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 machines are already smarter and better organised than humans. They never ask for a pay rise, and they don’t ask any awkward questions about the company’s environmental record. An artificial employee is, in many ways, the model employee. But is artificial intelligence really responsible for a recent fall in entry-level jobs, as new figures
Britain’s 12.9 million pensioners are better off financially than they have ever been, and certainly compared with the rest of the country. Their winter fuel allowance has been restored. The triple lock looks completely secure. And with the stock market close to record highs, any savings they have will be in a healthy state as
Rachel Reeves does not have many supporters left. The bond markets don’t think much of the Chancellor. Business groups have rubbished her policies, and so have many of the UK’s largest companies. Meanwhile, Labour backbenchers are furious about both the chaos over the winter fuel allowance and the cuts to the welfare budget. Now, it
We are not the fastest growing economy in the G7, even though the Labour party promised that we would be. We are not topping any tables for inward investment, and we have fallen to the bottom of the league for new companies listed on the stock market. Still, it is good to know that there
We will hear plenty of familiar criticisms of the plan unveiled by Reform yesterday to bring non-doms, as wealthy foreigners who enjoy a special tax regime in the UK are known, back. It will make Britain a magnate for tax dodgers and money launderers. It will increase inequality. And the only jobs it creates will
One of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s few big ideas for boosting growth was to persuade pension funds to invest more of their assets in Britain. But hold on. Today, we learned that Scottish Widows, one of the biggest funds, is dramatically reducing its exposure to this country – and it is quite right to do so.
As missiles fly across the Middle East as Israel and Iran embark on what could well become a wider regional conflict, you might expect turmoil in the financial markets. After all, if the beginning of a third world war doesn’t knock a few dollars off the Apple share price it is hard to know what
This afternoon’s spending review mostly consisted of rehashed announcements, and in fact Tory plans that had been quickly rebadged. But there was one commitment that stuck out. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning to spend £39 billion – serious money even by the standards of an organisation as extravagant as the British state – on
High-level talks have started in London today between American and Chinese officials aimed at dialling down the trade tensions between the two largest economies in the world. If they result in a breakthrough, perhaps it will be known as the ‘London accord’. But can President Trump strike a ‘grand bargain’ with China? There is every
When the fintech giant Wise floated its shares on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 it was widely seen as proof that the City still had a future as a centre for equity trading. This was London’s largest-ever tech listing: it was one of only a handful of new British companies with a global presence
It has only been a few weeks since the UK agreed to a trade deal with the United States that exempted us from the worst of President Trump’s tariffs. There was a grand, if slightly awkward, ceremony in the White House. The deal was sold as a triumph of negotiation and diplomacy for the Prime
Nobody wants to buy his cars anymore. He has been too distracted to pay any attention to his companies, and his fortune has been shredded. As Elon Musk brings his short spell in government to an official close today, and gets back to the day job, his many political opponents will take a malicious pleasure
That should teach it a lesson. The utility giant Thames Water has today been hit with a massive £122.7 million fine for failing to deal with sewage properly, and for paying out excessive dividends. No doubt the regulator Ofwat thinks that will focus the minds of the company’s management and force it to sharpen up
Exports would be impossible. The supply chains would be snarled up. And trade restrictions would destroy the economics of the industry. We have been lectured endlessly on how our departure from the EU would destroy the British car industry. But hold on. It is now finding a new niche as an offshore manufacturing hub for
The deals have been settled. The exceptions have been made. And supply chains have started to return to normal, while the stock market has recovered its losses. We may have thought the ‘tariff wars’ were over. But President Trump has today resumed hostilities, threatening a fresh round of levies on the European Union. It seems
To borrow a phrase that was once famously used about the Pentagon, ‘a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money’. The Labour government has certainly been spending some ‘real money’ this week. If you tot up the total amount it has added to spending over the last five days,
Donald Trump has already caved in on tariffs, pausing the ‘retaliatory levies’ he announced on ‘Liberation Day’ at the beginning of April. Now the President is under pressure from the markets on spending. As his ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ on the budget goes through Congress, investors are panicking over the mix of spending and tax cuts,
In recent weeks, Britain has wrapped up trade deals with India and the United States and is on the lookout for new agreements. Keir Starmer has agreed a ‘re-set’ with the European Union that will make it slightly easier to export goods across the continent. It has been a good few weeks for ‘Global Britain’.
It will be like Liz Truss on roller skates. The next election may still be four years away, and the manifestos still need to be fleshed out. Even so, the City has already started issuing stark warnings of a run on the pound if there is a Reform government led by Nigel Farage as Prime
China has wrapped up a pretty good trade deal. The UK has managed to agree to lift some of the US tariffs. With President Trump touring the Gulf states this week, they may soon have an arrangement in place, especially as Qatar took the precaution of gifting the president a new 747. Japan may well
