Rachel Reeves takes leaf out of gardening manual– but don’t expect flowery days to come March 24, 2025 Gardening is typically something career politicians only enjoy once they have retired. But Rachel Reeves appears to be paying homage to the green-fingered guru Alan Titchmarsh in the lead-up to her Spring Statement to be delivered this Wednesday. In one video viewed 111,000 times on Youtube, Titchmarsh offers a tutorial on how to get “free [...]
Andrew Bailey: Strong trade and AI will be key to UK growth March 24, 2025 Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has said that strong trade will be essential to UK growth in the coming years. The Bank of England last week held interest rates at 4.5 per cent, citing a possible global trade war as a risk to the economy. In a speech delivered at the [...]
Mixed bag of PMI data as services grow but manufacturing slumps March 24, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has received mixed signals about the state of the UK economy ahead of her Spring Statement as S&P Global’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) pointed to an upturn in services while manufacturing declined again. The Spring Statement will be delivered on Wednesday as global trade war tensions escalate and worries over incoming tax [...]
Week in Business: Is Keir Starmer leading the UK into recession? March 20, 2025 Following the PM's punchy op-ed in City AM, Editor Christian May gives his reaction to Starmer's article and puts the Prime Minister's prose in context.
Do we need to rethink Brexit’s impact on UK-EU trade? March 20, 2025 With the weekend approaching, allow me to furnish you with a classic conversation starter for the pub or a dinner party; have you heard that the OBR might have overstated the impact of Brexit on the UK’s trade with the EU? In my experience this kind of line serves as a perfect icebreaker or an [...]
Will Rachel Reeves hike taxes in her first Spring Statement? March 19, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to make her first Spring Statement next week, and rumours are starting to swirl that the tax hikes could be on the cards as she tries to get the government debt under control. Given the Chancellor’s commitment to just one major fiscal event a year the Spring Statement is intended [...]
PM’s growth rhetoric does not match reality March 18, 2025 Stirring words from the Prime Minister in today’s City AM, with Keir Starmer vowing to unleash the “animal spirits” of the private sector. He knows his audience, I’ll give him that; City AM readers know better than anyone just how important businesses large and small are to the country’s prosperity. It wasn’t very long ago [...]
Talking Finance: Five questions you should ask yourself before investing March 17, 2025 In this episode of Talking Finance, Marianna Hunt, a volunteer at City Pay it Forward, explains the five questions everyone should ask themselves before they start investing.
OECD slashes UK economic forecasts amid global slowdown March 17, 2025 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has cut the UK’s economic growth forecasts due to stubborn inflation and an escalating trade war. The OECD’s new interim report scaled back UK growth to 1.4 per cent in 2025 and 1.2 per cent in 2026 – down from previous projections of 1.7 and 1.3 per [...]
GDP shrinks in January as UK economy prepares for upcoming tax hikes March 14, 2025 The UK economy underperformed expectations in January. According to the latest set of gross domestic product (GDP) figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in January as output was dragged down by a sharp drop in output in the production sector. Over the three months to [...]