Matthew Lynn

It sounded impressive at the time. On the last day of May, a whole ten days ago, president Biden laid out a three-part plan for bringing inflation back under control. It consisted of making sure the Federal Reserve was allowed to do whatever it took to control prices, releasing oil and gas reserves to try to

A round of tax cuts? A splurge of infrastructure spending? Or perhaps a whizzy way of subsidising housing? Boris Johnson could even decide to forgive student debts, and hand out a massive Christmas bonus for pensioners, craftily dressed up as a cost-of-living rebate.  There are no doubt lots of such ideas being kicked around in Downing Street

A £400 rebate on electricity bills. A cash handout to the poorest households. And a windfall tax on the energy companies that generate the power to keep the lights switched on to try and pay for it all. Chancellor Rishi Sunak was back to doing what he likes to do best today: handing out vast quantities

Prices are rising at the fastest pace for 40 years. Real wages are falling rapidly. The cost of servicing the government’s vast debts is escalating, and companies are struggling to keep up with the rising price of raw materials. Still, not to worry. Fortunately, a quarter of a century ago Gordon Brown wisely decided to

To paraphrase the American senator famously talking about government spending, a trillion dollars here or there and very soon you are talking about serious money. Over the last week, a massive $1 trillion has been wiped off the value of the major American technology companies, and, if measured since the start of the year, the

The state would be prioritised over everything else. Taxes would be constantly, if stealthily, raised. Spending would be reclassified as investment, and shifted off the balance sheet wherever possible. And macro stability would be out-sourced to the Bank of England, while the Treasury would take total control of domestic policy. A quarter of a century

A wave of government spending would reboot the economy. Fairer taxes would pay for restored infrastructure. Skills would be improved, productivity raised, and new digital champions would emerge. When Joe Biden was elected, he promised the most radical programme of economic reform since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, and, to his army of cheerleaders

It will stop shady oligarchs and brutal autocracies buying up clubs simply to whitewash their reputations. It will ensure financial stability and fair play between the teams. And it will protect local fans, many of whom have been standing on windswept terraces for years, from seeing their teams turned into mere units of anonymous global

No. 10 was an endless series of parties. The Chancellor was more interested in socializing than sorting out the economy. And the Prime Minister was imposing rules on everyone else that he cavalierly ignored himself. It remains to be seen whether Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak can survive the fines handed out for breaking the lockdown

It could be Kwasi Kwarteng, the business minister. Or Nadhim Zahawi, the education minister, and before that the minister who helped make the vaccine roll-out such a success. Or perhaps Sajid Javid will even get his old job back. With an investigation opening into his financial affairs, and with questions over his judgment growing by

We had got used to the expensive trainers. The carefully curated hoodies were just about acceptable. The Twitter feed was starting to grate on people’s nerves, and so were the stage-managed photo ops, such as filling up a borrowed Kia Rio at Sainsbury’s right after cutting fuel duty, but they were part of the package.

Teslas will be permanently trending. So perhaps will space rockets. Petrol cars will be quietly forgotten about. And if you get enough likes and followers perhaps you might win a place on the planned space colony on Mars. With the news that Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, and one of the richest men in

A war is raging in Ukraine. Inflation has risen to a 30-year high and may have started to spiral out of control. The country is on the brink of recession, and a gaffe-prone leadership is under increasing fire. You could be forgiven for thinking that President Biden has more than enough problems right now. But

Aside from deterring a few tourists, and people filming fantasy epics, closing down New Zealand during the Covid pandemic didn’t make much difference to the global economy. Neither, come to think of it, did Mark Drakeford’s determination to keep Wales free from Covid-19, and even Australia’s dedication to closing itself down didn’t matter that much

With refugees fleeing Ukraine, shells raining down on civilians, and threats of chemical weapons being used on the battlefields of Ukraine, it was surely only a matter of time. Today the British government finally added Roman Abramovich to the list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, freezing his assets, and making sure that he could not profit from

He intervened decisively. He showed the ability of the state to make a difference. And he demonstrated that greedy, self-interested corporations should not be allowed to exploit ordinary consumers. Only a few weeks ago, the French President Emmanuel Macron was being celebrated by left-leaning economists and pundits for forcing the French energy giant EDF to

Oil will shoot up to $130 a barrel. The prices of natural gas will double in a few hours, tipping a few more energy companies into bankruptcy. The tech stocks will crash, currency traders will panic, and the bond markets will crater. If Russian tanks do start to roll across the Ukrainian border this week

Regional agencies pumping money into research and development. Targets for education and healthcare. Another layer of meddling local government, and possibly a new bus route or two. The government plans for ‘levelling up’ unveiled today are a mixture of 1960s statism, which could have been taken straight from Harold Wilson’s government, mixed up with some