Money

Why cash is still king to me

I recently set out on a simple mission: to break the £10 note in my purse so I’d have a five to put in the church collection plate on Sunday. My first attempt backfired. The café, where my order was delivered with an eye-roll of metro disdain, no longer accepted cash payments. I sat at one of their pavement tables, drinking the single macchiato I’d neither wanted nor needed, and considered my next move. I’m aware that cash is now regarded as a grubby anachronism. All those hands it passes through! Eww! Of the two churches I attend, one has stayed ahead of this trend and installed payment terminals in

Kate Andrews

Britain’s cost of living crisis worsens

If Boris Johnson manages to cling on to his job, he’ll have much more than the parties of lockdowns past to worry about. Britain’s cost of living crisis is worsening still, with CPI inflation rising by 5.4 per cent in the 12 months leading up to December last year. This has, once again, outpaced consensus, surging even further past the Bank of England’s most recent official forecast. There’s little doubt left that heavy government spending is playing a significant role in the inflation we’re experiencing now Inflation is now at a 30-year high. And it’s still rising. Capital Economics now estimates a peak of 7 per cent around April, and there

Ross Clark

Ousting Boris Johnson now would be a mistake

There must come a time when even Beth Rigby starts to ask whether she is too fixated on a small staff party which happened nearly two years ago and not quite enough on the highest inflation rate in 30 years and the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But to be fair to Sky TV’s political editor – who herself was taken off air for three months last year for attending a party which broke Covid rules – she is hardly the only one. As well as every other media outlet pursuing the same story to the point of absurdity the story is being fed by a number of

How to fix the BBC licence fee

Nadine Dorries came out fighting over the weekend to declare it was time to discuss new ways to fund and sell the ‘great British content’ produced by the BBC. But it turned out she had little in the way of ammunition once she reached the Commons yesterday. There will be a two-year freeze in the £159 fee — a measure that will represent a real-terms cut in the corporation’s funding, but hardly the ‘mortal threat’ some alarmists have declared. In 2019–20, the BBC generated total income of £4.94 billion, of which £3.52 billion was public funding from the licence fee. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the BBC

The real crisis that could finish the Tories

Endless drinking parties at No. 10. Expensive flat refurbishments paid for by someone else. And plenty of ambitious rivals jostling to take the crown. There are plenty of threats to Boris Johnson and to the Conservative party right now. But the real one is buried in the small print of the labour market report today. Real wages are starting to fall sharply. On the surface, today’s data from the Office for National Statistics was very encouraging for the government, especially at a time when very little has been going right for it. Despite the end of the furlough scheme, the partial closure of businesses during the latest wave and chaotic

Kate Andrews

The UK economy has returned to its pre-pandemic size

Nearly two years after the UK experienced its biggest economic collapse in 300 years, the economy has returned to pre-pandemic levels. GDP is estimated by the ONS to have grown by 0.9 per cent in November, almost twice what had been expected – making it 0.7 per cent larger than it was in February 2020. The US and Sweden managed to pass pre-pandemic levels last spring. China took just a few months. But Britain, whose economy fell further than almost any developed country in 2020, is catching up. Britain, whose economy fell further than almost any developed country in 2020, is catching up The below chart shows how UK growth

Joe Biden has lost control of the economy

A nudge on interest rates from the Federal Reserve. A gradual winding down of quantitative easing. No more stimulus cheques flying out of the White House window. And rising energy prices dropping out of the annualised headline rate. This was meant to be the month when the spurt of inflation in the United States turned out – as president Joe Biden and his officials insisted it would – to be mostly transitory. We were told that it would die down over the course of this year. For Biden and the US economy, there is now no easy way back But, whoops, if that was the plan, it has already gone

A windfall tax on energy firms is a mistake

Is it time for a windfall tax on energy companies? Judging by a poll during the first lockdown – which found more than half of the UK public would welcome an additional tax on businesses that had thrived because of the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic – it would be a popular measure. A windfall is typically something you get for free, after all. Energy policy has become increasingly muddled in recent years Advocates often reference Chancellor Gordon Brown’s windfall tax on privatised utilities in 1997, which raised £5.2bn over a number of years and was justified on the grounds that corporate profits had risen due to failed government policy.

Sam Leith

We should be thankful for the Sackler family’s philanthropy

When the whole opioid crisis blew up, the Sackler family — whose fortune was substantially built on getting thousands of Americans debilitatingly addicted to OxyContin — withdrew for a period from their charitable giving. It was reported yesterday, though, that they’re back in the philanthropy business, and last year gave £3.5 million to various British causes — among them the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the Watermill Theatre, King’s College, London, the homelessness charity Amber Foundation, various churches, academies and conservation projects. ‘The return of the Sacklers to philanthropy in the UK,’ the report stated confidently, ‘will cause outrage’. Really? I remember being similarly perplexed when green campaigners were protesting about the National

The art of investing – and why it’s never too late to start

I’ll admit this doesn’t seem like a brilliant moment to start investing. Inflation is becoming a problem due to labour shortages and the energy crisis. Central banks have already responded by raising interest rates and stopping the money printers. Firms could face higher costs whilst also posting lower profits and returns as people rein in their largesse. The best performing equities of the past decade (like Tesla and other Big Tech companies) could suffer, as investors flock to traditional safe havens. And yet the spike in the cost of living and the prospect of inflation mean fed-up savers are rightly looking for ways to take matter into their own hands. The operative words here are

James Kirkup

The energy crisis is a failure of politics

Many of the thorniest problems of politics come down to the same thing: timeframes. Big problems generally require solutions that take a long time to develop and implement. But the decision to do this must be made by politicians who work to much shorter timetables: news cycles measured in days and weeks, ministerial appointments that last months, and elections that are never more than a few years off. The approaching pain of rising energy prices is a case in point. It may well be surprising and new that European wholesale gas prices rose by 800 per cent last year. It is neither surprising nor new that the UK depends for

Kate Andrews

Get ready to start paying the cost of Covid

Forget the desirability (or lack thereof) of tax hikes: can Britain survive them? That’s the economic question that kicked off the new year in cabinet this week when Jacob Rees-Mogg was reported to have encouraged the Prime Minister and his colleagues to roll back plans to bring in the new National Insurance levy this April. A recap on the proposals: the 1.25 per cent National Insurance hike will be paid by both employers and employees, and will eventually be funnelled into social care, we’re told. But for the first few years, most of the tax revenue it raises (roughly £12 billion) will go to addressing the NHS backlog and the millions

Ross Clark

Does Boris believe in Brexit?

For once, yesterday’s Downing Street press conference included a worthwhile question, and not of the ‘why aren’t you locking us down?’ variety. In fact, it had nothing to do with Covid at all. Harry Cole of the Sun asked why, given that the Prime Minister had once cited the ability to remove VAT from fuel bills as a tangible benefit of leaving the EU, he was not now taking advantage of his new-found freedom, especially as bills are heading sharply upwards. Boris Johnson mumbled something about not wanting to help people who could easily afford their energy bills and that the government might consider more targeted help instead. The VAT

When will the Tesla bubble burst?

How much would you pay to park a shiny new Tesla on the driveway? Perhaps fifty thousand pounds? Or seventy thousand? If you were looking at a top-of-the range Model X, which retails in the UK at £81,000, but allows you to look down smugly on all the gas-guzzling SUVs also clogging up the streets of Chelsea, perhaps ninety or a hundred thousand?  Well, here is an odd fact: the stock market is valuing each of those cars at more than a million dollars (£750,000). This is surely the clearest sign yet that the company’s extravagant valuation has reached bubble territory. Does the absurd stock market valuation of Tesla make any sense?

James Forsyth

Energy bills are Johnson’s next big battle

Keir Starmer is not a lucky politician. He has again been forced into self isolation after testing positive for Covid, which means he misses the first PMQs of the year. This is the Labour leader’s sixth period of self-isolation. So, instead it will be Rayner versus Johnson at PMQs at the later time of 3 p.m. this afternoon. These contests are normally more hammer and tongs than the Johnson–Starmer ones. Rayner’s style is more direct than Starmer’s; and is often more effective in rattling Johnson.  The obvious area for her to go on today is cutting VAT on household energy bills. Labour is already in favour of this and Tory MPs

How well is Brexit going?

Twelve months after a comprehensive trade deal was signed with the EU, where are we now? How has the UK performed? Even arch Remainer Andrew Adonis admitted last year that ‘the UK government clearly did a better job than the EU in procuring vaccine supplies and putting in place urgent industrial production’. Yet so far we’ve had no financial or employment deregulation, we’ve signed up to a minimum corporation tax (like the EU), and we haven’t reformed our commitment to the European Court of Human Rights. If Brexit were a pupil, what would its 2021 report conclude? Has the UK proven itself a strong independent learner, or should it try

Susanne Mundschenk

Europe’s emerging energy crisis

After the pandemic, is energy the next European crisis? Gas prices have hit new records, reaching $180 per barrel in the Netherlands, representing a fivefold increase over the past six months. This is driven by news that Russia has diverged gas flows from its main European pipeline to one that is going east via Poland. Experts are pondering over the reasons, be it geopolitical muscle-flexing or the fact that Russia is hit by a cold front of minus 20 degrees. The results are the same: Vladimir Putin promised more gas for Europe, and it is still not coming. The prospect of a Russian invasion in Ukraine just adds more uncertainty

John Ferry

Sturgeonomics would have crashed an independent Scotland

The Omicron variant is upon us, which means the return of the Scottish First Minister’s news conferences. These can be testy affairs, as Michael Blackley, the Scottish Daily Mail‘s political editor, found out at a recent one. Blackley had the temerity to politely question the Scottish government’s support for the hospitality sector, asking if Sturgeon had considered relaxing isolation rules for staff. ‘Yeah, that would really help,’ came the sarcastic response. Blackley was then asked if he had ‘listened to a single word I said?’ With the First Minister finishing off by complaining that she doesn’t have the borrowing powers the Treasury has to fund support schemes. Who could have

Kate Andrews

Covid restrictions could make it almost impossible to lower taxes

After growing calls from retail and hospitality for financial support to weather the ‘unofficial lockdown’ plaguing these industries, the Treasury today has responded. After a week of conversations with business leaders, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a £1 billion support package this afternoon, which includes one-off grants worth up to £6,000 for hospitality and leisure businesses in England, as well as government cover of Statutory Sick Pay for workers off with Covid-related illness, which can be claimed by small and medium-sized firms. Sunak’s decision to deliver a support scheme isn’t all that surprising, given the Chancellor’s generous track record with these packages in the past. While businesses legally remain open,

Should businesses receive more Covid support?

As government considers whether to lock us down once again, should it put economic support for businesses affected back on the table? The combination of Plan B and Boris Johnson’s insistence that we modify our social behaviour has led to empty cinemas, ghost trains, cancelled gigs and ‘postponed’ Christmas parties. Just as the economy was getting back on its feet, the unofficial guidance to avoid social events is knee-capping it once again, forcing the Chancellor to not only drop his December plans but to announce yet more taxpayer-funded business compensation. So far he’s fallen down on the side of more support, though nothing (yet) like last time. Businesses in England that