House prices have been under pressure for most of the year and there is little light at the end of the tunnel for homeowners hoping to sell any time soon. Average house prices in England are now lower in real terms than 20 years ago, as inflation and interest rates “hammer the property market”, said The Telegraph.

What’s happening to house prices?
The housing market has faced a “more difficult backdrop in recent months”, with uncertainty caused by global events impacting inflation and borrowing costs, said Lloyds. According to the bank’s latest House Price Index, average property values declined by 0.4% year-on-year in August, the first such decrease since November 2023.

What is the outlook for the market?
Devaluations “must be swallowed” in areas of the country such as the Southeast and London where homes have been “overvalued for the past 20 years”, said The Critic. But on a nationwide level, analysts expect growth to remain “broadly stable or modest”, said the HomeOwners’ Alliance.

Estate agent Savills had previously predicted a 4% annual property price growth in 2026, but has since revised its forecasts to a 2% drop. Rightmove started the year predicting that asking prices would rise by 2% but now expects them to either be flat or to fall by 2%.

What could impact future prices?
The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that higher property income tax rates from April 2027 will “reduce house price growth by around 0.1 percentage points a year from 2028”. High-end property owners are facing a new mansion tax from April 2028. Although fewer than 1% of properties in England are expected to be above the £2 million threshold, it could have “knock-on effects for the rest of the market” if activity slows at the top, said This is Money. Further tax changes could also be announced next month in Chancellor John Healey’s first Budget.

A “polite, posh revolt” has broken out in an Oxfordshire village over plans to turn an old army site into new housing for more than 1,200 asylum seekers, said Ella Whelan in The i Paper. Residents of Piddington voted to become independent from the UK in a symbolic referendum this week, and the parish has been “approached by hundreds of other villages and towns for advice on replicating their campaign”, said Leaf Arbuthnot in The Telegraph.

‘Quietly grumbling’
As the landslide result was announced – a 285 to 26 vote to leave – residents were “palpably delighted”, said Arbuthnot. The village’s “eccentric and deeply English decision to gun for a figurative ‘split’ from the UK has won it extensive coverage, even from media outlets overseas”.

Piddington had been “quietly grumbling for a while” about the plans, said Whelan, but now those grumbles are “headline news”. What is “fascinating” is that these residents voted in Calum Miller, a Liberal Democrat candidate, in 2024. “You don’t vote in a Lib Dem if you’re agnostic on the issue of immigration.” The referendum shows how much the debate has evolved: ten years ago, “even using the I word” could have you labelled racist, but “concerns about cultural tensions, NHS waiting lists and even crime rates are now pretty commonplace across the political spectrum”.

Backlog burden
The government has defended its migration policy in the aftermath of the vote. “What I would just gently say to the people of Piddington is we inherited a massive asylum backlog,” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Sky News. The government is “getting that backlog down” but “in the meantime”, it’s not “acceptable for all of the burden” to fall on poorer communities.

But Labour MPs “would do well to study what has happened in Piddington”, said Arbuthnot. “The anger that has been stirred in even this conspicuously well-to-do and liberal corner of Oxfordshire could augur a broader mood taking hold across the country.” Andy Burnham has “sold himself as the ‘I hear you’ prime minister”, said Whelan, but “will he listen to the Piddington Poll”?

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man inspects a chicken in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighbourhood. Chickens are used in kapparot, a ritual act of atonement performed ahead of Yom Kippur in which a person’s sins are symbolically transferred to the bird.

Ilia Yefimovich / AFP / Getty Images

The season for apple picking is about to hit its peak, with orchards nationwide opening their gates for people to fill their baskets. Here are some favourite picking places.

Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire
This is the “perfect place to spend a full autumn day out”, said Condé Nast Traveller. The abbey, which is open to the public, has its own cider mill where visitors can learn about the site’s history of making apple juice and cider.

Hillfield Nursery, Norfolk
More than 250 varieties of apple are planted at Hillfield, “meaning the season starts early in the summer and finishes well into autumn”, said Rebecca Seal in National Geographic. The rare William Crump and Ellison’s Orange varieties are among the many “real treasures among the trees”, which also bear “plums, quince and medlars”.

Brogdale Collections, Kent
This southeast gem is known for its “diverse array of fruits, set in a stunning natural setting”, said Lauren Hughes in Country Living. Guided tours run until the end of October, allowing visitors to “explore the grounds and sample seasonal fruit”.

Hawarden Estate, Flintshire
Apples, pears and pumpkins are all up for grabs in this Welsh haven, once home to William Gladstone, said Siobhan Grogan in The Times. After filling a punnet, head to the estate’s on-site bakery for more sugary sustenance, or take a mushroom foraging tour and learn to tell your “shaggy parasols from your chanterelles”. 

Menaced by Putin, betrayed by Trump – but this is Britain’s simple defence fix
Naomi Smith in The i Paper
Britain “is in an unenviable” security position, stuck between a bellicose Russia and an unreliable America, and outside the EU, writes Naomi Smith of the Best for Britain think tank. We need “a defence union with our allies in Europe” that includes Ukraine, Norway and Iceland. “This is where Britain can lead” and “be bold”. A pact with a “sharper” collective-defence promise than Nato’s Article 5 would be our “insurance policy for the day” the US guarantee is “found wanting”.

In defence of Ealing Broadway’s ‘calm space’
Sophie Maxwell Brown in City A.M.
The new “calm space” at Ealing Broadway Tube station has become an object of “ridicule”, writes design strategist Sophie Maxwell Brown. The “unlit booth”, set where “the crowd is thickest”, has been likened to a “dog kennel” – “not exactly the natural home for anyone feeling overwhelmed”. But Transport for London “had the right instinct”: “neuroinclusive design” can “reduce cognitive load”. Perhaps they should “design the whole journey to reduce overload, rather than only providing a place to recover from it”. 

Ed Sheeran wants to stay out of politics. By quitting his tour, his support acts have exposed the hollowness of neutrality
Laura Snapes in The Guardian
Ed Sheeran says “he doesn’t use his platform for politics”, writes Laura Snapes, but these days, “there is no such thing as a neutral position”. The musicians who have pulled out of his tour understand that losing money “and creating inconvenience is precisely what it takes to show backbone and stand against genocide and billionaires crushing free speech”. Sheeran looks “wilfully naive”: “you can’t play with the aesthetics of global music” without engaging “in the lived reality of those cultures”.