Economy

Growth has ground to a halt, manufacturing is collapsing, and the government is desperately scratching around for ways to save some money so it can balance the books. There is not much to make anyone feel optimistic about the state of the British economy right now. Except, that is, for the healthy performance of the UK’s traditional, mid-market retailers. Marks & Spencer and Tesco are both in rude health. Now, John Lewis, which has reported a rise in pre-tax profits of 73 per cent to £97 million, is the latest retailer to demonstrate its ability to bounce back.  After years of steep losses under the hapless leadership of the former

If you are an idler sponging off the state, you have every excuse to feel cheated. Throughout his years in opposition, Keir Starmer gave you every impression that he was on your side. During his Labour leadership election campaign in 2020, he promised to end Universal Credit and replace it with something more generous. In 2021, when Boris Johnson’s government proposed to remove the £20-a-week uplift in benefits, which it had introduced at the beginning of the pandemic, Starmer called a vote to oppose the move, accusing the then government of ‘effectively turning on the poorest in our society’. Shortly before last year’s general election, he agreed with the Big

The plunge continues. It’s always a mug’s game trying to call the top of any market, but the plunge on Wall Street does feel as though it has got legs, so it is quite possible that we have indeed seen the peak for US equities.  Since last week the Nasdaq has moved into correction territory – jargon for a 10 per cent or more fall – and on Monday was off another 3 per cent. I rather like the expression ‘correction’ because it implies that the markets have simply made a bit of an error, a ‘terribly sorry, folks, but we all make mistakes, and give us a few weeks

China does not like tariffs, but big money in America likes them even less. If one thing has become clear amid the fog of the past week, it is that what will contain Donald Trump are the financial markets. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, attacked Trump on Friday for his imposition of tariffs, adding that major powers ‘should not bully the weak’. While people in Taiwan might find that latter comment a bit rich, his line on tariffs squares with the reaction on Wall Street. The markets do not like it. This week has seen the Nasdaq Composite index of high-technology companies move into a ‘correction’ – a 10 per

It was reported over the weekend that the government has dropped ‘the right to switch off’ from its Employment Rights Bill. Such a right, it has been widely asserted, had appeared in Labour’s manifesto for last year’s general election, promising that employees would be granted a legal right to ignore their boss’s emails outside their contracted working hours. However, it was left out of the bill as originally published last autumn, and neither has it been introduced as an amendment. But it seems that we were not really paying attention. It is true that Angela Rayner, in an interview with the Financial Times in May, made the suggestion that the

The number of young people not doing anything with their lives has hit its highest level in 11 years. Figures released this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training – so-called NEETs – show that the number has reached just under one million in the last three months of 2024. Standing at 987,000, the number of NEETs is up by 110,000 since the end of 2023 – equivalent to a town the size of Oldham. The new data means that nearly one in seven Britons aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training. The figures are

Average gas and electricity bills will rise by £111 a year in April after the regulator Ofgem announced an increase to the energy price cap. The 6.4 per cent hike means the average dual-fuel household bill will hit £1,849 annually. The rise is more than anticipated, with analysts at Cornwall Insight predicting that bills would rise by just 5 per cent in April. Ofgem blamed inflation and ‘rising global wholesale prices’ for the bigger-than-expected increase. As a result, the cap will be £159 (nearly 10 per cent) higher than for the April to June period last year. The rise in energy prices is why the Bank of England recently forecast