Martin Vander Weyer

It was unfashionable of me to write in praise of George Osborne on Budget day. I did so, you may recall, because ‘at least we have a finance minister who’s always on the front foot’: I wanted to make a contrast between our Chancellor’s relentless activism in pursuit of his political goals, and the supine performance of eurozone leaders — who continue failing to offer any strokes at all while hoping for Mario Draghi to knock up a few runs with monetary trick-shots from the other end. Within 48 hours, however, our Chancellor seemed to be very much on the back foot, one hand clutching his protective box, as bouncers rained down from the unlikely combination of IDS and John McDonnell.

It was unfashionable of me to write in praise of George Osborne on Budget day. I did so, you may recall, because ‘at least we have a finance minister who’s always on the front foot’: I wanted to make a contrast between our Chancellor’s relentless activism in pursuit of his political goals, and the supine performance of eurozone leaders — who continue failing to offer any strokes at all while hoping for Mario Draghi to knock up a few runs with monetary trick-shots from the other end. Within 48 hours, however, our Chancellor seemed to be very much on the back foot, one hand clutching his protective box, as bouncers rained down from the unlikely combination of IDS and John McDonnell.

In every gathering, someone — often me — calls for a show of hands on Brexit. And I have to report that, in the varied circles in which I move, ‘leave’ may have the best tunes but isn’t winning the argument. At a Mayfair fundraiser for a Jewish charity, the crowd of mostly thirty-to-fortysomething men in suits (and many in yarmulkes) was 90 per cent for ‘remain’; a former Tory minister was spotted waving both arms in a desperate bid to boost the ‘leave’ minority. In a more mixed crowd of business people at a Budget briefing in Newcastle, the balance was much the same.

What’s in next week’s budget? Not much, apparently. ‘Cabinet sources’ have been quoted saying that ‘George has been told not to rock the boat’ ahead of the Brexit referendum, and that’s why he backed away from a grab on pension relief for higher earners; likewise he may yield to pressure from his backbenchers not to treat cheap petrol as an opportunity to raise extra fuel duty from motorists. He’ll probably have to talk his way out of a downgrading of growth forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (‘global headwinds’, naturally) and a modest overshoot against his own borrowing targets — but those are the most entertaining parts of Osborne’s speeches.

The London Stock Exchange is no longer the red-hot crucible it once was, given the multifarious ways by which shares, bonds and derivatives now change hands. But the prospect of the LSE passing into the control of Deutsche Börse — in what was announced as a ‘merger of equals’, but with the Germans holding the larger stake and the top job — is a mighty provocation to Brexit campaigners. The Express claims it would reduce the London market ‘to an insignificant regional afterthought’. Brexit or not, there’s logic to a pan-European trading platform with shared technologies and harmonised listing rules: but who can doubt that the German agenda must be to hoover as much business as possible from London to Frankfurt?

The London Stock Exchange is no longer the red-hot crucible it once was, given the multifarious ways by which shares, bonds and derivatives now change hands. But the prospect of the LSE passing into the control of Deutsche Börse — in what was announced as a ‘merger of equals’, but with the Germans holding the larger stake and the top job — is a mighty provocation to Brexit campaigners. The Express claims it would reduce the London market ‘to an insignificant regional afterthought’. Brexit or not, there’s logic to a pan-European trading platform with shared technologies and harmonised listing rules: but who can doubt that the German agenda must be to hoover as much business as possible from London to Frankfurt?

‘The City is in no doubt that staying in Europe is the only way ahead,’ declared Mark Boleat for the City of London Corporation. Likewise Chris Cummings of the lobby group TheCityUK praised David Cameron for delivering ‘a really special deal’. The official Square Mile is squarely for ‘remain’, confident that the Prime Minister has secured safeguards to let the UK keep control of a thriving financial sector in a multi--currency EU. But with all due respect, I wonder what the real players think. The economists Gerard Lyons and Ruth Lea are two other respected City voices, and they warn that those safeguards won’t be worth much as Paris, Frankfurt and Brussels pursue their long-term aim of grabbing financial activity from us.

Upbeat or downbeat? I asked last month whether the mood where you live is energised by enterprise or demoralised by public-sector retreat — or both. Replies poured in while the news mostly got worse. Governor Carney warned that ‘the UK cannot help but be affected by an unforgiving global environment and sustained financial market turbulence’ as shares took another dive. BP and Shell announced profit falls and job cuts. The Brexit debate took off, but the migrant benefits row overwhelmed any sensible discussion of economic pros and cons, on which voters must so far be utterly confused. Then again, it wasn’t all bad: like-for-like retail sales surged by 2.

‘Who’s to blame for financial crisis’ is a poem I wrote in 2012, rhyming ‘speculators, spivs and traders’ with ‘rich, -uncaring hedge-fund raiders’, while taking passing swipes at Gordon Brown and ‘Mervyn King, who really didn’t do a thing’. But it’s too early in 2016 to update my ditty, because the new crisis — if that’s what it is — hasn’t really hit us yet, except in share prices that clearly have further to fall. And the question of who’s to blame, never mind how to make them rhyme, is going to be a lot more difficult this time round. ‘It’s China’s fault,’ was the gist of bulletins about the loss of 750 jobs at Tata’s Port Talbot steelworks this week.