The UK property market before the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-09 was a bit like crypto today.

Think easy money.

Buyers flipping assets they didn’t understand.

Dodgy maths in the shape of self-certification and 110% mortgages.

And of course a media frenzy, albeit one mediated by cuddly folk such as Kirsty-n-Phil and Sarah Beeny, as opposed to crypto’s West Coast techno-bros high on micro-dosing and 2,200% gains.

A particular highlight of the pre-GFC property market for me was when I pulled out of buying a flat in London in 2003 and my deposit cheque was returned to me by the High Street bank – with a cover letter written in Comic Sans!1

The GFC brought that carnival to a screeching halt – though there was no big crash in prices for most of the UK.

The property market did wobble in London for a year or so. But we didn’t see the massive price dislocations or personal hardship reported from the US – the epicentre of the sub-prime crisis.

Tough on sub-prime, tough on the causes of sub-prime

Despite their own citizens getting off relatively easily, UK and European regulators still took a harder line on property lending following the GFC.

In particular, lenders were required to apply tough ‘stress tests’ on customer’s applications to be more confident they could repay their mortgages.

Ratcheting down the banks’ gearing at the balance sheet level surely also constrained lending.

But repeated national crises (Brexit, Covid), low-to-no economic growth, and a near-zero interest rate backdrop deterring competition was probably as big a factor in curbing the lenders’ animal spirits.

This is not even to get into later politically-led dampeners on the housing market, such as extra taxes and regulations for the previously ebullient and lucrative buy-to-let sector, and repeated hikes in stamp duty.

The result? Below you can see that quarterly mortgage volumes is still running below pre-GFC levels:

Total value of gross mortgage lending and annual percentage change in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1st quarter 2007 to 2nd quarter 2024

Source: Statista / FCA

Those numbers are not adjusted for inflation, either. Total inflation between 2007 and 2025 clocked in at 66% by the CPI measure, according to the Bank of England.

In that light the mortgage volume stagnation looks decidedly sickly.

Is there a case for looser lending?

Easing up the post-GFC restrictions on lending a tad would hardly seem to be a case of pouring oil onto flames then.

It’d be more like me making my girlfriend a coffee on a Sunday morning, nudging her out of her sleepy coma.

For sure the government would like to see more vigour in the market. Labour was elected on a growth platform, yet virtually all its major policy moves so far have been anti-growth. Perhaps the only big exception has been work on the planning laws, towards its target to build 1.5m new homes by the end of Parliament.

While I think it’s about as likely to hit that goal as I’m likely to hit the beaches of Ibiza this summer sporting a body fat percentage of under 10%, the housing industry has been unusually optimistic about Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

So maybe there will be an uptick in homes built, at last?

However people still need to be able to buy them. And while you might say the problem is houses are too expensive, actually adjusted for inflation UK house prices have gone nowhere for 15 years:

Source: allAgents/Nationwide

A lot of people believe we’re still in the midst of an ongoing property bubble.

But while house prices are certainly still elevated compared to 30 years ago on a price-to-earnings basis, say, the heavy puffing that inflated the UK market was all done back in the pre-iPhone era.

I’d agree tougher lending restrictions aren’t the only reason for stagnant real prices – I hinted at some other causes above – but they must be in the mix.

You think it’s a good thing house prices stopped rising exponentially in real terms?

I agree with that too – but again that’s an article for another day.

Casus belli for a war on mortgage restrictions

So to summarise, we have a government that aspires to build 1.5m new homes.

For political reasons, it clearly wants most of these homes to be bought by owner-occupiers.

If they’re not buying already – when they’re now competing with recently-hamstrung would-be landlords – then I’d suggest that for some access to finance must be a hurdle, given stagnant real prices.

We also have Labour’s growth agenda going nowhere. And nothing juices the UK economy like a good old-fashioned house price boom.

Finally, the big banks are flush with cash. As interest rates expectations decline I’m sure they’d love to lend more of it out at today’s chunkier rates to help them stay that way.

Signs that mortgage lending is already loosening

With the Financial Crisis starting to sound like the war stories of another era to today’s young buyers, the pressure from upcoming generations to ease mortgage lending rules can only grow.

This will be especially true while paying down first-time buyer mortgages is cheaper than renting.

Indeed I think you can already see signs that it’s going to get easier to borrow.

The government says so

By far the biggest giveaway – we’re talking tap into an open goal territory here – is the Government has said it wants to ease lending restrictions.

In December last year, senior Labour leaders wrote to the FCA asking them for ideas on boosting economic growth. In response the FCA said in January that it would look at ways of ‘simplifying responsible mortgage lending’.

The FCA set out its next steps in March, noting:

When lenders decide whether to approve a mortgage, they test whether a borrower could still afford their mortgage at higher interest rates.

As interest rates fall, the current market approach to interest rate stress testing may be unduly restricting access to otherwise affordable mortgages.

The FCA wants to ensure firms are aware of the flexibility its rules provide, and that creditworthy consumers can access the affordable mortgage they need, supporting home ownership.

I read this as code for: as a first step, let’s get lenders pushing the current rules to the limit.

A public consultation on further legislative changes begins next month.

An easier Threadneedle Street

The Bank of England has also got the letter – at least figuratively – and seems to be answering the call.

Its Prudential Regulation Authority said in March it would look to ease leverage restrictions on lenders:

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) is consulting on changing the retail deposits leverage ratio threshold to £70 billion – an increase of £20 billion.

The leverage ratio is designed to give a simple percentage indicator of how much capital a firm has to fund its activities. The PRA currently requires firms with over £50 billion in retail deposits or £10 billion of non-UK assets to meet a minimum leverage ratio requirement of 3.25% plus buffers. These thresholds took effect in 2016 and 2023 respectively, and are designed to capture major UK banks, building societies and investment firms.

The PRA is now proposing to raise the retail deposits threshold, increasing it to £70 billion to reflect nominal GDP growth since 2016. This increase would ensure that the threshold continued to capture major UK firms, whilst smaller firms below the new threshold would have more space to grow before becoming subject to the leverage ratio requirement.

This is small beans in the grand scheme of things. It will only be material for a few challenger banks I think. And again, note the inflation angle – it’s only looking to reset the bar back to 2016 levels.

But it might mark a change of direction?

As an aside these kind of hard-coded numeric limits seem to me typical of post-crisis regulation.

Generously, they leave nobody in any doubt about the rules. Arguably they’re designed to make headlines.

Anyway, banking trade body UK Finance wants more. Its Plan for Growth – set out in March – calls for an easing to regulatory limits on the share of mortgage lending done at loan-to-income ratios over 4.5x, for example.

Lenders are doing it for themselves

Compiling the products and services section of the Weekend Reading links for Monevator keeps me fairly abreast of developments in the mortgage realm.

Here’s a few recent-ish innovations I’ve noticed.

Rent-to-own mortgages

A few specialists now offer rent-to-own mortgages, which seem to be a US import. The basic idea is the buyer rents for a few years in lieu of putting down a deposit, before shifting to repaying a mortgage.

As someone who helped pay off several landlords mortgages for 25 or so years in London, it doesn’t seem the worst idea to me. Not everyone can tap the Bank of Mum and Dad, remember.

But you’d always want read the small print and such agreements definitely won’t be right for everyone.

Cashback is back

In 2006 it seemed like every mortgage came with a cash bung – Northern Rock’s infamous ‘Together’ mortgage enabled borrowers to lend up to 125% of the property value – but the practice largely died out after the GFC.

However in a more modest way it’s made a recovery, with the recent stamp duty hikes the pretext for one building society offering £5,000 cashback.

Buy-to-let lenders are doing it too, though isn’t this cashback just a rebate on high arrangement fees?

Longer mortgage terms touted

Longer mortgage terms lower monthly repayments. This can enable a borrower to service a bigger mortgage on a lower income today. (For a higher total cost, less flexibility, and a reshuffling of the risks).

This has largely happened already. The share of new first-time buyer mortgages with terms over 30 years breached the 50% mark a few years ago. A decade or so ago only a quarter of terms were so long.

Could it go further?

Japan famously sees some home buyers taking out 50-year mortgages and passing them down to their children. Boris Johnson said he was considering such cross-generational mortgages back in 2022.

That same year new lender Perenna gained a license to offer fixed-rate mortgages with terms up to 50 years. I’m not sure how often it actually writes mortgages with such a lengthy term though. Later coverage cites the usual 20-30 years.

Nearly all of us these days work through our ultimate mortgage term via a succession of shorter fixed-rate deals. These are usually two to five years, but you do read more about ten-year fixed-rate mortgages these days. Even Lloyds currently offers them.

Taking out a ten-year mortgage in 2022 at a rate of 2.73% looks like a steal in retrospect.

Lenders hiking maximum loan-to-income ratios

April Mortgages announced it would offer seven-times income mortgages to high earners a few weeks ago. This followed on the heels of mainstream lenders like Nationwide offering to lend to first-time buyers with small deposits at six-times income and Natwest pushing to five-and-a-half times.

For what it’s worth, buy-to-let mortgage product options reportedly hit a 14-year high in February, too.

Interest rates are falling

Okay, this one isn’t about changing the rules. But just as higher interest rates since 2022 have shown how hard it is for many young people to get a mortgage – despite their alreadu paying high rents – so rates coming down should improve mortgage accessibility more generally.

Also, easier financing and looser regulation often do go hand-in-hand.

That might seem counterintuitive. After all, if mortgage rates are more affordable, there’s not such a pressure to tweak the rules to enable more buyers to squeak through the stress tests, say.

True – it’s more that cheap money papers over a lot of sins, at least for a while.

Looser regulation likely won’t show up in rising repossessions or other signs of distress when rates are low, at least outside of job-scything recession.

For most of the past 15 years we had tough regulation to guard against the perils of then low rates. While few expect rates to get so low again, even mildly lower rates could make it easier to sneak high loan-to-income ratio mortgages or some new spin on self-certification mortgages out the door in the context of a more relaxed regulatory environment.

Before the bust, the boom

The dance between regulation, relaxation, and the economic cycle has gone on since ancient times.

In 2025 I judge we’re finally coming out of the ‘never again’ phase that followed the GFC.

Like the Great War, the GFC was existentially terrifying enough to scar a generation of policymakers.

But eventually memories – and lived experience – fades.

To be fair, we could probably do with slightly easier mortgage lending. And I think we’ll get it, albeit against a chorus of warnings that something will break.

But nothing will break – not at first, anyway – and this will embolden more substantial relaxation, setting the stage for another crisis in some distant future.

This is especially likely when you consider the wider backdrop of the sluggish growth in living standards and ordinary people’s feeling that they’re not doing as well as they should versus the guys next door.

(Never mind any sci-fi comparisons to come versus the AIs/robots in the server farm down the road!)

The will to deregulation

In such a climate, politicians are likely to see ‘a more supportive lending environment’ – making it easier for people to get in hock – as a way to enable voters to feel better-off without the State footing the bill.

So in the absence of a disaster, they will increasingly give them what they want.

Again this can’t go on forever. Debt is debt, with all its costs and complications. Easy money isn’t easy.

But I can see see populist politicians on the right, at least, wanting to deregulate business and stoke animal spirits. That was Trump’s agenda, after all, before he went all North Korea with his tariffs.

Imagine a Nigel Farage type in power saying “I trust the British people more than fat cat bankers or no-nothing politicians in Whitehall” as he scraps all curbs on lending. Perhaps we’ve got that to look forward to?

The good news for those of us who are good with money is it should get easier to access mortgages.

The bad news is that not everyone is good with money.

But that’s a problem for another day!

1. Really…there’s a photo in the Monevator archives somewhere. [↩]

I was browsing a list of ETFs the other day, as you do, when I stumbled upon something I’ve been waiting a very long time for: a global small cap value ETF.

Value stocks are the subset of risky stocks that are deemed ‘undervalued’ by investors.

According to the value thesis, these ugly ducklings are excessively shunned, lowering their price relative to their potential.

Hence, you can pick them up for a song, Moneyball style, and wait for them to outperform the market over time as their true worth is realised.

But the risk premium associated with value – the performance bonus potentially available beyond the market return – is overwhelmingly concentrated in the small cap corner of the stock universe.

This means you can only really expect value to pay off when you invest in firms that are both smaller and cheaper on balance.

We can verify this using long-run data going back to 1927. The record shows that long-only US small cap value beat the US market by 2% per year on average.

Value works in other world markets too. I’ll post some charts in a follow-up post.

For now, I’ll just comment that there’s no reason to think the value premium is dead, though it’s underperformed in the US since 2013.

The data also confirms that large cap value does not deliver – at least not in the long-only form we can invest in.

Small bargains

Ideally then, to capitalise on the value premium we’d invest in:

• A small cap value fund
• That’s globally diversified
• With an investing approach backed by credible independent research
• Including techniques to mitigate the drawbacks of real-world value strategies
• That’s accessible to anyone for a reasonable fee

It’s always been impossible for UK DIY investors to tick all those boxes – until now.

The Avantis Global Small Cap Value ETF (AVSG) checks them all. So much so that I invested in it before finishing this review!

Hopefully by the time your patience runs out I’ll have explained why I’m so impressed.

What makes for a strong small cap value fund?

We want a fund that:

• Captures size and value traits as purely and consistently as possible, using sound definitions of the factors.
• Incorporates mechanisms such as a profitability screen to try to filter out undesirable value stocks.
• Combats style drift – that is, the tendency for stocks to move out of the small cap value part of the spectrum as they rise in price.
• Diversifies your overall portfolio. (If your chosen value ETF is full of Cisco Systems, Toyota, HSBC, and Shell, then it probably overlaps significantly with your global tracker fund, and so offers a diluted version of the factor.)
• Clearly articulates a transparent investment process for reliably doing all this.
• Keeps costs down.

We should also be able to use widely accepted valuation metrics to check that the fund is doing its job.

The AVSG ETF delivers on all of those points. I’ll show you how with some data in a sec.

What about track record?

Track record is the glaring omission from my criteria above.

Aren’t returns important?

Yes, once we have five years worth of results (and ideally much more) we can test a fund against its direct competitors.

But AVSG only launched in September 2024. Hence there’s no way to pit it against rivals in a worthwhile apples-to-apples performance contest.

Moreover, the UK’s Soviet-style supermarket of small value funds means we’d be comparing an apple with a turnip, one mouldy potato, and a suspicious-looking purple thing.

Happily though Avantis has been operating in the US since 2019. The consensus from the critics has generally been a big thumbs-up, and investors have rewarded the brand by moving billions into Avantis ETFs.

What’s more, we can try to reassure ourselves that AVSG specifically won’t prove to be a lemon in the UK by checking how its US-domiciled equivalents have fared since their launch in September 2019.

That’s possible because AVSG covers the same territory as two US ETF stablemates:

• Avantis International Small Cap Value (AVDV)
• Avantis US Small Cap Value (AVUV)

Let’s match those two ETFs against their competitors using the amazing Portfolio Visualizer tool to see how they’ve performed.

International small cap value face-off

Avantis’ main rival in this category is Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA):

It’s a dead heat! The annualised nominal USD returns for the two funds over the longest comparable time frame (October 2019 to end of April 2025) were:

• Avantis’ AVDV: 10.17%
• DFA’s DISVX: 10.25%

DFA has been the acknowledged master of the investible value factor since the early 1990s. Matching the DFA fund from launch is no mean feat.

And while DFA funds are available in the UK, that’s only via financial advisors.

This frustrating situation may be changing – the firm is advertising for ETF roles in Europe. Previously DFA has made its funds available to the wider American public in ETF form, too.

But for now the DFA funds are no-go in the UK if you’re going it alone.

US small cap value face-off

Focusing specifically on the US, Avantis bossed a wider field of contenders in this category:

Again these annualised returns hail from the longest time period available, October 2019 until end of April 2025:1

• Avantis’ AVUV: 11.1%
• DFA’s DFSVX: 10.0%
• Vanguard’s VBR: 8.3%
• iShares’ IJS: 5.3%

These results, plus the products’ underlying metrics and the analysis of Avantis’ ETFs by noted US commentators such as Allan Roth and Larry Swedroe – not to mention the well-informed Bogleheads community running a slide rule over them, too – dispels any concern I have about Avantis being an unknown quantity.

The Avantis funds are doing an excellent job in the US and I have no reason to think they won’t do the same in Europe.

Is AVSG a good small cap value ETF?

I believe AVSG is the real deal, and I think we can independently verify its small cap value credentials using data aggregator Morningstar.

Morningstar provides the only way I know of to compare the factor exposures of funds available to UK investors.

First, go to the Portfolio page of AVSG’s Morningstar profile.

Then check out the Stock Style section:

The bulk of AVSG is found in the small value square of the grid.

Excellent!

That’s better than DFA’s Global Targeted Value fund:

You can see that DFA’s fund isn’t as small value-y as AVSG.

ZPRV, the SPDR MSCI USA Small Cap Value ETF, does contain more small value exposure:

However it’s 100% US and hence less diversified. (You can pair ZPRV with ZPRX for the European dimension, but you’re still not covering as much of the planet and with twice as much hassle.)

Finally, here’s the iShares Edge MSCI World Value Factor ETF (IWVL):

IWVL is globally diversified. But its stock style reveals it to be a large value ETF. Historical returns tell us we can’t expect large value to deliver a significant risk premium.

All told, I think the Stock Style survey shows that AVSG’s small value chops are worthy of further investigation.

AVSG’s fundamental valuation metrics

I also want to check that AVSG scores well on a range of commonly accepted value metrics.

Morningstar does the honours once more:

The lower the scores in the green box, the more value-y the fund is. And AVSG does well again – outranking ZPRV and DFA’s fund, though I won’t trouble you with their screenshots.

Remember, we’re not looking for absolute numbers or particular thresholds. The metrics are useful insofar as they enable us to assess AVSG versus comparable choices.

Ignore the category and index numbers if they’re inappropriate. In this case, Morningstar has served up off-point small / mid cap benchmarks, skipping the value side of the coin.

Hit the Market Cap button in the Style Measures section to see the average market cap of the fund’s holdings.

We want this number to be teenier than thou to confirm the fund’s small cap credentials:

Fund	Av market cap ($bil)
AVSG	2.09
DFA Glb Targ Val	5.37
ZPRV	4.07

As the picture builds, AVSG looks bang on the small value money.

So shall we call it a day?

Unfortunately the value trap lies in wait.

Avoiding the value trap

A value trap is an investment that looks like an absolute bargain. It lights up the valuation metrics because it’s cheap.

But it’s cheap for a reason. The reason is it’s junk.

Good value funds and indexes sieve the rubbish with a profitability screen.

We can get some sense of how well AVSG does this via the quality measure in Morningstar’s Factor Profile:

Quality is a variant of profitability. AVSG’s quality score is higher than DFA’s comparable fund, and DFA is well-respected for using profitability screens to enhance value funds.

Ignore the fact that the quality score looks objectively low and is below the category average.

You wouldn’t expect a small value fund to score highly for quality, and the category benchmark is off as previously mentioned.

All I’m looking for is evidence that AVSG’s stocks aren’t scraped off the bottom of the bargain bin. Its quality score of 77 (the 77th percentile for quality in Morningstar’s stock universe) offers some comfort on that front.

DFA’s fund lies in the 85th decile for quality. It holds even less in the way of profitable companies – yet DFA’s value funds set the standard for the industry.

Morningstar doesn’t score ZPRV but IWVL (iShares’ large value effort) also floats around the 85th decile. So in comparison to other value funds, AVSG looks, well, quality.

Negative momentum

Momentum exposure is also worth an eyeball.

Team Avantis describes how value funds can be adversely affected by negative momentum. (Monevator articles can also suffer from this phenomenon.)

Picture a stock dropping in price. This price slashing can place a stock firmly in the value zone per traditional measures such as price/earnings, price/book, and so on.

But the chief insight of the momentum thesis is that stock price declines (and gains) typically continue for some time.

Why rush into catching a falling knife when it’s probably got further to go? Better to buy it closer to the bottom and then hope to cash in if and when it finally ascends.

Avantis attempts to harness momentum by delaying purchases with large negative six-month returns and, conversely, the sale of stocks with large six-month gains.

You would expect a value vehicle to score quite poorly for momentum. DFA’s fund is 84th decile.

But AVSG is 60th decile, which suggests it’s succeeding in dampening down negative momentum.

The light blue shading in AVSG’s Factor Profile above reveals each exposure’s historical range. You can see its momentum score is swingy.

But the lack of shade in the style2 and size categories shows the fund has remained firmly rooted in its target factors. It has not been afflicted by style drift since its launch.

Taken together, AVSG’s metrics suggest it’s a top-notch small value ETF.

What on Earth are they up to?

The Avantis team has written an excellent guide to its methodology called Our Scientific Approach To Investing.

ETF providers rarely write such a clear explanation of their investing process.

The major firms pump out scanty marketing gloss that typically leaves me wondering if they think their customers are idiots.

Or they produce indecipherable exercises in obfuscation, designed to make you think you are an idiot.

In comparison to those poles of customer disservice, the Avantis paper is a masterclass in transparency.

Granted, they’re not telling you where all the bodies lie. But they do explain what they’re doing and why.

It makes sense relative to my grasp of the academic literature, and you can follow the citations to sanity check any aspect of the strategy.

I won’t regurgitate the paper but it’s well worth a read if you’re interested in this ETF. It reinforced my sense that AVSG is a good choice for a world small cap value fund.

(Not to mention the only one!)

Closing remarks on AVSG

Avantis is a sub-brand of global asset manager, American Century. American Century appears to be reasonably well-regarded, while Avantis was spun-up by ex-DFA executives – no doubt explaining the impressive value fund execution.

AVSG’s 0.39% OCF is not cheap, but it’s not expensive for what it is either. I wouldn’t think twice about that price tag if I wanted small value exposure.

It’s an actively-managed ETF so it doesn’t track an index. That’s how DFA funds work too, and it appears to be an advantage in this category.

The ‘global’ moniker means developed world really. Emerging markets are excluded.

Still, AVSG is amply diversified with 1,300 stocks. Check out the holdings and you’ll quickly see there’s no danger here of replicating your global tracker positions.

Scan the sectors and you’ll also see useful differences. For example, AVSG is just 5% tech versus 25% in Vanguard’s Developed World ETF (VEVE).

The Avantis fund won’t reduce your US exposure – but it may help if AI-driven large caps falter.

Diversifying your sources of return like this paid off handsomely when tech stocks imploded during the Dotcom bust. The S&P 500 dived -38% in those years. Meanwhile US small cap value advanced 19%.3

Still, who knows whether that will happen again? Or if small value will outpace the wider market in the future?

Moreover AVSG is liable to give you a rough ride along the way. Check out the volatility measure above.

Indeed the reason small value is expected to earn market-beating returns is because it loads up on very risky stocks. Thus AVSG is not for the faint-hearted or anyone who doesn’t know how they react to stock market reversals.

Pros

• Excellent example of a small cap value fund
• The only globally-diversified iteration available to UK investors without jumping through DFA hoops
• Metrics look good
• Well conceived and clearly documented investment process

Cons

• There’s no guarantee small cap value will outperform the market. In fact it hasn’t for over a decade.
• It’s risky!

Take it steady,

The Accumulator

1. Portfolio Visualizer only seems to measure returns in units of complete months. AVUV was launched on 24 September 2019. [↩]
2. Value versus growth. [↩]
3. Annual nominal USD returns. [↩]

What caught my eye this week.

I was delighted to hear from Monevator reader Elizabeth Wong a few months ago, when she sent me a copy of her new short story and said it might be of interest to people around here.

It was! The Landless is a thought provoking tale that takes many of the themes we discuss in these Weekend Readings and the comments to their dark conclusion.

I didn’t have a way to share the full story then, but I do now.

Here’s a slice of the extract published by Wasafiri:

She told Poppy, ‘If you say “refugee”, I think of someone who fled their country because of war, and it’s not their fault. And if you say “migrant”, I think of someone who has moved for better opportunities. But these people are neither refugees nor migrants. They are just … landless.’

Poppy tried to argue. ‘Surely these words are two sides of the same coin. Surely these people are refugees as well, escaping places that are now too hot to live in. People like her aunt and cousins who used to live in Malaysia, but left when the country got too hot, and the Chinese and Indian minorities persecuted for not being Muslim — are they not refugees? Surely the price of land is too expensive, hoarded by a few landowners —.’

Louise cut her off. ‘My family took out a multi-generational sixty-year mortgage to buy our chalet. The debt was finally paid off last year. That is why I got to come to Monte Carlo this season. I am here not because of privilege. This is several lifetimes of hard work — my father, my mother, my grandfather, working into their eighties with two jobs. Why should the price of land be lower? Our family has sacrificed so much.’ Louise took a breath. Poppy made a small sound, a signal to add to the conversation but Louise ignored it. ‘And it’s not like the landless are homeless. The government has built the new villages for them to live in.’

‘But the new villages … ’ Poppy read a report, she had seen the documentaries, it was like living in hell. The heat, the dust —

‘The new villages have water, food, jobs, shelter. And it was their choice to come. If they don’t like it, then they can go back to their own country.’

For the rest of May you can read Wong’s The Landless in its entirety.

Enjoy, and have a great weekend.

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