Matthew Lynn

The schools will all get new books. The hospitals will all be rebuilt. Long-suffering public sector workers will finally get a pay rise and there will be a ton of money to fight climate change. Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson is promising there will be a £50 billion ‘Remain Bonus’ to spend on public services after she has won the general election and cancelled our departure from the European Union. If she weren’t quite so humourless she might even be tempted to put that figure on the side of a bus. But hold on. From die-hard Remainers, who accuse the other side of peddling dodgy figures and who pride themselves on ‘evidence-based’ policy-making, that claim is more than little outrageous.

The uncertainty will be lifted. Businesses will know where they stand. Our politics can return to something approaching normality, and the government can get on with tackling all the other issues the country faces. Whatever the precise pluses and minuses of Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement for getting out of the EU, you might think that finally resolving the issue would be helpful for the economy. Except apparently not. Just when you might think we had seen enough forecasts of this deal or that to last several lifetimes along comes the National Institute of Economic and Social Research with the alarming news that not only will leaving the EU make us poorer, this particular way of leaving will make us even poorer than Theresa May's deal. By how much?

Some fiddly amendments from Sir Oliver Letwin that no one quite understands. A legal action against someone or other from Gina Miller. Lots of protest marches. A petition or two – and possibly even an unreadable novella from Ian McEwan/JK Rowling/John Le Carre (delete as applicable) ranting against Brexit. We don’t quite know yet how exactly we will fill up the latest three-month extension to the already protracted saga of our departure from the EU. It probably won’t be a great deal different from the last three months, or the three months before that. There is one thing we should know for sure by now, however. It will be very bad for the economy.

It is one of the most diabolical plots of all time, a conspiracy so vast, so deep, and so wicked it could have come from the pen of Dan Brown. A small cabel of powerful hedge funds have installed Boris Johnson at Number 10, paying for his campaign and his advisers. Once there, his task is to crash the UK out of the European Union without a deal, plunging the economy into chaos, and sparking a rout of sterling and a collapse in the FTSE. In the background, those same hedge funds will have ‘shorted’ the pound and the London equity market. In the process, they will make a few quick billion before they disappear to their Cayman Islands' mansions to sip champagne and chuckle over the brilliance of their scheme.

The government has lost its majority. The constitution has fallen apart. The country no longer has any idea whether it is leaving the European Union or not. Historians and political commentators are queuing up to tell us this is the lowest point in the country's history since the Suez Crisis/Civil War/Dissolution of the Monasteries (delete as applicable). And yet, amid all this chaos and confusion, something else is happening. The economy, slightly surprisingly, is purring along quite smoothly. The explanation? In truth, the EU doesn't make much difference to the economy anymore. And insofar as it does, leaving is a marginal improvement. The City expected the economic data released this week to make grim reading.

The ‘Non’ was not quite as frosty as it might have been. When Boris Johnson met up with France’s president Emmanuel Macron there were at least some pictures of the two men talking amicably. Even so, while Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and some of the EU’s other leaders have at least left the door a tiny bit open to renegotiating the UK’s departure from the EU, Macron made it clear it was almost completely shut. In fact, Macron is making almost as big a bet as Johnson. His calculation is that a no-deal Brexit will work to France’s advantage. Yet he may well have mis-calculated – and it could easily drive his own economy into recession.

Lots and lots of optimism. Some can-do spirit. A dash of hope, a sprinkle of belief, some added willpower and a pinch of positive thinking. Oh, and in case you forgot, some more optimism (and a few rays of sunshine as well). A whole week into his premiership, which is longer than some of the sceptics gave it, and one thing is clear about Boris Johnson. He is planning to ride through our departure from the European Union, and any damage to output and jobs it may create, simply by making everyone feel better about it. Indeed, ‘boosterism’ as it now appears to be known inside Number 10, has turned into a major plank of the government’s economic strategy.

Sajid Javid. Liz Truss. Dominic Raab, or perhaps even his old City Hall colleague Kit Malthouse. There are plenty of well-qualified candidates to move into the house next door when Boris Johnson becomes prime minister next week. But one thing is surely now certain. The incumbent will have to be removed. In the dying days of a dismal Chancellorship, Philip Hammond seems intent on doing nothing more than stoking the dying embers of Project Fear. At a moment when the country needs a Chancellor working out how to cope with a potentially major economic shock, it is stuck with one paralysed by an irrational fear of what might be around the corner. Hammond proved that once again today when he latched onto the latest scenario from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Unemployment is at record lows. Wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade. The gender gap is evaporating, creating a more equal society. Which country is that? France, perhaps, as it benefits from president Macron’s reforms? Or Germany, as it reaps all the benefits of the Single Market and the single currency? Well, not quite. In fact, it is Britain. Despite Brexit, to use the obligatory two words that now have to be firmly placed in front of any positive news about the economy, the UK continues to evolve into one of the best places in the world to be an employee right now.

Most of us probably decided Aston Martin was by far the coolest car company in the world the first time we saw Honour Blackman climb into James Bond's DB5 in Goldfinger. But just in case there were still any doubters out there, there is now another reason to love them as well. Amidst the constant predictions of disaster from the auto industry that would follow from leaving the European Union without a deal, the company's chief executive has pointed out an obvious fact: that at this stage, it would be better to simply leave than prolong the agony of our departure any further.  The auto industry has been one of the most consistent supporters both of staying in the EU, and, if we absolutely must leave, doing so with a deal that preserves as much of the relationship as possible.

Smooth. Intelligent and articulate. A former finance minister. A European. And perhaps most importantly of all, a mildly irritating potential rival to the prime minister of his own country. In lots of ways, George Osborne ticks all the boxes to replace Christine Lagarde as the managing director of the IMF. Indeed, if you were looking for a perfect replica of the incumbent, minus the pearls and the elegant neck scarfs, you might well settle on the former chancellor. The trouble is, while Osborne’s brand of centrist Conservatism might suit the Fund in easier times, what it needs now is radical change – and the editor of the Evening Standard has never shown much interest in that. There is certainly a case to be made for a British MD of the IMF.