Money

Has JP Morgan changed its tune on Brexit Britain?

Supermarket shelves are bare. There may not be enough turkeys for Christmas. Wages and prices are rising. And the government is sinking into a pit of sleaze. As if that were not enough, the EU is about to launch a full-scale trade war against the country.  Following the day-to-day news, you could well be forgiven for thinking the British economy was sinking into permanent chaos, doomed to replay the dark days of the 1970s. But hold on. Amidst all this gloom, the world’s biggest and most powerful investment bank, JP Morgan, says now is the time to be buying British.  JP Morgan has not always been a fan of the

Central planning won’t solve the problem of GP shortages

Under plans being considered by ministers, GPs in affluent parts of England could be barred from taking jobs in wealthy areas to force them to work in deprived areas, in a bid to address health inequalities. The solution to doctor shortages, apparently, is to make the job less attractive. This would be the healthcare equivalent of the government taking charge of the hospitality industry and informing the owners of the Ivy that all new restaurants should be located in towns north of the Watford Gap, to ensure the pleasures of fine dining are evenly enjoyed across the country. And yet the Social Market Foundation (SMF) who put forward this proposal

Are we heading for a net zero crash?

So far, the big message from the Glasgow climate conference is the role of finance in decarbonising the global economy. It’s a dangerous development. In his speech to COP26 last week, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, pledged action to ‘rewire the entire financial system for Net Zero.’ Finance has taken centre stage in large part because of inadequate government policies. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, around two-thirds of global emissions are linked to private household activity. Reducing them requires major changes in people’s lifestyles, UNEP says. Rather than imposing carbon taxes that really hurt – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates a minimum of $135 a ton, rising

Sam Leith

The Bitcoin delusion

Cast your mind back a few years to last week – when there was much laughing and wailing at the collapse of Squid coin, a meme cryptocurrency launched to capitalise on the popular Netflix show. It had gone to market, had rocketed 23 million per cent in value to $28,000-odd a unit… and then plummeted to zero on Monday morning after the creators cashed out for real-world money. Yet like the battle-hardened protagonist of the show, amazingly, the currency is down but not out. Yesterday it was reported to have been the top gainer in the global crypto market, having rocketed more than 800 per cent in 24 hours to…

Wolfgang Münchau

What is the Bank of England playing at?

Last week, the Bank of England sent a number of confused messages. One was almost shocking: Andrew Bailey said that it isn’t his job to steer markets on interest rates ‘day by day and week by week’. But as economic commentator Matthew C. Klein dryly noted this is literally his job. It is debatable whether the Bank of England needs to manage the entire yield curve (ie, buying and selling bonds in an attempt to set interest rates years into the future) but the central bank should be in charge of the short end. Those opposing an interest rate rise say that central banks should never shock markets. The Bank

A net zero referendum? Bring it on

The left-green axis has been in uproar in recent weeks because several right-wing commentators have suggested holding a referendum on the government’s net zero measures. If the Telegraph, Sun, and Reform party support it, say critics of a referendum, then it’s got to be a bad idea. As an environmental campaigner since the 1970s, I say bring it on. Even if the initial impetus for a referendum came from right-wing groups, net zero will affect our livelihoods and basic freedoms for decades. The way to counter accusations that it is the invention of a woke elite is to widen the debate. What will be the terrain of that debate? And

The Bank of England’s inflation rate stunt

He isn’t Canadian. He doesn’t dominate the Davos circuit with platitudes about climate change. And he isn’t constantly warning that the British economy will turn into a cross between Ethiopia and Argentina now that we have left the European Union. In many ways, the current Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey is an upgrade on his high-profile predecessor Mark Carney. And yet, in the most important respect, he is turning out to be very similar. He is constantly threatening to raise interest rates, and then backing off at the last moment.  An increase in interest rate from the ‘emergency’ level of just 0.1 per cent was not quite

Gus Carter

Are banking apps luring young people into debt?

Last month, my bicycle got a flat tyre. ‘Both of those tyres are gonna need replacing and you’ve knackered your sprockets,’ huffed the bike man. The bill came to £230. It’s the kind of irritating expense that means I run out of beer money a week before payday. I’ve always assumed I’m a reasonably normal spender. Work pays me, the money gradually disappears over the month, with hopefully a bit left over for my Isa. I’m vaguely aware that something exists called a ‘credit card’, but my parents always made clear to me that if you don’t have the money for something, don’t buy it. Where I differ from older

Where is the climate plan B?

The COP26 summit is unlikely to be an outright flop. There has been no shortage of drama, with speakers seeming to compete with each other to see who could use the most histrionic language. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to compare the attending leaders to Nazi appeasers. He later apologised.  Some progress, albeit small, is being made. A hundred countries have been persuaded, some on the promise of sweeteners worth £14 billion, to sign a pledge to end deforestation by 2030. Brazil, the most important of all, is among them. India has agreed, for the first time, to set itself a date for achieving net-zero

The economic case for scrapping daylight saving

Twice a year, every year, the changing of the clocks debate begins. So is it time to finally drop daylight saving and stick to British Summer Time all year round? Boris Johnson thinks so: the future Prime Minister weighed in on the subject back in 2011, claiming BST would ‘expand the economy and cheer everyone up’. Boris is right on both points, not least on the economic case for ditching the old habit of changing the clocks. Dark winter evenings, made longer by daylight saving, make around half of Brits feel more depressed, according to one poll. Other surveys suggesting we’d exercise more were it lighter longer. Perhaps this point should be taken with a

John Ferry

Nicola Sturgeon is flailing in response to the Budget

The big tax and spend budget. More Gordon Brown than George Osborne. Sunak’s spending spree. However you wish to describe it, one thing is clear: Rishi Sunak’s budget marks a radical departure from previous Conservative chancellors. And while it might have ruffled the feathers of some Tories, it’s also causing problems for the SNP. In some ways the break from Tory convention is no surprise. Calls by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2020 for rich countries to spend their way out of the pandemic – and then further calls this year to shell out to boost recovery – signalled a new economic orthodoxy that Sunak has tapped into. Austerity is

Lloyd Evans

Would the real Rishi Sunak please stand up?

It was a tale of two chancellors at today’s high-spending Budget. Rishi Sunak began by embracing the big-state profligacy pursued by Cameron and May, and maintained by their successors, Boris and Carrie.  The Chancellor reeled off stacks of figures indicating that the economy is roaring back to life. ‘Growth up! Wages up! Employment up!’ he shouted. And he announced that government spending sprees will also surge by £150 billion. He plans to restore the 0.7 per cent spending target for foreign aid by the end of this parliament. And he has ordered civil servants across Whitehall to find more stuff to buy.  ‘A real-terms rise in spending for every single

Kate Andrews

Six things we learnt from the Budget

Another big fiscal event for Rishi Sunak today, as he delivered his Budget and the details of a three-year spending review. For the first time, Covid-19 wasn’t in the spotlight. Instead it was framed as a big-spending event, confirming plans briefed before the Budget — £7 billion in capital spending for the NHS, end of the public sector pay freeze — and announcing a series of new plans, including the return of increased foreign aid spending at 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2024-25. But break down the numbers and there are even more surprises in store. Here are the six things we learnt from today’s Budget: The tax take

Ross Clark

Who should pay for nuclear?

How much longer is the government going to suppress the cost to households of achieving net zero carbon emissions, or try to imply, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng recently seemed to imply on the Today programme, that it won’t cost us at all?  Even as he spoke Kwarteng was working on a new model for the funding of nuclear power stations that was unveiled yesterday in the form of the Nuclear Energy Finance Bill. The proposed legislation will impose levies on energy bills in order to subsidise the construction of new nuclear power stations. The new model of funding — called Regulated Asset Base — will replace the model by which Hinkley

Kate Andrews

Responsible Rishi’s Budget balancing act

Rishi Sunak has released photos of his Budget prep, as he prepares to stand up in the House of Commons tomorrow to deliver not just the government’s latest fiscal decisions, but the results of its three-year spending review. (Photos include a shot of his pre-Budget Twix and Sprite snack, which Sunak revealed to Katy Balls on Times Radio over the weekend). As I say in the Telegraph today, this Budget is a difficult balancing act for the Chancellor. On the one hand, he has some big-spenders to please, not least the Prime Minister, who is adamant that the Conservative party’s days of austerity have come to an end. On the

Why Sunak’s wrong on teachers

Pupils lost around a third of their face-to-face teaching during the Covid lockdowns. Downing Street has promised an extra £3 billion of catch-up funding, on top of around £100 billion spent on education in a normal year. Fixing a lack of teaching should involve doing a bit more of it — but when asked if he would extend the school day, Rishi Sunak said longer hours wouldn’t provide ‘value for money’. It’s one of few areas where, in tomorrow’s Budget, the spending taps will be turned off. But why, as the Children’s Commissioner recently noted, are British state schools routinely closing their gates at 2.30 p.m.? The length of the

Do we want the nanny state tracking our every step?

The best thing that can be said about the government’s latest anti-obesity scheme is that it’s cheap. For now. The new HeadsUp app, which will track people’s diet and exercise regimes and reward them with cinema tickets, clothes vouchers and the like, has a price tag of £3 million. This is peanuts in public health terms. The NHS burns through £3 million every eight minutes. It amounts to 4p for every man, woman and child in the UK. The bad news is that it is only a pilot scheme. If bribing people with their own money is seen to ‘improve rates of physical activity and inspire healthier eating’, as the Office

Kate Andrews

Is Rishi ready to splurge?

Is Rishi Sunak losing his battle within the Cabinet to promote fiscal responsibility? We’ll find out this week, when he unveils his Budget and three-year Spending Review on Wednesday, but there were hints this morning that more spending is coming down the track. Speaking to Andrew Marr on BBC One, Sunak laid out the principles that guided his Budget process this time round: ‘Strong investment in public services, driving economic growth by investing in infrastructure, innovation and skills, giving businesses confidence and then supporting working families. Those are the ingredients of what makes a stronger Budget and that’s what we will deliver next week.’ This is not the language of

Ian Williams

The car industry’s China crisis

New cars could soon start disappearing from Britain’s forecourts, with the latest supply chain crunch threatening to cripple the global motor industry. It’s a crisis that once again delivers a stark warning about the dangers of over-dependence on China and the costs of succumbing to Beijing’s predatory trade practices. The automotive industry is currently facing a critical shortage of magnesium, which is an essential raw material for the production of aluminium alloys, including gearboxes, steering columns, fuel tank covers and seat frames. Stockpiles are running low, there is no substitute for magnesium in the production of aluminium sheets, and China has a near monopoly on the market. In Germany, Europe’s

Boris Johnson should trust the market to solve climate change

In a 368-page document published this week, the government announced its strategy to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 and confirmed its target for all electricity to come from low carbon sources by 2035.  It’s difficult to imagine worse timing for the release. An energy crisis is exposing the failures of decades of massive state meddling in the market. Insulate Britain have been picnicking on the M4 and M25. And on Wednesday a leak of documents showed Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels. None of this has weakened the Prime Minister’s resolve, though that’s