Estate agent hero of Question Time says he should have gone further in attacking Bank’s scaremongering

Outspoken estate agent Chris Wood has found himself a media hero since speaking out over Brexit on Question Time.

But he now says he should have gone further and attacked the Bank of England’s “reckless” prediction of a 30% drop in house prices, which he says is losing estate agents business.

Wood was in the live audience when he made comments which have been featured in both local and national media, with calls for him to be on the Question Time panel, to stand for Parliament, and even to become Prime Minister.

Wood said: “I was opinionated, as you’d expect. I didn’t hold back.

“The discussion was about a no-deal Brexit, or a bad deal.

“My point was that while we hear a lot about a bad deal, it is always doom and gloom.

“The Bank of England has painted a scenario of having to plan for the worst scenario when we leave.

“But why doesn’t it paint a worst case scenario for what would happen if we stayed in?

“If we did, we might have to bail out Spain, Greece, Portugal. The arguments we are hearing are simply not balanced.”

What really brought “a roar” of applause from the rest of the audience, according to the Daily Express, however, was his declaration: “We’re an independent nation. We’re a nation of innovators.

“We have always done well. There is no reason why we cannot do well again.”

Wood told EYE he had always been a fan of Question Time – “I am one of those who shouts at the television” – and said he could not resist the opportunity to attend when it was broadcast from his children’s old school just outside Penzance.

He said: “However, thinking about it since, I wish I had spoken out about the Bank of England specifically forecasting that house prices would drop 30% in its worst-case scenario.

“I do not believe there is any other industry where the Bank would think it OK to make such a forecast, with such damaging repercussions for trading.

“They wouldn’t do it to the steel industry, for example, but they seem to think it is perfectly all right to do it for property.

“As a direct result, agents are losing house sales due to this scaremongering. We ourselves have lost two in the last few days.

“It is an absolutely crazy, reckless thing for the Bank to have done.”

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24 Comments

  1. surrey1

    Question Time. Pantomime for the masses.

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    1. Chris Wood

      OH NO IT ISN’T!

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      1. Bless You

        Didn’t have you down as a fake news leaver . Especially as always calling purplebricks out for only reporting the good news .

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        1. Chris Wood

          There was a lot of billhooks talked by BOTH sides of the argument, neither of which did anything to help reduce tensions or breed an atmosphere of trust and healthy debate within the country.

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    2. Will

      And I thought  you were mistaking question time for the Government!

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  2. Peter Ambrose (The Partnership)

    Ummmm … I thought pantomimes in general were “for the masses” – a slightly scary throwback reference to Victorian elitism …

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    1. surrey1

      Lots of preprepared answers to preprepared questions is my point. Nothing of any interest comes of it. Mostly been a vehicle for pantomime villain, Farage, to spout utter rubbish and people actually believe it. Hence we’re now in this mess.
       

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      1. Chris Wood

        Having been through the process, I can assure everyone that there are no prepared questions and the panel have no prior knowledge of the questions.

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  3. Simon Bradbury

    Well done Chris!

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  4. Shaun77

    Not looking forward to 12th Dec. I think we’ll see lots more withdrawals, unfortunately, due to Carney’s comments regarding a No Deal crash.

    Thoroughly irresponsible.

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  5. David Clark

    More should be made public through any vehicle – Question Time, whatever. Don’t mock the vehicle. Applaud the message.

    The public are heartily sick of the subject in general, but the current real-life impact of the activities of Parliament and public servants need to be shouted about. Thank you Chris. I don’t hear the NFOPP, RICS et al saying anything at all.

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  6. AgencyInsider

    Yes, of course we can be great again Mr Wood. How shall we do that? I know, let’s start an industrial revolution, rule half the countries on earth, build the biggest fleet on the high seas, be one of the strongest players in leading the free world. Oh, hang on. That’s not going to happen again is it? We’ve been there done that. And now, as a much diminished entity we are about to voluntarily jump off a cliff into the unknown for no better reason than that too many people don’t much like people who aren’t like us – and swallowed the lies they were fed in the run up to the Referendum. In leaving the EU we will make ourselves and future generations poorer, less secure, and even less influential in the world. Madness.

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    1. Chris Wood

      We disagree. All nations have had empires, subjugated other populations for their own betterment, used (or continue to use) slavery however, as a Nation we have also banned slavery, given back our colonies/ granted independence, given the world a superb legal system and code of morals (generally) and given untold aid to the needy.
      We have also been major innovators and inventors as a Nation. Penicillin, the internet, vaccinations, etc. etc. The EU is a bureaucratic mess that keeps admitting countries that cannot afford to join or remain in under the rules as they stand, and require to be propped up/ bailed out by countries who should be spending that money looking after their own population. There were far too many lies and threats on both sides, being pro Brexit doesn’t equate to me endorsing or supporting misinformation or wild conjecture any more than decent minded remainers support the twaddle that was and continues to be peddled by some on that side of the argument.
      I doubt we will change the others mind however, I would finish by saying that the economies and stability of the majority of the EU countries is shaky at best. Staying in, in my opinion, carries more risks than being an independent sovereign nation again.

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      1. Property Pundit

        I’ve yet to see anything from remoaners which tells us what ‘staying in’ would actually look like. We’ve had bits; the EU army (undermining NATO and Europe’s relationship with the US), tax harmonisation, the move towards completely open borders (Global Compact for Migration), generally MORE Europe and anyone who believes the EURO won’t be imposed upon us is living in cloud cuckoo land. Let’s have this discussion. Search ‘Jordan Peterson Brexit’ on youtube and you’ll understand why the whole Euro project can’t survive.

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      2. VillageAgent

        Very well said Chris! Couldn’t agree more!

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      3. Whaley

        Past performance is no guarantee of future results

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    2. Property Pundit

      See how easy it is to cut & paste from The Guardian?

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  7. Essjaydee51

    Agency insider, do you have inside info then that confirms we were told lies by one party and not the other, are you happy to continue bailing out other countries to a larger degree than most others in the EU and are you happy to have our laws meddled with and told how it is going to be from those we either defended or beat 73 and 100 years ago respectively!

    Having been given the vote, had we stayed we would have given EU the go ahead to walk all over us and totally ignore our government, we would have been a lot poorer for it, this is a white knuckle ride but one we can once again find oportunity and success, something rather limited in the EU IMHO.

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    1. AgencyInsider

      Essjaydee51 – You and I seem to encapsulate the opposing views of Brexit. I prefer my view of it but ultimately only one of us will be proved correct. Neither of us really knows which it will be. 

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    2. surrey1

      We spend less than 0.5% of our total government spending on the EU. Just seems a ridiculous “problem” to tackle, when there are far more pressing problems. Sadly the EU and Europe as a whole has been made a whipping boy for domestic failures and the tax avoiding powers that be have been happy to fuel that for personal gain. Ultimately the poorest look set to suffer most according to both independent and government studies.

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      1. Property Pundit

        We spend less than 0.5% of our total government spending on the EU
        It’s all about the money ‘innit? Give. Me. Strength.

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        1. surrey1

          Ultimately? Yes. 

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        2. RentBoy

          And a slice of xenophobia

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  8. Nick The Lettings Manager

    Agree entirely. It’s completely reckless of the Banks to make these unbalanced predictions.

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