Matthew Lynn

The City was meant to be hollowed out. Shortages would cripple the economy. And major multinationals would move their headquarters, listings, and all the wealth those create, to somewhere safely inside the EU’s Single Market. Some hardcore supporters of the UK remaining inside the EU made lots of predictions about the consequences of the decision to leave. And yet, one by one, they have failed to materialise. Now, oil giant Shell has said it will move its tax residency to London, a decision that could mean it ditches the ‘Royal Dutch’ from its name.

Supermarket shelves are bare. There may not be enough turkeys for Christmas. Wages and prices are rising. And the government is sinking into a pit of sleaze. As if that were not enough, the EU is about to launch a full-scale trade war against the country.  Following the day-to-day news, you could well be forgiven for thinking the British economy was sinking into permanent chaos, doomed to replay the dark days of the 1970s. But hold on. Amidst all this gloom, the world’s biggest and most powerful investment bank, JP Morgan, says now is the time to be buying British.

He isn’t Canadian. He doesn’t dominate the Davos circuit with platitudes about climate change. And he isn’t constantly warning that the British economy will turn into a cross between Ethiopia and Argentina now that we have left the European Union. In many ways, the current Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey is an upgrade on his high-profile predecessor Mark Carney. And yet, in the most important respect, he is turning out to be very similar. He is constantly threatening to raise interest rates, and then backing off at the last moment.  An increase in interest rate from the ‘emergency’ level of just 0.1 per cent was not quite a done deal for today’s meeting on the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee. But it was widely expected.

The amount the state takes out of the economy will rise to the highest level in 70 years. An unreformed public sector will be showered with cash, with the health service allowed to spend whatever it likes. A tax system that was already creaking under the weight of its own complexity has just been made slightly more complicated, and it has been made a lot less competitive. The Chancellor Rishi Sunak with his usual panache sailed through his Budget yesterday. The problem, however, is this. While he might get away with pushing up taxes and spending for now, sooner or later it is going to catch up with him. And in truth, he has just blown his premiership.

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.