Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’
Business confidence has plummeted back to the levels last seen in the wake of Liz Truss’s unfortunate mini-budget. Hiring has slowed down as employers worry about all the new rights Labour is about to award their staff. Consumer confidence has fallen, as people worry about the tax rises that will be imposed in the ‘Horror
Donald Trump is campaigning hard on protectionism, promising to bring skilled manual jobs back onshore. What will that look like? Huge tariffs on imports, foreign companies unable to ‘steal’ American jobs, a re-industrialisation of the heartlands of the United States. But here’s the catch: a trade war on the scale that Trump is promising is
It is not hard to imagine what will be in Rachel Reeves’ ‘industrial strategy’. There will be lots of ‘green industries’, along with plenty of ‘cutting-edge technologies’, all designed to nurture ‘national champions’ in the ‘sectors of the future’. And presumably Lord Alli, the Labour donor who has been footing the bill for Keir Starmer’s
Smart meters were meant to make our lives easier. They were designed to help us reduce energy consumption and cut bills. Over the last five years, the government has been pushing energy firms to install these meters as quickly as possible. Millions of homes have been fitted with one. The flashing screen monitoring how much
Labour might relax the ban on the sale of new petrol cars that is scheduled to come into force in six years’ time, according to reports today. The government will reportedly allow hybrids to still be sold until 2035, on the grounds that they are proving far more popular with consumers than the entirely battery
The Chancellor was so shocked when she received the briefings from Treasury officials that she had no choice but to scrap her election commitments. It was so serious that it was about to crash the markets. It had to be fixed so urgently that the winter fuel allowance had to be cut, and we will
There may be a few warnings about pay, and the inevitable references to the ‘black hole’ that has mysteriously appeared in the government’s finances since Labour won the election in July. And yet despite that, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will deliver the most positive speech a Labour leader has delivered to the Trades
The commute is often unreliable, expensive and crowded. It is easy enough to understand why so many of London’s 5 million strong workforce are so reluctant to go back to the office. There is a catch, however. Working from home is costing the British economy a huge amount of lost output. In reality, the UK
The EU’s three largest economies are stuck in a deep structural slump. The budget is a mess, with money running out. And the bloc is rapidly losing competitiveness. Meanwhile, populist parties committed to overthrowing the organisation are coming closer to power all the time. You might think that the President of the European Commission, Ursula
As winter approaches, and fuel prices go up, Keir Starmer’s honeymoon period is well and truly over. The Labour government is clearly getting a little nervous about Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to scrap the £300 given to millions of pensioners to help keep warm over the winter. It is now claiming that it had no
It must be the worst kept secret in the country. At almost every opportunity, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, keep telling us that the Budget in October will have to be ‘very painful’, that ‘taxes will have to rise’ and that the ‘broadest shoulders will have to bear the
It had the history, the manufacturing muscle, the capital, and the brand to make it work. When Ford announced plans to create an all-electric SUV, it looked like the moment the major auto manufacturers could finally bring battery-powered cars into the mass market. Until today. The American company has abandoned its plans to build the
It was easy to mock it as a piece of political grandstanding. On taking office, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves almost immediately discovered a ‘black hole’ in the public finances, and started warning of tax rises in the autumn. To many of her opponents, it looked like pure opportunism. And yet, now it turns out that
The rich are happy to pay more, the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden, and the climate emergency means more money is urgently needed to save the planet. We keep being told that the better off are more than willing to contribute plenty to the government if only they were asked. Groups such as
She didn’t have to slog around New Hampshire, there were no debates, and there were few opportunities for voters or journalists to ask Kamala Harris any questions. The Democratic nomination for President fell into her lap when it became painfully clear that Joe Biden was far too old and too unwell to run for a
Growth is slowing down. The property market is wobbling. And the government is tightening its grip on every form of economic activity. Global investors have made a decision about China over the last few months. It may have one of the biggest markets in the world, but the risks are simply too high. Over the
The markets are tumbling. Investors are bailing out. And there are already fears that the plunge in equities is a sign that a recession is just around the corner in America. With a presidential election only a few months away, the Federal Reserve will come under intense pressure to bail out the market with a
The bubble in artificial intelligence stocks has started to pop, two decades of easy money in Japan have finally started to come to an end, and (after hitting all-time highs) share values are being reassessed. There are plenty of plausible explanations for the sudden plunge in stock markets around the world over the last few
No one ever accused Donald Trump of ideological consistency. And yet, even by the standards of a man who often seems capable of switching positions several times in the same speech, and sometimes in the same sentence, it is quite a turnaround. As president he condemned Bitcoin and other crypto currencies ‘a scam against the
It doesn’t buy anything anymore. It is not enough to put into a charity box, and it just takes up space in your pocket or a purse. On one level, it will save us all a lot of trouble when one penny and two penny coins finally become extinct. The Treasury has told the Royal
