Money

Since 1973, much of global politics has been conducted in the long shadow of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) cartel. That was the year Opec first set its stamp on global affairs by engineering an oil crisis in response to Western governments’ support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Prices quadrupled and exports to western Europe, the United States, and Japan were banned altogether. The result was a deep recession and spiralling inflation, the effects of which endured long after the oil embargo was lifted in 1974. In the years since, the steady flow of petrodollars has propped up authoritarian regimes from Latin America to the Arabian

Finally it seems to be dawning on many Conservative MPs that abolishing – or seriously cutting – inheritance tax at the same time as jacking up income tax for millions of low earners is not a great way to tackle a strong Labour lead in the polls. Several backbenchers have written to the Prime Minister in response to reports that he is considering taking the axe to inheritance tax in the Budget on 6 March. They have suggested that the government should be cutting income tax instead, or at least raising the thresholds which have been frozen until 2028. At a time of elevated inflation, that is dragging millions more into

A few weeks ago, I chaired a debate in Westminster about the falling birth rate and its implications. It was organised by the Centre for Social Justice, which I’ve long been proudly involved with. Miriam Cates, a Tory MP, was on the panel as was Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP. But when I arrived, Duffield had pulled out: she had taken so much abuse and threats from those furious that she would attend this debate that she felt she could not continue. The debate, quite plainly, is one many people would rather never took place and I look at it in my Daily Telegraph column today. While populists have embraced this argument,

Anyone for more tax cuts in the spring budget? You might as well hand out free beer. For many Conservatives, tax cuts provide the last tiny chink of light before the door closes on their electoral prospects for good. This month’s government borrowing figures might just provide some encouragement, too. Net borrowing in November was £0.9 billion lower than it was in November 2022. The great bulge in the deficit which came with Covid seems finally to be subsiding. With inflation falling sharply, too, the outlook for the public finances begins to look a little brighter. The UK government has an unusually large slice of its debt in index-linked debt,

Covid provided a revelation of the vulnerabilities of the global supply chain, but now war in Yemen has provided another. Attacks on shipping by Iranian-backed Houthis has reminded the world of how much trade is reliant on free passage through the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait, an 18-mile wide waterway at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. If shipping cannot get through that then it struggles to get through the Suez Canal. In the past month, 15 ships have been attacked in the strait with missiles and drones, and now shipping lines have had enough. They are instead routing their container vessels an extra 3,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope. That

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5.25 per cent for the third consecutive time. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest vote, but it wasn’t unanimous. There were six MPC votes to hold rates but three to raise it to 5.5 per cent. No one voted to cut. This speaks to the biggest challenge the Bank faces right now: how to balance getting the inflation rate back to target without tipping the economy into recession. But markets expect the next movement to be downwards – so much so that mortgage rates are already falling in anticipation. The MPC today urges markets not to get ahead of themselves

So, a deal has been reached. The world has agreed on what Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has called a ‘robust action to keep 1.5 Celsius in reach’. The world is to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels. And meanwhile, back in the real world? If the world really had just made a meaningful commitment to end the use of fossil fuels, you might have expected shares in oil companies to have crashed this morning. But have they heck. Shell, BP, all are unmoved. It is expansionary business as usual. The UAE has invested $150 billion (£120 billion) to increase oil production by half to five million barrels a day by 2027. In the

The jobs market appears to be slowing down, but can we trust the figures? Vacancies have fallen for the longest continuous period on record, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). But there are still just under 950,000 jobs on offer which is well above the pre-lockdown norm. Meanwhile, despite British workers receiving real-terms pay rises in the three months to October, wage growth seems to have peaked. This will please Bank of England rate setters who feared that spiralling wage demands could worsen inflation. Average weekly earnings (including bonuses) fell slightly to 7.2 per cent on the year, down from 8 per cent. Because of

The UK’s immigration system must be ‘fair, consistent, legal and sustainable’, proclaimed the new Home Secretary as he presented his ‘five-point plan’ to reduce legal migration in parliament. James Cleverly billed these changes as ‘more robust action than any government’ has taken before to reduce the headline net migration figure.  They involve increasing the skilled worker earnings threshold from £26,200 to £38,700 from next spring; increasing the NHS surcharge (paid every time most migrants secure or renew their visa), from £624 to £1,035; ending the 20 per cent salary reduction for shortage occupations (as well as reforming and reducing the list); increasing the minimum salary for a family visa to

Rishi Sunak has a new approach to Net Zero, defining himself against ‘zealots’ and acknowledging the side effects of proposed green taxes. He’s replacing the old, often hyperbolic precautionary-principle logic and bringing in the language of tradeoffs: stressing the importance of democratic consent and the futility of green taxes that voters will not accept and are likely to rebel against. The Prime Minister has just taken his case to the UN ‘Cop’ Climate Summit in Dubai and his short speech deserves more attention than it has received. The standard form, in such events, is for leaders to try to outdo each other in ‘dark green’ jeremiads and say ‘we’ must

When Jeremy Hunt announced his ‘Autumn Statement for Growth’ last week, there was a slight problem: the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had actually revised down its growth forecasts. Apart from this year and the last year for the forecast, GDP gains are expected to be smaller than were predicted back in March. Yes, the government can still technically say it is making good on its pledge to ‘grow the economy’ — but best of luck to any minister who stands up and sincerely insists that 0.6 per cent or 0.7 per cent growth is something to boast about. The OBR is not, of course, the only forecaster. There are