Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’
We have caved in to bullying from President Trump. It will put NHS budgets under even more pressure. And the Green leader Zack Polanski will probably start claiming on X that the entire health service will be sold off to American conglomerates. There will be plenty of critics of the deal between the UK and
It has lots of original features. It is close to good schools, and with a few cans of Farrow & Ball it will make the perfect family home. The estate agents already have lots of familiar lines they use to sell a property. From next year, they will have one that will be more crucial
The Budget speech has no doubt been finalised. The red box has been dusted off. And the pie charts are ready to be released. Assuming Chancellor Rachel Reeves doesn’t call in sick tomorrow, the Treasury, along with the rest of us, will be waiting to see how tomorrow’s Budget is received. But do we really
Bitcoin is crashing all over again, and it is taking the smaller crypto currencies down with it. It has fallen by a quarter from its highs, and there is little sign that the relentless selling is going to stop anytime soon. Plenty of people will be reheating arguments about how the digital currency is completely
Bitcoin has lost almost a quarter of its value. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index on Wall Street has started to fall. And even leaders of the industry, such as the Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have started to warn about valuations getting out of control. We already knew that AI was driving a boom in investment. But
It appears that Rachel Reeves has scrapped her plans for an ‘exit tax’ that would impose a huge levy on entrepreneurs leaving the UK – at least for now. But is anyone actually going to be fooled by that? Once the concept has been leaked, the only rational response is to get out while you
We are all familiar with the different excuses for why we find ourselves stuck at the Spoons in Luton or Stansted airport for hours, trying to avoid the stag party, as we wait for our flight. There is fog over the Channel. The French air traffic controllers are on strike. There are not enough planes.
As New York’s wealthy elite weigh up the options under their new ‘democratic socialist’ Mayor Zohran Mamdani, many of them are now reported to be considering fleeing to London instead. But will it really offer them the safe harbour they are searching for? The truth is that under the Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Mayor
After yet another dreadful week, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves must be praying the Bank of England helps her out by cutting interest rates tomorrow. It would reduce the huge amount of interest the government has to pay, it would put more money in people’s pockets, and it might even stimulate growth. The trouble is, the
Nigel Farage has shelved massive tax cuts in favour of slashing public spending in a bid to balance the books. The Reform leader said in a speech this morning that ‘substantial tax cuts given the dire state of debt and our finances are not realistic at this current moment’. The ‘back-of-a-fag packet’ economics that characterised
The British steel industry has been staggering from one crisis to another for the whole of this year. Half of the industry has fallen into effective state control, and what’s left is teetering on the edge of collapse. The government has finally come up with a plan to rescue it. In collaboration with the US
As Nigel Farage prepares to abandon pledges of up to £90 billion in tax cuts, there will be plenty of people arguing that his Reform party is giving up on its free market, small state roots. Other critics may say this is proof that Reform is shifting further to the left and pandering to its
Hundreds of billions have been wiped off the value of the crypto currencies. A prominent Ukrainian blogger and influencer on digital coins has been found dead. And traders are bracing themselves for a rocky start to trading on Monday as markets start to tumble. We will have to see whether it develops into a full-blown
It already faced tariffs in the United States, and it has been struggling to cope with some of the highest industrial energy prices in the world. Now what remains of the British steel industry faces what could well be a terminal blow. The European Union is about to impose tariffs of 50 per cent on
It has already cancelled investments in Liverpool and Cambridge, while muttering darkly about moving its listing to New York and its headquarters to the United States. Now AstraZeneca, the UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, is threatening to stop investing in Britain completely if the country does not spend more on medicine. There may be an element
He wasn’t able to announce the £300 off household energy bills that was promised during the election campaign. Nor could he unveil any massive new solar farms or wind turbines. Still, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband did have one message to cheer the party faithful in his conference speech today: he is
There are plenty of legitimate questions to be asked about the Trump-Blair peace plan for ending the conflict with Israel. Will Hamas ever agree to it? Will any peace deal hold? Will the wider Middle East get behind it? And will Sir Tony Blair ever be able to overcome the legacy of his earlier military
Flutter, the gambling giant that owns Paddy Power, has already London, and the British chip designer ARM decided to float in New York. There have been reports that AstraZeneca may move its listing too. Now we learn that even Goldman Sachs may be giving up on the City, as it delists Petershill, the majority-owned investment
At the OECD, the IMF, and at Davos, there will probably be a few wry smiles, and a sense of Schadenfreude. Javier Milei, the chainsaw-wielding libertarian President of Argentina who promised to destroy the economic establishment by cutting taxes and dramatically reducing the size of the state, is now facing a financial crisis of his
It will at least give the cabbies something to genuinely complain about. Amid all the wheezes that Chancellor Rachel Reeves is plotting to fix the ‘black hole’ in the public finances, she is now considering a ‘taxi tax’. Ahead of November’s Budget, it has been floated that VAT may well be applied on all cab
