Matthew Lynn

It is still a bit of a mystery to most of us – and possibly to the candidate himself – what Andy Burnham actually believes in. Still, amid all the waffle, one point has come through with complete clarity. He thinks utilities such as railways and water should be under public control. When asked about this earlier this month, he said: 'Public ownership is absolutely an option. I would say for Thames Water, that is what should be done.' That is all well and good. But it appears that Thames Water is likely to face a cash crunch in the coming months – and, should he become prime minister, Burnham and his administration will face its first big crisis as a result.

A report published this week from the Housing, Communities and Local Government committee, made up of cross-party MPs, has been withering in its assessment of stamp duty – the tax everyone has to pay when they buy a home. The report argues that it stifles aspiration, jams up the housing market and slows down social, generational and geographical mobility. There is no choice but to get rid of it. Many in Britain will agree with the committee's assessment. Someone, though, who is guaranteed not to is Rachel Reeves: just last year, the Chancellor lowered the stamp duty thresholds. Now, with even her own MPs turning on her, that tax raid is spectacularly backfiring.  Stamp duty has turned into a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with the British tax system.

When Rachel Reeves became Chancellor, she made a lot of promises about improving the long-term prospects of the British economy. She was meant to be ‘fixing the foundations’ and ‘unlocking investment’ to boost growth. And yet as figures emerge showing almost three million workers will be hit by her tax raid on pensions, it turns out that the very opposite is true. Reeves has come to represent short-termism at its worst – and will make the task of her successors far harder.  In her last Budget, Reeves capped the amount that employees could put into ‘salary sacrifice’ schemes. Previously, people could stash money into their pension and therefore pay less National Insurance (NI) upfront.

It has been, to put it politely, a very long wait. But it is possible that Rachel Reeves may have finally discovered that it is possible to cut taxes as well as raise them. Later this week, she is widely expected to shelve the planned 5p rise in fuel duty. Who knows, perhaps she may finally figure out that when the state takes less out of the economy, it can grow faster?  Fuel duty was scheduled to rise by 5p a litre in September, ending a freeze on the tax first introduced by the last Conservative government. As part of a package of measures to address the rising cost of living due on Thursday, Reeves is now expected to scrap that.

The government is on the brink of collapse, ministers are openly fighting for the succession, and the bond vigilantes are already driving up the cost of Britain’s vast debts. Still, never mind. The soft-left Tribune group, which is likely to play a crucial role in any contest for the leadership of the Labour party, has helpfully today published a ‘plan’ to get us out of the mess. There is just one snag: it would most probably bankrupt the country and trigger a full-blown financial crisis.  Will we find out in the next few days, or even hours, whether Sir Keir Starmer can cling on to power? How likely is he to set out a timetable for his departure? Or face a leadership challenge over the summer?

Most people might think that the ability of Britain’s major banks to come through the turbulence of the last decade intact is something to be celebrated. They have survived the pandemic, dealt with leaving the European Union, and successfully switched from a financial system that was based on cash and branches to one that is mostly digital. At least, then, one of the country’s major industries is doing well. It appears, perhaps unsurprisingly though, that the trades unions don't want to celebrate. The TUC is calling for a windfall tax on the banks – even though it could kill them off.  After the big four high street banks reported combined profits of more than £14 billion in the last few weeks, the TUC has decided that the state is entitled to a slice of that money.

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, made plenty of bold promises for her planned mansion tax when she announced it last year. It would be a victory for social justice. It would create a fairer housing market. And it would raise the money the government needs to fund public services. How has that worked out in practice? It turns out that Reeves's levy on homes worth more than £2 million is already costing hundreds of millions before a penny of the new tax has even been collected. There shouldn’t be any surprise about that. Wealth taxes, which is what the mansion tax amounts to, always backfire. This is just the latest example.

If the energy giant BP’s change of direction over the last year could be summed up in a single phrase, it would be ‘Back to Petroleum’. It has cut its investments in wind and solar power, scaled back its targets for renewables, and brought in new management more familiar with rigs and pipelines than climate change conferences. Today we see the first results of those efforts with a huge increase in profits for the company. BP's strategy, it seems, is paying off. A quarter of a century ago, under its former CEO Lord Browne, BP snappily rebranded itself as ‘Beyond Petroleum’. It seemed a smart enough move at the time.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves took office on a pro-growth platform, promising to make Britain the leading economy in the G7. She would turbo-charge investment, remove the restrictions on building, form partnerships with industry to power the industries of the future, and invest directly through her National Wealth Fund. Two years on, she has finally topped a growth chart. Unfortunately, however, it is the wrong one. Britain has the fastest rising taxes in the world, with growth a long way behind.  According to the latest data from the OECD, British taxes on workers are now growing at the fastest rate among its 38 members. It found that the ‘tax wedge’ – that is, the difference between the total amount it cost to employ someone and what they take home in actual cash – rose by 2.

A ceasefire has been agreed with Iran. The Straits of Hormuz will reopen. And the oil market will get back to normal very quickly. By Wednesday morning, it looked as if the energy crisis was over. Finance ministers will be breathing a sigh of relief as the crisis abates. But hold on. In reality, the truce is fragile, and huge amounts of supply have been taken out of the market. So long as that remains true, the price of oil, and with it the global economy, will remain stuck. The average price of $90 to $100 a barrel is not what anyone really thinks a barrel of oil is worth The price of oil has been on a wild ride ever since the United States and Israel started the attack on Iran a month ago.

It was, on the surface, a fairly routine proposal. Officials from the BRICS nations, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have decided to discuss, at a summit in New Delhi later this year, how to deepen trade and collaboration. No one was paying very much attention when the decision was made. And yet, according to a report in the well-informed newspaper Berliner Zeitung, a resolution was quietly suggested that might turn the global monetary system upside down. It was the start of what might be termed the “plot against the dollar.” America’s currency is likely to face its most serious challenge of the post-World War Two era. BRICS Pay may not sound very exciting.

Tax the billionaires, nationalise the utilities and abolish the Office for Budget Responsibility. Green party leader Zack Polanski has set out his vision for how Britain's economy should be run. The sticking point? There are plenty, not least the fact that there is little in his speech today at the New Economics Foundation to suggest his party's focus is, as the name might suggest, the environment. Nor is there anything very original in his plans. In reality, Zack-onomics consists of re-heated Bennite cliches from the 1970s. The Greens' plans don’t even begin to add up. Let's hope Polanski never become prime minister – or we will all pay the price.

The Bank of England has announced that pictures of wildlife will replace famous faces on our banknotes. A cute kitten, perhaps? Or a puppy doing some tricks? Or, given that China may well have hacked into the system, even a panda bear? Whichever animals end up making the cut, it's goodbye to Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner and Alan Turing – and the proud tradition of honouring our greatest Brits. What a travesty. There is nothing wrong, of course, with wildlife pictures in themselves. But on a bank note? Seriously? In reality, paper money, at least since we came off the gold standard, has always been a bit of a conjuring trick.

In some parallel universe, a British Chancellor of the Exchequer today delivered a barnstorming Spring Statement designed to fix the energy crisis before it became critical, bring talent back from the Gulf and restore a crashing labour market. She announced that she was removing the restrictions on new licences in the North Sea and lowering the windfall tax on exploration. She was setting up a royal commission to look again at fracking. She was launching a flat-tax deal to tempt entrepreneurs back from Dubai. And she is cutting employers’ National Insurance to ease the jobs crisis. Unfortunately, in this universe we are stuck with Rachel Reeves. With her non-event Spring Statement, has she fluffed her last chance to save her job?