Part 3: Elections, Bonds & Debt Strategy | The Long View with Jon Rose, Adam Lawrence & Roger Martin-Fagg

Part 3 of The Long View Podcast Episode 1. The Full Podcast will be posted on 05 June 2026.

The local election results have reshuffled the political landscape – and with a general election on the horizon, the conversation has turned to what that means for bond markets, interest rates, and the debt strategies of property investors.

Jon Rose, Adam Lawrence and Roger Martin-Fagg turned their attention to the political outlook – not as a matter of party preference, but as a financial planning question. Because whoever ends up in government in 2029 will have a direct impact on gilt yields, mortgage costs and the environment in which property investors are operating.

The political discussion quickly arrived at one central mechanism: the bond market. Whatever the electoral outcome, the bond market’s reaction to government fiscal policy is what ultimately matters for borrowing costs – and by extension, for anyone holding debt on a property portfolio.

Adam drew a clear line back to the Liz Truss mini-budget as the reference point. The episode demonstrated what happens when a government signals unfunded tax cuts without credible savings to match: gilt yields spike, mortgage products are pulled, and the cost of debt rises fast. The bond market does not wait for a policy to be enacted – it prices the risk immediately.

The concern for 2029 is that, depending on who takes power and what fiscal stance they adopt, a similar dynamic could play out. Adam’s analysis puts gilt yields at potentially 6% or higher under certain political scenarios – with more aggressive or less credible fiscal positions pushing that number further still.

KEY POINT: The bond market cares less about political colour than fiscal credibility. Any government that signals unfunded spending or aggressive tax cuts without a believable savings plan risks a gilt market reaction that feeds directly into mortgage rates.

This is not an abstract concern for 2029. The practical implication, as both Adam and Jon discussed, is that the window to lock in fixed-rate debt before political uncertainty peaks may be late 2026 or early 2027.

Adam’s own approach is instructive. Having fixed a significant portion of his debt in 2022 – when he was already flagging upside risks to rates – he is still holding substantial stock at rates around 3%. But at current refinancing rates of around 6.25%, the arithmetic of holding some of that stock no longer stacks as favourably. The capital growth case remains, but the income case has weakened – which means it may make sense to sell selectively, repurpose capital, and restructure ahead of the election cycle rather than waiting until the pressure is on.

The discipline here, as Adam put it, is thinking earlier rather than later. Finding yourself needing to sell a large number of properties quickly because a rate environment has turned against you is not a position anyone wants to be in.

Jon’s framing was straightforward: if you are carrying significant debt into a potential 2028-2029 refinancing window, now is the time to be asking:

→ Does each asset still work at current market rates – not the rate I am currently on?
→ Would a five-year fix now – even at today’s rates – give me certainty past the next election cycle?
→ Are there assets I should be selling now, while the market is functional, rather than into a potentially tighter environment later?
→ Is my capital working as hard as it could, or is it sitting in low-yield positions waiting for a rate environment that may not return?

None of this requires a view on who will win the next election. It simply requires accepting that political uncertainty is a real variable in the financial planning equation – and that the time to prepare for it is well before it arrives.