leaning towards the later,’ I told him. ‘Boom and bust, same old shit.’

  Heads were nodded.

  He added, ‘To keep down house prices, best bet is old buildings that can be converted, cheap rent, and less pressure on people to buy.

  ‘The High Street here is an example. Young people that might have wanted a mortgage get an apartment in the city and have a good social life, and pensioners like it as well.

  ‘It may be minus one on some chart, but not if done in a large way. But if you grab a shit load of small houses and rent them out, tenants then encouraged to get a fifty percent mortgage, then the low income families in this country get a foot on the ladder, and we stuff the rich.

  ‘If you want to do what’s best to avoid a return to Victorian times, then the plan you have is the best one – allow people to rent then buy, power to the lower-income families.

  ‘But whatever happens, these buy-to-lets won’t go away, and house prices will double. And the more people there are buying second houses, the faster it will accelerate, till the bust comes.’

  I faced Bill but pointed at the man. ‘Put him down as a Labour voter, an invite to the next local party meeting.’

  Faces smiled.

  ‘OK, Bill, recruit more people to work on house purchases.’ I faced my estate agent lady. ‘Can you handle all the extra rental houses here?’

  ‘They don’t call us that often, and we can hire people. Renovation takes time and people, inspections, but I can find the people.’

  ‘Bill, we need someone like this fantastic lady, but in Nottingham, then Derby then Coventry. We have a rental computer system?’

  Bill answered, ‘As owners, to keep track, the payments and issues go through the estate agent computer.’

  My estate agent told me, ‘We use the one that your guy Richard designed for us.’

  I noted, ‘So the same software should be used around the country, where we have a tie-up with an estate agent. Bill, recruit someone, Head of Property, a good wage, someone that’s expert with numbers, accounts, mortgages and the UK property market. Get him, or her, an assistant and an office here to start, and let’s gear up, we may be busy it sounds.

  ‘Expand the High Street regeneration, yes, but also look at old buildings that can become apartments, basically … anywhere in the country. Look for potential.

  ‘And if we can find a cheap apartment, anywhere around here, that can be grabbed quickly, renovated quickly, then go ahead and grab it and add it to our rental list.

  ‘A new apartment block, a tower, and buy some off-plan if the price is good. And nudge all of our tenants towards our loans company, the gimmicks explained.

  ‘And as with the Old Tannery, let’s find old buildings in London and convert them.’ I faced Glen. ‘How’s our computer business going?’

  ‘Manic, as ever, and we now cover a larger area, most of England basically, and we’ve done a lot of schools.’

  Lucas put in, ‘It shows a fantastic profit.’

  ‘And the second hand computers?’ I asked Lucas.

  ‘Are all sold quickly, or used by schools.’

  ‘Glen, find someone, and open a small office in Belfast for our computer rentals, I want every business there to have new computers and to use the damn things.’

  Glen responded, ‘My old college buddy, a Protestant but mild, now in London - and he hates London. He’s an IT manager, would love to go back.’

  ‘Offer him a good salary, for Belfast, not a good salary for London, and bonuses. He can start tomorrow if he likes.’

  ‘I’ll call him later.’

  ‘And go see your buddy in the new property business, a few hours, see that they’re all on track.’

  He nodded.

  ‘So, people, in summary … we can’t stop the tide, and we are heading back towards Victorian times, but we should be able to run a huge rental property operation, which in eight years roughly would double in asset value.

  ‘We may still keep the rentals price below fair value, but the house would be worth twice as much - and we could sell a few and pocket the profit, investors paid off.’

  Our Swedish manager put in, ‘You can buy almost a billion pounds in property, get mortgages for two billion more, and in eight years double your money.

  ‘When the top of the market is reached you sell, and use the money for something else, before the crash.’

  I nodded at him. ‘If I live that long. OK, recruit some people, expand our purchases please, and we’ll chat again in the near future. Glen, get your Proddy mate motivated and packing his suitcase. Thank you, everyone, and hide your staplers from David.’

  Back at the new offices, I sat in my room, staring at the phone for a while before I called Tony Blair.

  ‘Ricky?’

  ‘We need to meet, there’s … a problem.’

  ‘I have to be in Nottingham tomorrow, was thinking about a hotel, can do a hotel near you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, I have several spare apartments above the new offices, bullet proof glass, police outside, and a café. Come here.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  I gave him the address.

  At 8pm, after a shower and some food, Blair arrived with his driver, apartments found for them both, bags taken inside.

  In the main room I introduced him to the team, who had all come back to say hello to Britain’s next Prime Minister. My lady Deputy Editor was here, photos taken of Blair with the team, and then with Blair sat down with me and looking at charts.

  Editor gone, team thanked, and most headed off home to wives. In the café, my large chef cooked for Blair and his driver, and we sat chatting about all sorts, but not politics; the driver had a Traffic Jam device and would go nowhere without it.

  After the food, I took Blair upstairs to my suite, and I showed him the adjoining rooms.

  ‘Like a nice hotel suite,’ he noted.

  Cups of tea made, we sat at a table.

  ‘You have a problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Lots, few of which you can help with. No, we need to talk about your problems.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘My experts - and they’re good experts that are rarely wrong - are sure that by the end of your second term British house prices will have more than doubled.’

  ‘Because of our spending plans?’ he puzzled.

  ‘No, but you will have a positive effect on prices. The issue is these new Interest Only mortgages and Buy-To-Let mortgages.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them, yes. What’s the issue?’

  ‘A buy-to-let mortgage doesn’t necessarily need a deposit, or proof of income, because the income is assumed to be the rent collected each month. To qualify … you need a house and to have paid off a third of it or more.

  ‘That means … that around twelve million people in this country qualify, in a housing market of just thirty thousand houses a month changing hands. If a tiny fraction of them buy a second house to rent out - which is becoming very easy to do, house prices could go up four fold.’

  ‘And we’d get the blame, first time buyers priced out the market,’ he noted.

  ‘Imagine a country where the average house in Wales and the north goes from thirty grand to a hundred and thirty grand.’

  ‘Be my head on a plate. The middle classes would be very happy, rich people would cash in, but someone leaving college could never get a mortgage.’

  I nodded. ‘We’d be back to Victorian times, the very rich and the very poor. Those with houses keep them, the rest rent … forever.’

  ‘I can look at these new gimmick mortgages when I get in,’ he offered.

  ‘To help slow landlords down, the mortgages should need a deposit, plus proof of income if the tenant is absent. The Revenue must be informed of the tax due on rent as a business concern, and you must stop people taking out three mortgages secured against one house.’

  ‘That would be fraud…’ he puzzled.

  ‘The banks don’t care so long as they get the interest paid each month, and the banks policy is not to prosecute, ever.’

  ‘That we can tighten up on, and insist on deposits and background checks, that will slow them down.’

  ‘I need a few years -’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To buy up a hundred thousand small shit houses, renovate them, rent them out, sign up the tenants to my loans company, and two years or more later we offer them a fifty percent mortgage.

  ‘After that, if house prices rise, we have a hundred thousand low-income families benefitting from the rise.’

  ‘That many people buying houses will force up prices…’ he noted.

  ‘It may, so I need to be careful, and I aim to have a huge rental market, which will deter these buy-to-let idiots. We’ll offer a better service, and cheaper.’

  ‘So landlords will be worried, and not expand their portfolio,’ he noted.

  I nodded. ‘If these buy-to-let mortgages take off … you could see spiralling house prices, spiralling upwards, and the boom and bust that will follow when the music stops, and when I lower my rental prices just to piss off the other landlords.

  ‘If and when this happens, Britain changes forever, and you get remembered for being the man in charge. No one leaving school will ever be able to afford a house.’

  ‘Which is not what Labour is about. What’s the total number of low-income families that could and should be on the property ladder?’

  ‘Not that many, less than half a million families. You then have the issue of future school leavers, and a housing market where there are no new buyers.’

  ‘A market with no new buyers is a dead market! House prices would fall or stagnate, people trapped with a property that’s going nowhere, negative equity, a declining economy the result.’

  ‘That’s what waits for your successor.’

  He smiled. ‘My successor?’

  ‘Rumour has it that Gordon Brown would like your job…’

  ‘We … did discuss that I serve one or two terms and step aside,’ he admitted.

  ‘Two terms is enough, time for a rest; you’d be stale after two terms. But Gordon would be lousy at the job, he doesn’t have the face for it, and the voters are fickle.’

  ‘You’d support him?’

  ‘I’d tell him his weaknesses, in private.’

  ‘Trust me, he doesn’t think he has any. So we need to build more houses?’

  ‘Possibly, but we have a shit load of empty buildings in this country, and a shit load of bad areas that are suffering because of the lack of a simple lick of paint, two abandoned houses in a street affecting property prices.

  ‘My High Street regeneration project will have an effect on things, keeping rental prices down, deterring landlords from expanding.’

  ‘We can get you loans for things like that.’

  ‘The more rental property the better, the more fifty percent mortgages the better, but early on. A fifty percent mortgage is no good when the house cost is suddenly three times what it used to be.’

  ‘Selling council houses will have a downward effect?’ he asked.

  ‘No, because those houses are all clumped together in shit areas; wider UK prices will hardly be affected. And my nursing homes will open up in large cities, where they’re needed, and … ninety-five percent of the country won’t be affected.’

  ‘But more people going into nursing homes frees up stock…’ he noted.

  ‘Yes, but to start with I’m targeting poor people, your biggest cost centre. Later on I can open nursing homes for people to buy apartments in Phase One.’

  ‘So we target poor people in my first term, homeowners in the second term, and try and keep house prices stable,’ he noted.

  ‘My people think that it can’t be done, too many factors are now in place on the up side.’

  ‘We can nudge up interest rates, but I know what the Cabinet will say when things are going well – and not to spoil the good times.’

  ‘And we go back to boom and bust.’

  He sighed out, frustrated. ‘The Bank of England and the Treasury can look at it, see what they come up with. And how best we avoid it. I’m not in yet and I’m already stressing the big decisions.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m twenty. Try and be me and see how stressful that is.’

  ‘I can imagine. And the people trying so hard to shoot you?’

  ‘Don’t ever repeat this, but there’s been a paedophile ring inside the London establishment for two hundred years, all freemasons.’

  He noted, ‘There are some London institutions and companies that only employ masons, and they’ve been sat there two hundred years as well.’

  ‘When you get in … you’ll inherit a police force in tatters, morale and recruitment down, and gun battles on the streets – till it stops, or until I stop it. Or I die of course.’

  ‘A police officer in Essex was butchered, blood up the walls Italian style! It’s a mess.’

  ‘Push the Police Complaint’s Commission, external solicitors working there a year or two, more women. Don’t let the police investigate the police.’

  He nodded. ‘A recipe for disaster, I saw it as a barrister. A year’s inquiry and – sorry, nothing found. Are you investigating this sex ring?’

  ‘No, and I want to avoid being dragged into it. People send me tip-offs, I act on the tip-offs - as in Essex, but I’m not actively looking at The Met.’

  ‘You’re still a Cardinal?’ he asked with a grin.

  ‘Honorary Cardinal, with the power to sack priests.’

  ‘And the Vatican take your advice?’ he nudged.

  ‘They do, on certain matters.’

  He nodded, and stood. ‘I have files to read, but I will get to know everything about these buy-to-let mortgages, they need to be tightened up very soon.’

  I followed him up. ‘Have Gordon look at them, that’s his job. And you haven’t told me yet how you plan to rein me in…’

  He cocked an eyebrow. ‘If you wish to help us, then we need a united front, on policy.’