Matthew Lynn

A few vague promises about upgrading skills. And something or other about promoting innovation and raising productivity. Sir Keir Starmer did not exactly set the world alight in his speech to the CBI today. Given that he is twenty points ahead in the opinion polls, and sometimes more depending on the latest Tory implosion, perhaps he felt he didn’t need to. Instead the Labour leader seemed content to confirm a point that was already obvious to anyone: the Prime Minister doesn’t have a plan for growth. And the prime-minister-in-waiting doesn’t have one either.  Rishi Sunak’s talk to the CBI yesterday was not exactly a hard act to follow. Over 40 minutes, the PM waffled his way through some guff about balancing the books.

We might get a new nuclear power station one day, unless the protestors or the Supreme Court find a way to block it. We will plough on with High Speed Rail 2 regardless of its mounting cost. And there will be some re-heated waffle about supporting technology and innovation, complete with misty-eyed homilies to Alexander Fleming and John Logie Baird that could have been lifted word for word from any chancellor’s speech over the last fifty years. And, er, that was about it. In his Autumn Statement today, Jeremy Hunt had nothing to say about growth – because, in reality, Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives have become a zero-growth party.

There is plenty for anyone in Paris to feel smug about if they happen to look across to the other side of the English Channel right now. France has been able to watch British prime ministers come and go with almost comical regularity. It can supply everyone else with electricity from its nuclear power stations if they ask nicely enough. And it is about to watch its football team cruise to defending its crown at the Qatar World Cup. But there is one more that will make the French especially pleased. Paris has just overtaken London as Europe’s largest stock market – and the UK has only itself to blame.

Anyone with a mortgage will be in serious trouble. Small businesses will go to the wall. Demand will be hammered. And the cost of government debt will soar. After the Bank of England upped interest rates yesterday to 3 per cent, the highest level in more than a decade, there was one point on which everyone agreed. The Bank might be moving too fast or too slow, but it is imposing steep rises in rates. But hold on: is that right? After all, when you take into consideration rising inflation, the real cost of money has hardly ever been cheaper.  The Bank’s decision to hike rates by 0.75 percentage points was widely expected.

He will control spending, reverse the few remaining tax cuts that are still in the works, and bring in every kind of official body imaginable to check over all the figures. Jeremy Hunt made the best of a very difficult hand of cards in his first outing as Chancellor on Saturday morning. He was calm, rational, sensible, and conciliatory. His strategy was clear enough. To calm the markets, and buy the government some breathing space while it figures out what to do next. There is a catch, however. What if it doesn't work? Hunt’s real problem is that he has no plan for growth Hunt’s plans as Chancellor are clearly very different from his short-lived predecessor. In a nutshell, it is George Osborne Mark II.

Production will be cut. Supplies to the rest of the world will be curbed. And inflation will rise just a little bit higher. No one ever expected the oil-cartel Opec(+), led by Saudi Arabia, to be friendly to the West, or to help out when it was needed. Even so, its decision this week to effectively side with Russia, and to make the energy crisis even worse, may quickly backfire. In reality, Opec was already in long-term decline. Picking a fight with the US will just make that worse. It was certainly the kind of news the energy markets didn’t need.

Well, that went well. Kwasi Kwarteng's decision to axe the 45 per cent top rate of income tax triggered a crash on the financial markets. It then ran into so much opposition from the public and from Conservative MPs fearful for their seats that it had to be scrapped completely. Right now, it seems unlikely that any politician will want to revisit the subject any time in the next two or three millennia. Abolishing Christmas would be less toxic. If they do, however, one point is surely clear: the 45 per cent rate is here to stay. The only way any politician will ever be able to scrap it now is by stealth. For all the hullabaloo around the 45 per cent top rate of tax, it makes little sense for the economy.

Massive tax cuts. A huge budget deficit. And a wild dash for growth, stoking a short-lived boom, before it all ends in a spectacular crash. As the new government unveiled the widest ranging tax cuts since the 1980s, along with a huge increase in the budget deficit, City commentators and the wiser sort of newspaper pundit are already comparing it to the ‘Barber boom’ of 1972 or the ‘Lawson boom’ of 1988. Both of those ended very badly. In their dreams, Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are probably already fantasizing about an ashen-faced Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng calling in the IMF for an emergency bail-out – before getting wiped out at an election. But hold on. In fact, this is not a return to Tory boom n’ bust.

In the end, it could have been worse. The Federal Reserve might have followed Sweden’s lead, with a whole one point rise in interest rates, or it could have even decided to short-circuit the whole process and go straight for a 1.5 per cent increase. Instead, it opted for the safer course, imposing a 0.75 per cent increase in rates much as the market expected. Even so, it made one thing absolutely clear. It is not going to let up in its battle to bring inflation back under control – and the rest of the world will have no option but to follow its lead. The markets were primed for another rise in rates from the Fed chairman Jay Powell today. That was precisely what he delivered. American interest rates will go up to 3.

Critics say that scrapping the cap on bankers' bonus will encourage a return to excessive risk taking. It will provoke retaliation from the European Union, they warn. And perhaps, worst of all, it could prove fatal politically, rewarding a few rich Tory friends while the rest of the country struggles with the cost-of-living crisis. Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will get lots of criticism if, as predicted, he does decide to bin the cap in his upcoming financial statement. Even so, he should ignore the naysayers. It will certainly be a controversial move. The controls on City bonuses were imposed right across the EU in the wake of the crash of 2008/2009. These rules limit the amount that traders and bankers can earn in relation to their basic salaries.

It will be expensive. It will last far longer than anyone expects. And it will distort the market even more than it already is. Barring a major upset, Liz Truss will move into No. 10 Downing Street later today. Once she's there, Britain's new prime minister will have little choice but to take control of soaring energy prices. How she does that will be the first big test of her premiership. If Truss can do it in a way that boosts output, and encourages investment, it will be worthwhile. But if she opts for just another bail-out she will get stuck in the same dismal groove as Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.  If there were a couple of LNG tankers for every proposal for fixing the energy crisis no one would be worrying about how to keep the lights on this winter.

There will be a run on sterling. The gilts market will be in freefall. And the FTSE will tumble as global investors take fright and sell off every form of British asset. It might take only a few days, or the government might stagger through until the end of September, but before long Liz Truss and her new Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will have been forced to call in the IMF to stabilise a collapsing economy. That is, at least, according to the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak. With just a few desperate days left in his doomer leadership campaign, he has declared his opponent's tax and spending plans so wild and reckless they risk a full-blown sterling crisis of the sort we have not seen since the 1970s.

This time it was surely all over. As inflation started to rise towards a 40-year high, as central banks started raising interest rates for the first time in more than a decade, and as the monetary printing presses finally stopped running, the crypto-currencies crashed. What a crash it was. Bitcoin, the best-known crypto, fell all the way from $61,000 last November to less than $19,000 in June, a spectacular drop of more than two thirds. Ethereum, Solana and other, frailer ‘coins’ – as well as the even flimsier digital collectors’ items known as NFTs – all tanked. This appeared finally to confirm what the doubters had said all along.

This time it was surely all over. As inflation started to rise towards a 40-year high, as central banks started raising interest rates for the first time in more than a decade, and as the monetary printing presses finally stopped running, the cryptocurrencies crashed.  What a crash it was. Bitcoin, the best-known crypto, fell all the way from $61,000 last November to less than $19,000 in June, a spectacular drop of more than two thirds. Ethereum, Solana and other, frailer ‘coins’ – as well as the even flimsier digital collectors’ items known as NFTs – all tanked. This appeared finally to confirm what the doubters had said all along.