When Britain crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism on Black Wednesday, prime minister John Major phoned the Sun editor Kelvin McKenzie to ask how the day’s events would be covered. McKenzie is said to have responded: ‘Prime minister, I have on my desk in front of me a very large bucket of shit which I am just about to pour all over you.’ With the Bank of England ending its emergency support for pension funds this afternoon, what newspaper editors are saying about the present Prime Minister by market close could come down to the ebbs and flows of these six graphs:
1. It’s all about gilts.
Yesterday gilts were going in the right direction. Five-year yields finished the day 0.31 percentage points lower than where they started. Ten-year yields dropped even more. As Ross Clark reported yesterday, this was probably down to confidence that pension funds had offloaded the gilts they needed to raise cash in the nick of time.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in