A SKY NEWS anchor has apologised after hitting out at renters during an interview about housing policy.
Jane Secker was speaking to a London-based young woman about high rent costs in London.
The woman highlighted the difficulty of finding new accommodation and noted that on average it costs “about £2,000″ to rent.
At this point in the interview, Secker cut across the woman and said: “That’s not the landlord’s fault though is it? That’s just the housing market and the landlord would have the same issues if you decided to move out in two months.”
The interviewee replied to Secker and said that the high rent costs are a “systemic problem”.
“If we can’t really afford that £2,000, why should we have to, working people … why should we have to raise that for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Why should it be so hard for us to live secure lives?” the interviewee said.
Secker noted that she herself is someone who has rented in the past and someone who also rents flats out to tenants.
She then began detailing experiencing she had as a landlord: ″Some would say – and I am speaking as somebody who has rented flats, who also rents flats out – that especially with the younger generation in terms of renters you very often find that tenants don’t really know how to do a great deal in homes.”
Secker said that she has had tenants complaining that “lights have popped because they don’t know how to change lightbulbs” and tenants complaining about heating “when they haven’t turned the boiler on”.
“It’s just very obvious things. If you lived in a home that you owned nobody would be able to fix these things for you, they’re just things that require a bit of common sense,” she said.
Do you think you’ve found amongst your friends, perhaps, that you’re aren’t equipped with the necessary skills to rent?
The interviewee then responded to Secker and described her line of questioning as “a bit patronising, really”.
“If a landlord was getting pissed off about that, surely the reasonable thing to do is to communicate with each other and resolve that. Why should the consequence of that be them hitting an eject button and turning your lives upside down because of that,” she said.
Secker’s line of questioning has faced heavy criticism from members of the public on social media since yesterday evening.
Following the backlash, Secker has issued an apology this morning.
“Clearly yesterday I got the tone and content of an interview wrong and it has upset many people,” she tweeted.
“I am sure many of us will have made a mistake at work – unfortunate for me mine is a lot more public than most. Please be assured I have taken the many comments on board. Mea culpa.”
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