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’
Business taxes are soaring. Employment rights have been massively extended, the trade unions are getting more powers, companies are too dependent on low-skilled immigrants, and the planning system still makes it impossible to build anything. There are plenty of challenges facing the British economy that the Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey could
Perhaps he will walk through the lobby of the Pentagon with a kitchen sink. Or fire the entire IT department at the Fed, shift the IRS to Mars, while replacing traffic police with fully autonomous Tesla robo-cops. No one has any real idea yet what Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX, might come
It emerged over the weekend that Tesco might have to start putting up prices. So, we have learned over the past few days, will Sainsbury’s, BT, and even JD Wetherspoons, a company that is usually committed to keeping prices as low as possible. One by one, many of the major consumer brands in the UK
Elon Musk contributed huge sums of money. He campaigned relentlessly. And his social media network X provided a platform for the candidate. Of all the architects of Donald Trump’s return to the White House this week, arguably none was more influential than Musk, and certainly none were playing for such high stakes. If he had
Truth Social rocketed. Bitcoin soared in price. The dollar rose, and bond yields were up, while Chinese equities wobbled. Over the course of last night, as it became clear that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election, the markets responded to the news. The trouble is, no one really knows what Trump 2.0 means
No sombre music accompanied Rachel Reeves’s Budget, nor was there a reading from Corinthians. Yet, those details aside, one point is surely clear: Labour’s first Budget in 14 years was a requiem for entrepreneurial Britain. The four decades from the Thatcher reforms of the early 1980s, that turned the UK into one of the best
Where did it all go wrong for Volkswagen? The German carmaker is said to be planning to shut several factories and lay off thousands of staff. Workers who do keep their jobs could see their pay cut by as much as ten per cent, according to VW’s top employee representative, Daniela Cavallo. If the revelations
Some thought Rachel Reeves’s experience at the Bank of England meant she ‘knew how to run the economy’. She would keep an iron grip on budgets and demand value for money. The reliability of her management of the Treasury would unlock a wave of support from global finance. Ahead of the election, Reeves, along with
Dubai, Italy or perhaps the Bahamas? Many multi-millionaires are discussing where they should flee to as the Rachel Reeves prepares to raid their bank accounts in the ‘Horror Budget’ scheduled for the end of this month. But not, as it turns out, Patriotic Millionaires, the group that campaigns tirelessly for higher taxes on the rich.
There have been plenty of accusations made against crypto currencies such as Bitcoin over the years. It is too flimsy, you can’t buy anything with it, and it is wildly volatile. All fair enough. But is it racist? That appears to be the view of Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for US president. The US
It could be 30 per cent. Or 35 per cent? Or perhaps 39 per cent? Heck, who knows, if Rachel Reeves wants to keep the accountants on their toes, perhaps 39.657 per cent. The Treasury is, according to the latest leaks to the Guardian, looking at an increase in Capital Gains Tax as it scrabbles around
It’s innovative, it generates huge wealth, and it offers great products for completely nothing. The lobbyists for Alphabet, the parent company of Google, will make plenty of familiar arguments about why the internet giant should be left intact. And yet, as the US Department of Justice pushes for it to be broken up, it is
In the wake of the UK’s departure from the European Union, French president Emmanuel Macron made a big effort to woo London’s bankers and hedge fund managers across the Channel. Macron wanted to use Brexit as an opportunity to turn Paris into the key hub for European finance. Trust me, he told Britain’s bankers: I’m
Cheap Chinese imports will flood the market. Even more jobs will be lost, and the country’s industrial base will be even weaker than it already is. UK Steel, the lobby group for the industry, has today called for tariffs to stop the last remaining steel mills being wiped out by unfair competition from lower cost
Business confidence has plummeted back to the levels last seen in the wake of Liz Truss’s unfortunate mini-budget. Hiring has slowed down as employers worry about all the new rights Labour is about to award their staff. Consumer confidence has fallen, as people worry about the tax rises that will be imposed in the ‘Horror
Donald Trump is campaigning hard on protectionism, promising to bring skilled manual jobs back onshore. What will that look like? Huge tariffs on imports, foreign companies unable to ‘steal’ American jobs, a re-industrialisation of the heartlands of the United States. But here’s the catch: a trade war on the scale that Trump is promising is
It is not hard to imagine what will be in Rachel Reeves’ ‘industrial strategy’. There will be lots of ‘green industries’, along with plenty of ‘cutting-edge technologies’, all designed to nurture ‘national champions’ in the ‘sectors of the future’. And presumably Lord Alli, the Labour donor who has been footing the bill for Keir Starmer’s
Smart meters were meant to make our lives easier. They were designed to help us reduce energy consumption and cut bills. Over the last five years, the government has been pushing energy firms to install these meters as quickly as possible. Millions of homes have been fitted with one. The flashing screen monitoring how much
Labour might relax the ban on the sale of new petrol cars that is scheduled to come into force in six years’ time, according to reports today. The government will reportedly allow hybrids to still be sold until 2035, on the grounds that they are proving far more popular with consumers than the entirely battery
The Chancellor was so shocked when she received the briefings from Treasury officials that she had no choice but to scrap her election commitments. It was so serious that it was about to crash the markets. It had to be fixed so urgently that the winter fuel allowance had to be cut, and we will
