Rishi Sunak to intervene in Sadiq Khan’s London housebuilding plan

Published

2 years ago

July 27, 2023

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Rishi Sunak is intervening in Sadiq Khan’s housing plan as he says not enough dwellings are built.

But the mayor of London has criticised the prime minister’s “disappointing and disingenuous claims” about the capital.

On Thursday, the government said Mr Khan has until the autumn to “look at opportunities to accelerate residential development on inner city brownfield industrial sites” or Housing Secretary Michael Gove will intervene directly.

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Downing Street criticised the mayor’s London Plan and wanted “to address issues such as single-story warehouses being prioritised over new homes on central London sites within a few minutes of tube stations”.

Mr Khan was quick to highlight his record on housebuilding, claiming that more homes had been completed under his leadership than at any time since the 1930s.

He pointed out progress had been to beat a target of starting 116,000 affordable homes in the capital between 2015 and 2023.

The government, meanwhile, claimed that “London’s own local housing plan says that 52,000 new homes are required – after the Mayor’s London Plan was not deemed credible to deliver the original 66,000 homes a year that he estimated to be needed”.

“Despite this, only around 30,000 have been built in recent years, and the latest indicator suggests only 21,000 new homes started development last year”.

Mr Khan’s spokesperson said: “These disappointing and disingenuous claims appear to show a fundamental lack of understanding of housebuilding in London.

“The mayor delivered record numbers of affordable homes over the last six years, consistently exceeding government targets despite the impact of the pandemic and Brexit. This has included starting more council homes than at any time since the 1970s.

“The mayor’s London Plan was approved by the government in 2021 and the ministers should know that the housing figures included within it are reliant on sufficient government investment being made in infrastructure, particularly transport.”

Sunak jumping on Sadiq as he spies political win

Liz Bates

Political correspondent

@wizbates

In the aftermath of the Conservatives’ narrow win at the recent Uxbridge by-election, it was clear they had taken two key lessons from the result.

Tory MPs interviewed in the early hours said it was about showing what Labour in power was really like and that single issues, like ULEZ (the Ultra-Low Emission Zone) could be weaponised to win votes.

Less than a week later, it appears that the prime minister has wasted no time in applying what many in his party think could be the strategy that enables them to cling on to power at the next election.

Which is presumably why Rishi Sunak popped up on a London building site today to trash Sadiq Khan’s housebuilding record in the capital.

Focusing on the Labour mayor enables the prime minister to avoid his own party’s record which, assessed against almost any metric, is a disappointing one.

Their 300,000 homes a year pledge, established in 2017, has been oft ignored and at times watered down, with Housing Secretary Michael Gove last year downgrading it to “advisory”.

The party’s one serious attempt at meeting it with ambitious planning reforms and country-wide targets was met with a furious wave of opposition from its own MPs and council leaders, many determined to protect the picturesque Tory shires.

It was clear that approach had been abandoned this week when Mr Gove set out a new vision focused instead on cities, including a significant expansion of Cambridge – a scheme immediately condemned by the area’s Conservative MP.

Meanwhile, the most recent homelessness figures show record number of families living in temporary accommodation, including 131,000 children without a home.

Add to that the recent economic turmoil that has pushed up rents and mortgages to eye-watering levels and you get a toxic combination that underpins a dysfunctional and deteriorating housing market.

Rishi Sunak’s response? To point the finger at the London mayor and to say he will now step in to sort it out.

Given his government’s record across the rest of the country, Londoners may be forgiven for thinking this is anything more than electioneering.

Mr Sunak said: “We are on track to build 1 million new homes over this parliament, having already delivered over 2.2 million across the country since 2010.

“But the reality is that too few of these homes are being built in London, and for too many Londoners the dream of owning their own home is beyond reach.

“The mayor has failed to deliver the homes that London needs. This has driven up house prices and made it harder for families to get on the housing ladder in the first place.

“That is why we are stepping in today to boost house building and make homeownership a reality again for people across this great city.”

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In its plans, the government said it wanted to support a “Docklands 2.0”, which would see increased building in parts of east London like Thamesmead, Beckton and Silvertown.

It also said £150m for housebuilding will be passed onto London boroughs, bypassing the mayor’s Greater London Authority.

And another £200m will be spent on developing unused brownfield sites.

Politics

Solana’s Loopscale pauses lending after $5.8M hack

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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<div>Solana's Loopscale pauses lending after .8M hack</div>

Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Loopscale has temporarily halted its lending markets after suffering an approximately $5.8 million exploit.

On April 26, a hacker siphoned approximately 5.7 million USDC (USDC) and 1200 Solana (SOL) from the lending protocol after taking out a “series of undercollateralized loans”, Loopscale co-founder Mary Gooneratne said in an X post.

The exploit only impacted Loopscale’s USDC and SOL vaults and the losses represent around 12% of Loopscale’s total value locked (TVL), Gooneratne added.

Loopscale is “working to resume repayment functionality as soon as possible to mitigate unforeseen liquidations,” its said in an X post.

“Our team is fully mobilized to investigate, recover funds, and ensure users are protected,” Gooneratne said.

Solana's Loopscale pauses lending after $5.8M hack — *Loopscale’s ‘Genesis’ lending vaults. Source: Loopscale*

In the first quarter of 2025, hackers stole more than $1.6 billion worth of crypto from exchanges and on-chain smart contracts, blockchain security firm PeckShield said in an April report.

More than 90% of those losses are attributable to a $1.5 billion attack on ByBit, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, by North Korean hacking outfit Lazarus Group.

Unique DeFi lending model

Launched on April 10 after a six-month closed beta, Loopscale is a DeFi lending protocol designed to enhance capital efficiency by directly matching lenders and borrowers.

It also supports specialized lending markets, such as “structured credit, receivables financing, and undercollateralized lending,” Loopscale said in an April announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Loopscale’s order book model distinguishes it from DeFi lending peers such as Aave that aggregate cryptocurrency deposits into liquidity pools.

Loopscale’s main USDC and SOL vaults yield APRs exceeding 5% and 10%, respectively. It also supports lending markets for tokens such as JitoSOL and BONK (BONK) and looping strategies for upwards of 40 different token pairs.

The DeFi protocol has approximately $40 million in TVL and has attracted upwards of 7,000 lenders, according to researcher OurNetwork.

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Politics

US Senator calls for Trump impeachment, cites memecoin dinner

Published

9 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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US Senator calls for Trump impeachment, cites memecoin dinner

United States Senator Jon Ossoff expressed support for impeaching President Donald Trump during an April 25 town hall, citing the President’s plan to host a private dinner for top Official Trump memecoin holders.

“I mean, I saw just 48 hours ago, he is granting audiences to people who buy his meme coin,” said Ossoff, a Democrat, according to a report by NBC News.

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense.”

Senator Ossoff said he “strongly” supports impeachment proceedings during a town hall in the state of Georgia, where he is running for reelection to the Senate.

The Senator added that an impeachment is unlikely unless the Democratic Party gains control of Congress during the US midterm elections in 2026. Trump’s own Republican Party currently has a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Conflicts of interest

On April 23, the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin’s website announced plans for Trump to host an exclusive dinner at his Washington, DC golf club with the top 220 TRUMP holders.

The website subsequently posted a leaderboard tracking top TRUMP wallets and a link to register for the event. The TRUMP token’s price has gained more than 50% since the announcement, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

The specific guest list is unclear, but the memecoin’s website states that applicants must pass a background check, “can not be from a [Know Your Customer] watchlist country,” and cannot bring any additional guests.

On April 25, the team behind TRUMP denied social media rumors that TRUMP holders need at least $300,000 to participate in an upcoming dinner with the president.

“People have been incorrectly quoting #220 on the block explorer as the cutoff. That’s wrong because it includes things like locked tokens, exchanges, market makers, and those who are not participating. Instead, you should only be going off the leaderboard,” they wrote.

Law, Politics, Senate, Donald Trump, trumpcoin, Memecoin — *The TRUMP token jumped on news of the private dinner plans. Source:* *CoinMarketCap*

Legal experts told Cointelegraph that Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, including the TRUMP memecoin and Trump-affiliated decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol World Liberty Financial, raise significant concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

“Within just a couple of days of him taking office, he’s signed a number of executive orders that are significantly going to affect the way that our crypto and digital assets industry works,” Charlyn Ho of law firm Rikka told Cointelegraph in February.

“So if he has a personal pecuniary benefit arising from his own policies, that’s a conflict of interest.”

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

Politics

Crypto sentiment recovers, but weekend liquidity risks remain

Published

12 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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Crypto sentiment recovers, but weekend liquidity risks remain

Crypto investor sentiment has seen a significant recovery from global tariff concerns, but analysts warn that the market’s structural weaknesses may still result in downside momentum during periods of weekend illiquidity.

Risk appetite appeared to return among crypto investors this week after US President Donald Trump adopted a softer tone, saying that import tariffs on Chinese goods may “come down substantially.”

However, the improved investor sentiment “does not guarantee that Bitcoin will avoid volatility over the weekend,” analysts from Bitfinex exchange told Cointelegraph:

“Sentiment improvements reduce fragility, but they do not eliminate structural risks like thin weekend liquidity.”

“Historically, weekends remain vulnerable to sharp moves — especially when open interest is high and market depth is low,” the analysts said, adding that unexpected macroeconomic news can still increase volatility during low liquidity periods.

Bitcoin (BTC) staged a near 11% recovery during the past week, but its rally has previously been limited by Sunday liquidity dynamics.

Bitcoin fell below $75,000 on Sunday, April 6, despite initially decoupling from the US stock market’s $3.5 trillion drop on April 4 after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that Trump’s tariffs may affect the economy and raise inflation.

The correction was exacerbated by the lack of weekend liquidity and the fact that Bitcoin was the only large liquid asset available for de-risking, industry watchers told Cointelegraph.

“While improved sentiment creates a more stable foundation, cryptocurrency markets are still susceptible to rapid movements during periods of reduced trading volume,” according to Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder and chief operating officer of RedStone blockchain oracle firm.

“The sentiment recovery provides some cushioning, but traders should remain cautious as weekend liquidity constraints can still amplify price movements regardless of the current market mood,” he told Cointelegraph.

Crypto investors may have “maxed out on tariff-related fears”

Cryptocurrency markets may have priced in the full extent of tariff-related concerns, according to Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen.

“It feels like we’ve maxed out on tariff-related fear,” she told Cointelegraph, adding:

“While many remain uncertain about where things are headed over the next month or so, it also seems like markets were just waiting for the slightest signal that we’re back in the game.”

“Whether the rally is sustainable depends on whether we can break through previous resistance levels, at least in isolation. It could have legs, as markets now seem to believe there’s a ‘Trump put’ under equities, the US dollar and US Treasurys,” Barthere added, warning of more potential volatility amid the upcoming negotiations.

Nansen previously predicted a 70% chance that crypto markets will bottom and start a recovery by June, but highlighted that the timing will depend on the outcome of tariff negotiations.

The tariff negotiations may only be “posturing” for the US to reach a trade agreement with China, which may be the “big prize” for Trump’s administration, according to Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor.