Matthew Lynn

Concorde obviously. The Iraq War perhaps? Or Scottish devolution? It is not hard to come up with a list of really terrible ideas that the British government has wasted money on over the last 50 years. Even so, and despite some tough competition, we now have a fresh contender. It looks as if the furlough scheme will top them all. The scheme ends today, with roughly a million people still collecting a slice of their wages from the Treasury. The total bill is set to come in at around £70 billion. To put that in context, for the same money we could have tripled spending on policing and just about eliminated crime. Or we could have suspended student loans for four years and made university free again.

We are in the middle of a once-in-a-generation shift: working from home. There are skill shortages across the economy, supply bottlenecks, and empty supermarket shelves. A couple of million people are still set to come off furlough, back into jobs that may no longer exist. The labour market is in utter chaos. But, hey, here’s a good idea. Let's whack a tax on jobs. Really? The government’s widely leaked plan to increase National Insurance, a tax on jobs, could not come at a worse possible time.  The government’s widely leaked plan to increase National Insurance, a tax on jobs, could not come at a worse possible time We can all debate whether the government should raise taxes to fund social care.

Car workers in Sunderland are doing just fine. Construction workers still have jobs. And the food is still getting to the supermarkets, even if there are some occasional disruptions to supply.  Not many of the dire warnings about the consequences of leaving the European Union have actually come to pass. There is, however, one group that looks likely to be hit, even if no one quite predicted it. The pensioners. It looks certain to cost them the ‘triple lock’ on their pensions: although since many of them voted for Brexit, they can hardly complain. The government is tying itself up in knots on how to wriggle out of the ‘triple lock’ The government is tying itself up in knots on how to wriggle out of the ‘triple lock’.

The City has resigned itself to being locked out of the EU. The hauliers are adjusting to all the extra paperwork. Now it looks as if the lawyers will have to get used to no deal as well — and while that won't do any serious long term damage to the profession's booming global status, it now looks as if a lot of divorcing families will be collateral damage.Over the last month, it has become clear the EU plans to block the UK from joining the Lugano Convention, which helps settle in which jurisdiction disputes should be resolved. The reason is no great mystery to anyone. Brussels wants to make it harder for London's firms to sell their services globally, and take some of that business for competitors in Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

The debacle in Iraq. The fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. The failed 'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba. You can debate where exactly the collapse of Afghanistan ranks in the list of American military and foreign policy disasters. But one point is surely certain. It is a major setback, and one that will undermine the credibility of the United States for years to come. Here is the real problem, however. It is not going to end there. The economy will be the next major catastrophe of Joe Biden’s increasingly chaotic presidency. Biden has embarked on a drive for a bigger state, with more control over the economy and society It may well have been a mistake for the US, and of course Britain, to imagine it could ever rebuild Afghanistan by force.

The dotcom bubble. The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. The oil price spiral of the 1970s. The launch of the single currency. It would be fun, in a nerdish kind of a way, to debate which was the most seismic economic event of postwar history. But in fact the answer would be this: the ‘Nixon shock’, a fateful day when the final link between gold and the money you carry around in your pocket, or on your bank card, was finally severed. And it happened 50 years ago this week. A half-century on — enough time for some historical perspective — how’s it going?

Tapping out some code in the back garden. Working on a sales presentation while watching the school sports day. Or even better, traveling though a continent or two while still pulling down a ritzy six figure salary.  Over the last year, middle class professionals have bought into the Work From Home Dream – or WFHD as it's known in HR circles – to create a working life that combines the best of all possible worlds. It is hardly surprising that so many highly-paid workers are happy to stay away from the office on a permanent basis. Forget Zero Covid. The WFH warriors will be aiming for Zero Flu and Zero Colds before they get back to their desks Google's move illustrates two big problems with WFH But hold on. It turns out there is dark side to that dream.

It will be better for our careers. We will network more effectively, spark ideas off one another, and learn new things from our colleagues, as well as getting a reminder from time to time of how annoying they are.  Chancellor Rishi Sunak took a break today from his usual occupation of dishing out vast sums of free money to remind us all of how much he learned from working in an office. Sunak is urging us all to get back to the skyscraper, shop, warehouse, or whatever, as quickly as possible. But hold on. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a few warm words to that effect – but we need more than that to get us back to the office.

The UK is growing at the fastest pace in 80 years. The United States, fuelled by President Biden’s stimulus programme, is expanding at a breath-taking pace, while Sweden is growing at a rapid rate. Most of the global economy is bouncing back from the Covid recession at remarkable speed. There is, however, one exception. Australia. What has long been one of the most successful economies in the world is heading back not just into lockdown but into recession as well — and giving the world a sharp lesson in the cost of ‘zero Covid’. Over the last year, Australia, along with New Zealand, has been heaped with praise for the way it has managed to keep Covid-19 under control. There is, of course, plenty of justification for that.

A dozen hospitals. A hundred million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and a lot more of the Oxford one. Or even a few trips in one of Jeff Bezos’s new space rockets. Even with inflation, there is still plenty you can buy with an extra three to four billion pounds.  In recent days, it has emerged there is a big gulf between what the European Union insists we owe under the terms of our departure agreement, and what the UK believes is due.  In the EU’s accounts, it put the sum at £40.5 billion. The UK now says it will be £37.3 billion, or £3.2 billion less than the EU reckons. Despite this discrepancy, the EU continues to insist the UK should pay that full sum of money.

Two billion? Five billion? Perhaps ten billion to make it a nice round number? For colluding on diesel emissions you might think the European Union would hand out a pretty stiff fine to the big German auto-manufacturers. After all, it has hit American tech giants with huge penalties for far lesser transgressions.  Yet in the end, its response was predictable: the EU has largely let them off the hook. The reason? It turns out that protecting German auto manufacturers is what the Commission really cares about – and nothing else matters.