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’
As it turned out, the only thing Liberation Day was actually liberating anyone from was their money. In the wake of President Trump’s imposition of a massive round of tariffs on America’s trading partners the stock market has been in freefall. For the moment Trump is ignoring that. But he won’t be able to forever
They would restore manufacturing, force trade barriers to be taken down, and allow new industries to be created. There have been various different explanations for why President Trump’s new tariff regime made sense. And yet when they were finally revealed yesterday one point was clear. There was no logic. The tariffs were just weird. The
Council tax is going up. Train fares are rising. Broadband will cost more, and so will electricity and water. April opens with a blizzard of price rises that will make it far harder for everyone to make ends meet, especially if they are on a low income. The one compensation is that the minimum wage
The UK should have been doing everything possible to secure an exemption from Trump’s tariffs. We could have scrapped the digital services tax that is largely levied on the American tech giants. We could have opened our agricultural markets – even to chlorinated chicken. Heck, we could have offered President Trump his own apartment in
If you have had your eye on a bungalow along the Devon coast, a cottage in the New Forest, or a tastefully painted terrace in one of the sea-facing villages in Norfolk, this could be your moment. Many holiday home owners are choosing to sell up to avoid a hike on council taxes. From next
WH Smith is opting for the oldest trick in the corporate playbook. It is changing its name. It might have been better to get some new carpets – or at least to freshen up some of the display counters. As the chain’s high street shops are sold off, they will be rebranded as TG Jones,
It was hardly the message Chancellor Rachel Reeves would have been looking for a day before a Spring Statement which could well make or break her political career. The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, delivered a speech yesterday warning that growth was going to prove very hard over the next five years.
Ahead of last summer’s election, the Labour party made lots of grand promises about how it was going to fix the pothole crisis plaguing Britain’s roads. Finally, eight months on, Keir Starmer’s government has revealed its plan to woo drivers: councils will get an extra £500 million from mid-April to fill in the holes. Yes,
Tesla and its hyper-active boss Elon Musk are having a bad month. On both sides of the Altantic, there have been protests against the ‘Nazi-mobile’ and the ‘Swasti-car’. The electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer’s sales are collapsing across Europe, and its stock is in freefall. On top of all that, its main rival, China’s BYD, has
Even the OECD has finally noticed. The Paris-based policy forum is normally always in favour of higher taxes and more government spending. But the Scottish parliament has clearly pushed even the left-leaning think tanks too far. The OECD has just recommended that MSPs be given training in financial literacy. If the OECD gets its way,
The pound has not collapsed. You can still trade shares, bonds and currencies in the City of London. And inflation, while still high, at least doesn’t come with ‘hyper’ as a prefix, at least not yet. If the Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey wants to celebrate today’s fifth anniversary of taking charge
Growth has ground to a halt, manufacturing is collapsing, and the government is desperately scratching around for ways to save some money so it can balance the books. There is not much to make anyone feel optimistic about the state of the British economy right now. Except, that is, for the healthy performance of the
Tesla’s share price has halved, sales have slumped, boycotts are being organised and Chinese rivals are ready to steal the market. It has been a rough few weeks for the electric vehicle manufacturer, but Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has been handed a lifeline by Donald Trump: the US president gave his full-backing to the company
There ‘could be a recession’, said President Trump over the weekend with the kind of nonchalant shrug that suggested he was not too bothered one way or the other. He was even going to buy a Tesla to help out his ‘first buddy’ Elon Musk as the company’s share price collapsed. The markets had assumed
Germany has finally decided to join the party – but Europe may come to regret it. After two decades of limited borrowing and fiscal restraint, Europe’s biggest economy is finally joining the high-debt club. Incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz will borrow €800 billion (£670 million), and perhaps much more, to pay for extra spending on defence
President Trump was very bullish about his decision over the weekend to create a ‘crypto reserve’. It will legitimise crypto currencies, he said. It will turn the United States into the global hub for trade. And it will build the national wealth. In effect, the American government will build up a stock of Bitcoin and
A UK-US trade deal is on the table. On a surprisingly successful trip to Washington, US President Donald Trump made it clear to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer that a trade agreement with the United States was close. “We could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs won’t be
Fed up with Rachel Reeves’s tax rises, with the calls for wealth and mansion taxes, and the loss of non-dom status? For $5 million (£3.95 million), there is now a very easy escape route. President Trump has just announced a ‘golden visa scheme’, allowing investors an easy path to American citizenship. That is aimed at
It will be an unacceptable intrusion on our sovereignty. And it will pave the way for American domination of the internet. Ministers will no doubt be appalled by the suggestion by President Trump that he will impose tariffs on the UK if we don’t rip all the tech legislation that he doesn’t like, especially if
It would encourage digitally savvy entrepreneurs. It would be a hub for artificial intelligence. And it would encourage a wave of new companies, replacing the ageing giants of French industry. When Emmanuel Macron became president, turning the country into ‘le start-up’ nation was central to his mission to modernise the economy. In fairness, he had
