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’
The self-employed have paid up. And investors are paying record amounts of capital gains tax. The public finance figures for January have been published, showing record tax receipts and handing the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, a surprise £30 billion bonus. It is great news that the public finances are stabilising. Manchester mayor Andy Burnham may not
For the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to tell everyone in advance that her Spring statement will be ‘boring’ is a little like Nigel Farage telling us he might be popping out for a pint, or Sir Keir Starmer telling us he might change his mind. It is useful information, but hardly a huge surprise. Still, the
In his speech in Munich on Saturday, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, made it very clear that he was planning to rejoin the European Union’s single market, perhaps as early as this year. The argument in favour of this is that it will boost growth – and it will put Britain at the heart
It should have moved ‘Beyond Petroleum’ by now, with wind, solar and hydroelectric power powering its profits. If you rewind twenty years, BP had a clear plan to place itself at the forefront of the green energy transition. It hasn’t worked out as they had hoped. Instead, today the company announced it was suspending share
As the hype builds for the reported $1.5 trillion (£1 trillion) IPO of Elon Musk’s SpaceX later this year, there will be plenty of critics who argue the company’s marketing has more hot air than one of its rockets. It has been claimed by some that the IPO will be worth more than the top
Anyone who thought that gold, the world’s oldest form of money, was a safe asset that they could tuck away and forget about has been through a rough few days. It has soared, then plunged, then soared again. Its price has been even more volatile than Bitcoin or one of the overhyped artificial intelligence stocks.
Has Tesla run out of road? The electric car firm put plenty of spin on its annual results, talking bullishly about the new projects that were coming to fruition. Elon Musk’s company plans to go big on robots, pivot to Artificial Intelligence, and develop its self-driving unit. Yet there was no disguising the real message
Last year might have proved a good time to own shares in the chip-maker Nvidia, along with the booming American tech giants. Or a piece of the defence manufacturers as the world re-arms. Or to hold a position in some of the rapidly growing economies of South America or Asia, or even one of the
A Tesla would whisk you to the airport. The planes would be self-flying. And robots would serve the over-priced sandwiches, while, inevitably, every seat is hooked up to a live X feed. A full-scale takeover of Ryanair by Elon Musk may still be some way off, but with the billionaire polling his followers on X
No one really knows how the situation in Venezuela will unfold over the next few years following President Trump’s audacious kidnap of its former leader Nicolas Maduro. It may or may not be legal. It might restore democracy or it might just pave the way for another dictator. But one point is certain: America looks
It depends on whether you re-heat it when you get home, apparently. Or whether it is sold in a bag labelled hot food. The supermarket chain Morrisons has lost a fiendishly complex court battle over whether its rotisserie chickens should be subject to VAT or not. It will have to stump up an extra £17
We have caved in to bullying from President Trump. It will put NHS budgets under even more pressure. And the Green leader Zack Polanski will probably start claiming on X that the entire health service will be sold off to American conglomerates. There will be plenty of critics of the deal between the UK and
It has lots of original features. It is close to good schools, and with a few cans of Farrow & Ball it will make the perfect family home. The estate agents already have lots of familiar lines they use to sell a property. From next year, they will have one that will be more crucial
The Budget speech has no doubt been finalised. The red box has been dusted off. And the pie charts are ready to be released. Assuming Chancellor Rachel Reeves doesn’t call in sick tomorrow, the Treasury, along with the rest of us, will be waiting to see how tomorrow’s Budget is received. But do we really
Bitcoin is crashing all over again, and it is taking the smaller crypto currencies down with it. It has fallen by a quarter from its highs, and there is little sign that the relentless selling is going to stop anytime soon. Plenty of people will be reheating arguments about how the digital currency is completely
Bitcoin has lost almost a quarter of its value. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index on Wall Street has started to fall. And even leaders of the industry, such as the Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have started to warn about valuations getting out of control. We already knew that AI was driving a boom in investment. But
It appears that Rachel Reeves has scrapped her plans for an ‘exit tax’ that would impose a huge levy on entrepreneurs leaving the UK – at least for now. But is anyone actually going to be fooled by that? Once the concept has been leaked, the only rational response is to get out while you
We are all familiar with the different excuses for why we find ourselves stuck at the Spoons in Luton or Stansted airport for hours, trying to avoid the stag party, as we wait for our flight. There is fog over the Channel. The French air traffic controllers are on strike. There are not enough planes.
As New York’s wealthy elite weigh up the options under their new ‘democratic socialist’ Mayor Zohran Mamdani, many of them are now reported to be considering fleeing to London instead. But will it really offer them the safe harbour they are searching for? The truth is that under the Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Mayor
After yet another dreadful week, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves must be praying the Bank of England helps her out by cutting interest rates tomorrow. It would reduce the huge amount of interest the government has to pay, it would put more money in people’s pockets, and it might even stimulate growth. The trouble is, the
