Money

The price of Brent crude exceeded $112 a barrel this morning. There is, as yet, no interruption in supply from Russia, nor any ban on buying their oil (save for in Canada) – but western companies are reported to be exercising a voluntary boycott. Either that, or they are sceptical of whether their orders will actually arrive. Turkey has already closed the Bosporus Straits to warships. Much of the oil exported to Europe takes this route. Even a voluntary refusal to buy Russian oil will have serious repercussions for markets. Russia produces around 12 per cent of the world’s oil – which is a huge chunk to lose. Except, that

As with Covid-19 it will take time for the full consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to become apparent. But one unexpected impact is already becoming clear: that on air freight. Ukraine, it turns out, occupies a niche at the very heavy end of the industry. Ukrainian company Antonov manufactures the world’s largest transport planes in the shape of the An-225 – a six-engined behemoth built by the Soviets in 1985 and capable of a maximum take-off weight of 640 tonnes – and the slightly smaller An-124. By contrast, the freighter version of the Boeing 747-400 has a maximum take off weight of 450 tonnes. As a total share of the

There is not much more that Britain can do for Ukraine. We have done more than most: sent 2,000 anti-tank missiles and stationed troops in eastern Europe to help other allies. But as thousands flee Kiev – not knowing if Putin will turn it into the next Grozny – there is something immediate and profound that Britain can do: offer asylum. Brexit powers of border control can be used to allow anyone with a Ukrainian passport to come here. Ukraine has a population of 44 million – it’s a small country. It wasn’t so long ago that 450 million Europeans had an unconditional right to live and work in the UK –

Sanctions hit both sides: this is a point that Joe Biden has made to Americans and Olaf Scholz is making to Germans. But Boris Johnson is not (so far) talking about the economic implications of this war. They will be — and in fact, already are — profound.  When Russian tanks moved into Ukraine, the price of gas for next-day delivery in the UK shot up 40 per cent. A study by Investec yesterday suggested this means typical household energy bills — already expected to approach £2,000 in April — could end up closer to £3,000. Quite a hit for a country already facing a cost-of-living crisis. And this is just

Boris Johnson has just outlined a series of further sanctions on Russia. They are considerably more substantial than the ones he announced earlier this week. They exclude Russian banks from the UK financial system, bar Russian firms from raising capital in London and will see the UK join the US’s technology sanctions on Russia. However, Russia will not be cut off from the Swift payments system — it is clear that the UK has, sadly, lost the argument on that for now. This does raise the question of what, if not the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country, would be enough to lead to Russia being cut off from Swift. In answers

If Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey was expecting to bat away some gentle questions on monetary policy before the Commons this morning, he hadn’t reckoned on Labour MP Angela Eagle. She was quietly frothing with rage at Bailey’s recent suggestion that workers need to exercise restraint when asking for a pay rise in order to tackle inflation.  Eagle began like the late Bamber Gascoigne with a series of quick-fire questions on the median salary of UK workers and care workers. Alas, salaries turned out not to be Bailey’s specialist subject — not even when Eagle asked him about his own. ‘It’s somewhere over £500,000,’ Bailey stumbled, before adding ‘I

Today’s snap decision by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to halt Nord Stream 2 — the new pipeline intended to export vast amounts of Russian gas into the EU — will make precisely no difference to European energy security, at least in the short to medium term. It could force a rethink of Berlin’s longer-term energy strategy, but the bigger question facing energy markets is whether Russia will curtail existing gas flows into Europe. Scholz on Tuesday instructed Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action not to allow the Baltic Sea pipeline to start pumping gas ‘for now’. Halting the certification process puts the project on hold but doesn’t

‘If young Americans knew what was good for them’ the historian Niall Ferguson once remarked, ‘they would all be in the Tea party’. In his first Reith Lecture, Ferguson argued that austerity would be a boon for the young; public debt merely allowed ‘the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn.’ It is certainly true that successive generations in Britain have run up an almighty tab while assuming the next group along will be able to foot the bill. The problem Ferguson neglected to account for was which voters would end up delivering a pro-austerity government into

He intervened decisively. He showed the ability of the state to make a difference. And he demonstrated that greedy, self-interested corporations should not be allowed to exploit ordinary consumers. Only a few weeks ago, the French President Emmanuel Macron was being celebrated by left-leaning economists and pundits for forcing the French energy giant EDF to slash the cost of power. But hold on. Now, the government has had to bail-out the company from the inevitable financial hit. It turns out that the government can’t dictate the price of energy after all – and it just creates a bigger mess when it tries to. Even by the standards of French industrial

OK, I finally watched Netflix’s Don’t Look Up. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it — especially before its effective subtitle for us thickos, THIS IS A METAPHOR FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, YOU F-ING MORONS. Otherwise, the film might have playfully dramatised the more general phenom of fiddling with celebrity bodices while Rome burns. The comet at which I’m looking up could arrive far more immediately than perilous global warming. Money is in trouble. I’m not only referring to a cost-of-living crisis. Money itself is in trouble. Let’s contemplate, to coin a phrase, a basket of deplorables. US inflation just hit 7.5 per cent, the highest in 40 years. UK inflation, now 5.5 per