Mark Andrews: Martin Shaw's Professional regrets, the planned property tax, and where to house asylum seekers

Looks like the Bell Hotel ruling has left the Home Office in a bit of a pickle. Ministers have got three weeks to find alternative accommodation for 32,000 asylum seekers, but in the midst of an acute housing shortage, where are they going to put them?

Now this might seem a totally mad idea, and I'm sure there's good reason why nobody has suggested it before. But how about hiring some big ships for them to live on? I heard there was this one down in Portland, the Bibby Stockholm or something, that has been lying idle. Got to be worth a try.

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The Government's latest wheeze to squeeze a few billion extra in taxes is a new property tax on the sale of 'expensive houses'. And who could argue with that? Those with the broadest shoulders, and all that. 

Except that the Government's definition of luxury homes is anything over £500,000. Not exactly a king's ransom given the crazy property market of today, but granted, it is well above the average house price in the West Midlands. 

But here's the rub. Given the way house prices have soared over the past 20 years - and the forecast growth in population over the next few years, - how long do you think it will be before the prices of quite modest homes pass the £500,000 mark?

Which of course, won't be a problem as long as the Government raises the threshold each year in line with these rises. I guess it's a good thing we can trust the politicians not to fleece us.

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Think you've got problems? Working long hours in a tough job just to keep up with the rising cost of living? Then there's the hostages in Gaza, the poor folk of Ukraine about to thrown under the bus by Donald Trump. But I'll tell you who I feel sorry for, it's Ray Doyle out of The Professionals. 

Now you might thing being paid an exorbitant salary to spend a few months of the year pretending to be a heroic secret agent is not the worst gig in the world, especially if it turns a hitherto unknown actor into a national heart-throb. But in an interview this week, West Midland-born actor Martin Shaw sounds like he is still traumatised by the experience of playing Doyle. 

“This meant four-and-a-half years of misery because the independent production company was not nice to work for, and the loss of privacy was horribly uncomfortable,” he said. 

Poor fella, I never realised how tough things were for him. Those folk who moan about cleaning lavatories for a living don't know they're born, do they?

Worse than that, he said:  'All the kudos I’d built over 10 years vanished for a spell as I became identified with that kind of role'.

Is it me, or do these thespians take themselves a bit seriously? 

Still, if it's privacy and anonymity he wants, I guess he got his wish. Because, let's be honest, who watches any of his stuff since The Professionals?