High-tax, high-drama, and out of ideas: Where next for the British economy? October 17, 2022 High-tax, high-drama, and impossible to predict: welcome to Britain in 2022. God help anybody trying to drum up foreign investment onto these shores at the minute. Forget being sure about what the tax code might look like in a year’s’ time – at the rate we’re currently moving, it’s hard to predict what it’ll be [...]
From Truss to Bailey to panicking MPs, the blame for this mess spreads wide October 17, 2022 Turns out the orthodoxy is stronger than ever Liz Truss or Kwasi Kwarteng realised. Already it appears government policy is headed towards higher taxes and delays to supply side reform. We have ended up back at square one, but with a discredited government and no obvious plan for the growth that the now-departed Chancellor rightly [...]
A global London campaign just the tonic for Mayor-PM relations October 13, 2022 In the run-up to Liz Truss’ election by the Conservative party as Prime Minister, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan wrote in these pages that it was time to turn a new leaf in the capital’s relationship with Downing Street. It is no secret that he and Johnson didn’t see eye to eye – clashing [...]
Another Andrew Bailey misstep was the last thing markets needed October 12, 2022 Andrew Bailey’s tenure as Bank of England governor has not been a happy one. Marked first by the pandemic, it has been defined by rising prices, an economic slowdown and now a crisis of sorts in financial markets. Amidst all of this, the one thing the City would look for would be reliable and consistent [...]
Hot takes and ignorant, political analysis on social media helps nobody October 12, 2022 If social media was as prevalent during the global financial crisis as it is today, it really might have been Armageddon. A shouting match of hot takes and immediate analysis, twitter in particular comes into its own during a financial crisis – with every latest twist and turn in markets turned into political fodder for [...]
Sturgeon wants to inspire? Her campaign is based on finger-pointing, not potential October 10, 2022 Nicola Sturgeon, yesterday, at SNP conference: “Let us inspire with hope in our hearts.” It would take a heart of stone not to laugh. This is, after all, the same Sturgeon who spent much of her speech bemoaning Westminster, the Labour party, and “aggressive unionism” for holding Scotland back – which sounds to us a [...]
Liz Truss speech: North London’s not the problem in Britain’s race to growth October 5, 2022 Like a battered boxer with a thick skull, then, Liz Truss lives to fight another day. On the ropes, yes, but not quite down and out. Yesterday’s speech was fine, as it goes, and not much more than that. It will keep her party in some degree of order for at least a week or [...]
Kwarteng u-turn bodes ill for many tough fights to come October 3, 2022 The Kwarteng u-turn on tax doesn't suggest measures on planning or infrastructure will be any easier to get past restive backbenchers
Kwarteng has no option but to stay the course on tax plans October 3, 2022 A few weeks into her new role Liz Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng would have been forgiven for thinking that Tory conference would have been something of a party. After all, Tory party members favoured her candidacy by some margin – even if Conservative MPs were more enamoured by the now extremely quiet Rishi [...]
Government has a second chance – it can’t fluff its lines yet again September 28, 2022 The UK Economy: Apocalypse Now? Black Wednesday, Mark 2? Not quite. But if social media’s hot takes on the state of the UK economy are wide of the mark, the pressure on Kwasi Kwarteng and the Bank to restore credibility is now immense. The good news is that will not be as difficult as some [...]
