Money news

Thursday

Matthew Lynn

Rupert Murdoch is selling Sky at the top of the market

There are plenty of questions to be asked about the decision by Rupert Murdoch to sell 21st-Century Fox, including Sky in this country, to Disney.  On what, for example, will Momentum blame the loss of the 2022 election if not the malign influence of the Australian tycoon? Is the old rattlesnake finally bowing out of the game, or is he already plotting a comeback? And how will the dynastic power struggle within the Murdoch family play out? But the most interesting one is this. Has the master media deal-maker pulled off another coup, or will he come to regret selling what has long seemed the jewel in his corporate crown?

Tuesday

Matthew Lynn

The last thing the UK needs is higher Scottish taxes

A top rate of 50 percent? A wider range of tax bands? Lower allowances? Or some combination of all three? When it unveils its Budget on Thursday, the Scottish National Party is just about certain to use its power to increase income taxes. The only real debate is about who will take the hit. On the day, Nicola Sturgeon will no doubt wheel out the usual lines about the need to ‘invest’ in public services, reverse ‘Tory cuts’, and perhaps add in a sound-bite or two about the damage done by a ‘hard Brexit’. And yet, in fact higher taxes will only damage the Scottish economy, and by extension the

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Labour’s Brexit single market muddle

Working out Labour’s position on the single market is no easy task. Jeremy Corbyn has said Brexit will mean Britain leaves it. So far, so simple. But not everyone in the party – including Corbyn himself, who has since guaranteed access to the single market – appears to agree. Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, suggested that it would be better to stay put as a member of the single market. But that stance is news to shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner, who could not have been clearer when he told Sky News: ‘We will not be members of the single market’. Unfortunately, a number of his other colleagues don’t

Wednesday

The Spectator

Ignore the motorheads telling us that we all need new cars

The motorheads are at it again. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the UK auto manufacturers lobby group, lobbed another rusty torque wrench at the government this morning, announcing that UK new car registrations are down 11.2 per cent year-on-year. The decline is led by a collapse of nearly a third in sales of diesel-engined cars. Inevitably, some blamed the fall on ‘uncertainty caused by Brexit’. The SMMT itself doesn’t take this tack: instead it points the finger at ‘months of confusion and speculation about the government’s air quality plans and its policies towards diesel cars’. Its suggested remedy is no surprise: ‘fleet renewal is the fastest way to

Joanna Williams

In defence of Saturday jobs

In August 1988, after weeks of practice, I created the perfect Mr Whippy ice cream. I was 14 and I had a Saturday job in a cafe. When the sun shone I’d get to lean out of the serving hatch, chat to passers-by and sell ice creams. Rarely have strawberry sauce and sugar sprinkles been so lovingly applied to such gravity-defying cornets. Go to your local cafe this Saturday and the chances are you won’t be served by an over-enthusiastic 14 year-old. Figures released to the BBC this week, under the Freedom of Information Act, show the number of teenagers with part-time jobs has declined markedly in recent years. Businesses

Monday

James Kirkup

Here’s how Theresa May can show she is still serious about social mobility

As someone who cares about – and has experienced – social mobility, I’m sad to see Alan Milburn, Gillian Shephard and their colleagues leave the Social Mobility Commission (SMC), and I hope Theresa May is serious about finding the best possible ‘new blood’ for the commission. I have a few suggestions for who should try to fill Alan’s shoes (Sir Terry Leahy would be a good start), though obviously ministers will have to work hard to assure any new commissioners that the ‘bandwidth’ needed to make Britain more socially mobile will actually be available in a Brexit-fixated Whitehall machine. Before ministers even start trying to rebuild the SMC, they should do something

Thursday

Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: For richer, for poorer

On this week’s episode we’ll be discussing whether marriage is becoming an elite institution. We’ll also be wondering if the Tory glass is half full or half empty, and lamenting the loss of Britain’s tiny train lines. First up: is marriage becoming the preserve of the rich? In this week’s magazine, Ed West asks whether Prince Harry’s presumably lavish nuptials will be the latest signal that marriage is becoming an increasingly rarefied institution. What can be done to reverse this slump? And ought we to be worrying about traditional unions in the 21st Century? To discuss, we were joined on the podcast by Frank Young, Head of the Family Policy

Wednesday

Lionel Shriver

This EU ‘divorce bill’ is more like a ransom | 29 November 2017

A ‘bill’ is not commonly subject to negotiation. It arrives after a customer has contracted for the purchase of goods or services, whose price — with the unique exception of American health care bills, which are more like muggings by gangs on mopeds — has been established in advance. For the average upstanding Briton, a bill is not a starting point, subject to haggling. It is something you pay. The Lisbon Treaty’s Article 50 makes no mention of paying financial liabilities in order to leave the EU. Once the post-­referendum conversation turned immediately to the ‘divorce bill’, the May government’s big mistake from the off was bickering about its size.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How many Tory MPs would vote against giving the EU a £45bn divorce settlement?

The most important thing coming from No 10 this morning is not anything they have said – but instead what they haven’t said. Following a report yesterday that the UK’s Brexit divorce bill has been agreed as being somewhere in the region of £45bn, the government have not tried to deny it nor pour cold water on the sum. Sensing an opportunity, the Opposition today tried to capitalise on the news. Labour have tabled an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill that would commit the government to giving MPs a vote on the Brexit financial settlement. It would also require the sum to be assessed by the OBR and the

Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Here’s what we should get from Brussels for our £40 billion

A high speed rail line from Manchester to Glasgow. Three of the shiny new Elizabeth lines crossing London. Thirty or forty hospitals, almost sixty Manchester City squads, and perhaps a dozen Bitcoins (although it might be only eleven by the time you are reading this). There is still a lot you can get for 40 to 50 billion euros. In the Brexit negotiations, the UK now seems to have increased its offer to the European Union to that range. If that is indeed the final settlement, we can expect to hear lots about all the other things we could have done with the money. Remainers will gloat over the cost,

Tuesday

Ross Clark

The focus on ‘deprived’ areas has failed Britain’s forgotten poor

Can anyone really be surprised that among the worst districts for social mobility identified by Alan Milburn’s Social Mobility Commission are some of the wealthiest areas in Britain? Ranked out of 324 districts in England West Berkshire comes in at 265, Cotswold at 268, Herefordshire 271, Chichester 287 and West Somerset bottom at 324. Surely it can’t really come as that much of a shock given how governments of both colours have thrown educational resources at ‘deprived’ areas. It might look good politically to sprinkle extra resources on places which the public associates with deprivation, but it rather overlooks the fact that while some areas of the country have high

Monday

Douglas Mcwilliams

Changing lifestyles, not zombie companies, are the reason for low productivity

The zombie company concept was developed in Japan, to suggest that persistent low interest rates allowed heavily indebted companies (who might, at more normal rates of interest, have been liquidated) to stay in business, thus preventing the Schumpeterian creative destruction that allows the business sector to innovate and improve. It has since been applied to the UK as a possible explanation of low productivity, most recently by Liam Halligan in the Sunday Telegraph. There are three problems with the claim. The first is that in the UK stagnant low productivity companies tend not to be heavily indebted but instead sit on cash. So low interest rates hinder, not help, them.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can the government stop its industrial strategy from turning into a Brexit row?

Why is a Conservative government publishing an industrial strategy? This afternoon, Business Secretary Greg Clark tried to insist to MPs that the white paper he was presenting wasn’t a return to the mistakes of previous governments in picking winners and constraining businesses, but a means of ensuring that Britain was able to compete with other countries to solve some of the great challenges of our time. ‘This isn’t about protecting the past, it’s about taking control of our future as a nation,’ he argued in his statement, telling the Commons that the government had struck four sector deals in life sciences, construction, artificial intelligence and the automotive industry. He repeatedly

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Budget leaves Universal Credit claimants in precarious position over Christmas

If Philip Hammond’s Budget was designed to stave off any particularly pressing problems, rather than really building the Britain that he suggested he was going to build in his introductory remarks, then it’s not yet clear whether he’s managed that with Universal credit. Yesterday the Chancellor told the Commons that ‘I recognise the genuine concerns on both sides of the House about the operational delivery of this benefit’. He announced a series of changes, including the end of the seven day waiting period at the beginning of a claim before someone is deemed to be entitled to Universal Credit, which will lead to a shortening of the six week initial

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Michael Fallon calls for a revival of shareholder capitalism

In the Budget debate today, Michael Fallon made his first intervention since resigning from the government over misconduct allegations. Fallon’s contribution was broadly loyal to the government, taking the fight to Labour in his typical style. But he said he’d seek an opportunity in the near-future to talk, with greater freedom than collective responsibility had allowed, about the appropriate levels of defence spending needed to deal with today’s threats. Fallon had four policy proposals to make. First, he argued that the National Insurance threshold should be raised in line with the income tax one. He pointed out that we are now in a situation where some low paid workers are

Paul Johnson

‘The end of austerity keeps slipping out of view’: The IFS’s Budget verdict

Yesterday’s Budget was more about the OBR’s forecasts than it was the Chancellor’s policy decisions. The forecasts for productivity, earnings and economic growth make pretty grim reading. One should never forget of course that these are just forecasts. But they now suggest that GDP per capita will be 3.5 per cent smaller in 2021 than forecast less than two years ago in March 2016. That’s a loss of £65 billion to the economy. Average earnings look like they will be nearly £1,400 a year lower than forecast back then, still below their 2008 level. We are in danger of losing not just one but getting on for two decades of

Wednesday

James Kirkup

Lurking in the Budget is a problem much bigger and badder than Brexit

My Budget reaction is mostly: Meh. By that, I mean this won’t really change the weather, though it might just gee up some despondent Tories, who are cheered by the Stamp Duty cut regardless of what the OBR and others have to say about it (in short, it’ll push up prices and only really help people who were already close to buying; it does nothing for the people for whom home-ownership really is a distant dream.) Perhaps the best encapsulation of this was offered to me recently by a ministerial friend who is not, let us say, ordinarily upbeat about the May Government and its prospects.  This afternoon, this governmental

The Spectator

Philip Hammond is not the man to take the battle to Jeremy Corbyn

Philip Hammond began his first Budget, in March, by playing down its importance — for his big ideas on fiscal policy, he suggested we would have to wait until the autumn. It was a wait which was very nearly extended to eternity as he narrowly avoided losing his job in a post–election reshuffle. We found out this week that it was a bluff: he doesn’t have many big ideas, just a selection of small ones. Which, under the circumstances, is something of a relief. The Chancellor is getting better at telling Britain’s story, boasting about record employment and how the best-paid 1 per cent pay 27 per cent of all

Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Stamp duty was already a mess – but we just made it worse

We could have given them free Spotify subscriptions. Or Just Eat vouchers. Instead, the government’s pitch to Jezza-loving twenty-somethings was a cut in stamp duty for first-time buyers. The levy on buying a home will be abolished completely up to £300,000, and, for the trainee bankers and tech moguls buying in the better parts of London, the first three hundred grand when you are spending half a million will be let off the tax. On the surface, that might seem like a good wheeze. If young people are angry that they can’t get a first foot on the housing ladder, then it will now be a little easier for them.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Budget shows the Tories are still ignoring some big problems

On Budget Day, MPs and journalists joke about it being a ‘quiet day’ and ‘not much going on’ as they pass one another in the corridors of Westminster (this is an accurate representation of how utterly hilarious the corridors of power normally are). Today’s Budget was in a number of respects rather quiet, especially in the things it totally missed out.  Philip Hammond didn’t even mention social care, despite the sector’s concerns about whether it can afford a massive back pay bill that has come up partly as a result of a court judgement and partly as a result of government dithering. This comes on top of the long-term sustainability