Economy

Market reactions to the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania represent, according to taste, rational bets on the significantly increased likelihood of a second Trump presidency or stark confirmation of the madness that has overtaken America and threatens the civilised world. Shares in Trump Media & Technology – the parent of his social media platform Truth Social – rose by 30 per cent on Monday, adding more than $1 billion to Trump’s notional fortune despite the company’s revenues being, as one observer pointed out, ‘comparable to that of two Starbucks stores’. Also up were shares in gunmakers such as Smith & Wesson and in private prison operators – and US Treasury bond

When Rishi Sunak called a summer election, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill didn’t make the pile of ‘wash up’ legislation to be rushed through Parliament. His plans for a generational smoking ban, and a crackdown on vapes, were paused. But this was never going to be more than a brief delay. Labour has used the King’s Speech today to confirm that it will see Sunak’s smoking ban through. Or rather, the party might argue that it’s reclaiming the idea. It was Labour, after all, that floated the policy before the Tories adopted it at their party conference last year.  One day, a 63-year-old will be able to purchase a tobacco

Another day, another small piece of good economic news. Today the International Monetary Fund has produced its World Outlook report for July, which revises UK growth for 2024 upwards, from 0.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent. This news follows on from last week’s monthly GDP update, which showed growth in May at 0.4 per cent – notably above economists’ predictions.  These are still not numbers to boast about. The IMF’s revision is still slightly below the 0.8 per cent the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted at the last Budget. But it shows the IMF’s downgrade for 2024 growth in April was too negative (it held its 2025 forecast for

As opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer long struggled to define what ‘Starmerism’ is, other than ‘not Corbynism’ and ‘not Toryism’. Last Autumn, he belatedly stumbled across a policy theme which he has since tried to make his own: ‘Yimbyism’, a positive ‘Yes In My Back Yard’ attitude to development: the antidote to Nimbyism.  Labour’s rhetoric on housing has been confrontational In her first major speech on economic policy, Chancellor Rachel Reeves picked up this ‘Yimby’ theme in order to bolster her pro-growth credentials. Policy announcements include bringing back mandatory housebuilding targets, removing green belt protection from bits that are clearly not green (the ‘grey belt’), and overturning the ban on onshore wind. 

Just Stop Oil continued its campaign by spreading orange paint over road junctions in Westminster this week, but why bother when the organisation seems now to be in power? Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband is said to be weighing up blocking new licenses for oil drilling in the North Sea. Labour has previously said that it wouldn’t allow exploration of entirely new fields but wouldn’t stand in the way of the continued exploitation of existing fields. Yet even this limited exploration now looks in doubt. How is the government going to generate that income if oil and gas companies are not going to be allowed to drill? The Department for

The economy is picking up pace. After a dreary April, which saw no growth, the UK economy grew by 0.4 per cent in May. It’s the strongest three-month growth rate since January 2022, with the UK economy expanding by 0.9 per cent leading up to May, compared to the three months leading up to February.  A GDP boost in May was expected, as April’s wet weather put a damper on growth. Still, today’s update from the Office for National Statistics was better than expected, as economists had forecast a 0.2 per cent uptick. While the 1.9 per cent increase in construction can be accounted for as making up for lost

What country ever went wrong with a sovereign wealth fund? It is easy to envy Singapore and Norway – the latter of which now has £1.3 trillion squirrelled away, equivalent to £240,000 for every citizen. Britain would be in a much better situation now had it, like Norway, invested its windfall from the North Sea, rather than chucking it into the pot of general day-to-day expenditure. Paying state and public sector pensions liabilities out of tax revenue rather than from a long-term investment fund is going to become an ever more serious burden on the state. We shouldn’t, then, sniff at Rachel Reeves’ idea for a ‘national wealth fund’. It is just that what

A major new factory from one of the American tech giants perhaps? Or a new lab from one of the pharmaceutical giants? Or, best of all, a huge new green energy fund. The newly appointed Chancellor Rachel Reeves was probably hoping for some positive investment news for her first week in office, especially as she has decided, in an unprecedented move, to make ‘growth’ a ‘national mission’. Instead, one of the UK’s best businesses has cut almost a third of its UK workforce – and that will just be the start of the corporate exodus from Labour’s Britain. Dyson will argue that its decision to axe 1,000 jobs in the

No one can accuse the new government of moving slowly. Over the weekend Labour gave strong indication that both NHS reform and prison reform are going to be at the top of their agenda. But the staple offer of the new government remains what was promised throughout the election campaign: a sustained campaign to bring meaningful economic growth back to the UK. This morning, Chancellor Rachel Reeves starts to lay out those plans. Speaking to business leaders at the Treasury this morning, Reeves will reiterate that boosting GDP is a ‘national mission’ and the ‘only route’ that will improve ‘the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working

Jonathan Reynolds on Reform: ‘Now…they will get the scrutiny they deserve’ On Sky News this morning, Trevor Phillips pointed out that Labour had the smallest vote share of any election-winning party – and asked the business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds if it was sustainable that votes for smaller parties like Reform and the Greens did not translate into seats. Reynolds argued that Labour’s successful campaign under this electoral system gave them a legitimate mandate to govern, and claimed that smaller parties were given ‘far less scrutiny’ because they’re not seen as ‘parties of government’. Reynolds also implied that many people who voted for Reform don’t really know their policies.

Rishi Sunak’s bags are probably packed. The plane tickets are booked. And no doubt he has found somewhere for the family to stay while they look for a permanent home. It is widely assumed that, having lost the election, Sunak will soon disappear to Silicon Valley as quickly as possible to restart his career. But hold on. Sure, it is easy to understand why Sunak would want to get as far away as possible from the car crash he has presided over. Yet after running one of the most spectacularly inept election campaigns in history, will the tech giants still want him?  Sunak has just fought what will surely go

Markets don’t like surprises. And the election results, while explosive, are not a surprise – or at least the winner isn’t. Labour has secured a substantial majority, as markets had been expecting the party to do from the start of the election. No surprise this morning means no immediate jitters, as the result was already priced in. Sterling is slightly up, by 0.1 per cent, hovering around $1.28. The FTSE 100 is up 0.4 per cent since markets opened this morning. Most notably, housebuilding stocks are on the up. The strong speculation that Labour will use its first days in power to announce a planning overhaul has given the market

I recant. On a number of occasions I have asserted that the European Union is run by lobbyists acting on behalf of French farmers and the German car industry. It seems I was wrong – or perhaps that I have become wrong as the politics of global trade has shifted. A more accurate way of putting it would be to say that the EU is run by people who think they are acting in the interests of French farmers and the German car industry, but who are not quite plugged in to what those industries really want. It is a typical case of EU protectionism. However, this time, there is a twist At