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’
Government borrowing is lower than had been forecast. The economy needs some form of a boost. And perhaps most of all there is an election within a few months. There are plenty of reasons why Chancellor Jeremy Hunt might want to cut taxes slightly in his spring Budget, and perhaps even once more by the
Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, has one of the most glittering CVs in European politics. The ex finance minister of France, and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, earns £365,000 a year for running the show at the ECB. But is she any good? An internal poll of staff
Why is Oxfam so concerned about the coming possibility of the world’s first trillionaire? The charity has this week released a report with an apocalyptic warning that one is likely within the next decade. Yet surely people only get that rich by making something that people want. That should be celebrated instead of condemned. In
It has formidable negotiating skills, at least according to its cheerleaders. It has huge economic clout. And it can impose its will on companies and rival governments. Given that we have heard so much over the last few years about the immense influence of the European Union you might have thought that a small matter like
The charlatans had been exposed. Its flimsiness had been confirmed. And the bubble had finally burst. Rewind to just over a year ago, and with the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX and the arrest of its billionaire founder Sam Bankman-Fried it seemed as if the legions of skeptics of the digital currency Bitcoin had
Well that was a surprise. At just 3.9 per cent, down from 4.7 per cent, the latest inflation figure published today came as a shock for many. The figures are far lower than the consensus forecasts, and even low enough to allow the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to meet his forecast to halve the rate
The Argentinian peso has been devalued by 50 per cent overnight. Controls on exports have been scrapped, and the country’s ministry of culture is to be closed down. The health, labour, social development and education departments are also facing the chop. Argentina’s president Javier Milei – who vowed to deliver economic ‘shock treatment’ in his
They are cheap to run. They rarely break down. And perhaps most of all they are far better for the environment. For the last decade we have been endlessly lectured about how electric cars are so completely superior to the petrol variety that they would quickly dominate the market. But hold on. Now that some
Everything in the shops is getting more expensive and restaurant bills have become prohibitive. We are all aware that food price inflation is a major factor in the overall cost-of-living crisis. It might seem plausible, as claimed today, that climate change is a major factor driving this. After all, weird weather, wildfires and droughts make
Critics of Argentina’s president Javier Milei have already made up their minds: he is a lunatic and his plans will collapse on first contact with the real world. Argentina’s money will run out and the economy will grind to a halt. To some commentators, he is a ‘hard-right’ ideologue who will crash the economy within
When Jeremy Hunt takes to his feet in the Commons this afternoon to deliver his Autumn Statement, he’ll be trying to woo voters with some tax ‘giveaways’: VAT thresholds might be raised to help small businesses and the basic rate of National Insurance could be reduced for the rest of us. But hold on. Before
At least there will be some pandas. At his summit with President Biden this week, China’s President Xi pledged to send more cuddly bears to the US, the traditional Chinese way of cementing good relations with other countries. More importantly, there was a significant easing of tensions between the two largest economies in the world.
The Conservative party is 25 points behind in the polls. Its backbenchers are scrambling around to find new jobs, and the opposition is already making its plans for government. Rishi Sunak’s grip on the premiership is growing more tenuous with every passing day. But, heck, never mind. It turns out the PM has a cunning
Bill Gates was probably otherwise engaged. Mark Zuckerberg was busy in the metaverse. And Jeff Bezos was tied up on his next rocket trip. When the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was looking for a major technology tycoon to host a conversation with at his Artificial Intelligence summit later this week those were probably the names
Shadow chancellor’s Rachel Reeves’s new book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, was meant to put the spotlight on unsung female economists. Instead, the focus has fallen back on Reeves herself – and not for the reason she hoped. Reeves has denied plagiarism after it emerged that the book is littered with passages from other
It runs a vast budget deficit. It keeps raising taxes way above its neighbour. It spends wildly, it is at war with its major industry, and its former leader has been arrested over an investigation into missing party funds. But, heck, never mind about that. Humza Yousaf, the leader of the Scottish National Party, has
The timing could hardly have been better. Other Labour leaders and shadow chancellors have had to make do with endorsements from the drummer in a 90s Britpop band, or a runner up for the Booker Prize. Rachel Reeves, however, rounded off her speech to the Labour party conference today with no one other than the
There are lots of plausible explanations for Dame Sharon White’s failure at the department store and grocery chain John Lewis. The retail environment was too tough. Her predecessor expanded too quickly. During a cost–of-living crisis and with the shift to online shopping it was always going to be a very tough gig. Yet once you
Bond yields are soaring. The cost of debt, and very soon mortgages, is rising. And the government is getting nervous about how it is going to borrow the next ten or twenty billion. This might sound like the opening of a one-year-on post-mortem of Liz Truss’s ill-fated mini-Budget (we have all been treated to those
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will have to sign off on any changes to taxation. It will need to run its slide rule over any spending plans. And it will be mandated to commission an independent panel of experts to approve the Chancellor’s lunch, checking it for nutritional standards, and competitive pricing. Okay, it
