Matthew Lynn

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?

The self-employed have paid up. And investors are paying record amounts of capital gains tax. The public finance figures for January have been published, showing record tax receipts and handing the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, a surprise £30 billion bonus. It is great news that the public finances are stabilising. Manchester mayor Andy Burnham may not be able to complain about being ‘in hock to the bond markets’ for much longer. And yet, surely this also shows that Britain is being overtaxed? Is it perhaps time to hand some of the money back?  The UK’s public finances are suddenly in much better shape, with a record surplus recorded for January. The explanation for this is simple enough. Self-assessment tax returns brought in an extra £3.

For the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to tell everyone in advance that her Spring statement will be ‘boring’ is a little like Nigel Farage telling us he might be popping out for a pint, or Sir Keir Starmer telling us he might change his mind. It is useful information, but hardly a huge surprise. Still, the new ‘no drama’ Reeves will at least be an improvement on her former tax-raiding iteration – the British economy could use a break from her attempts to improve it.  With the Spring statement looming in just under a fortnight's time, we will at least be spared the constant leaks of madcap ideas that led up to Reeves's first and second Budgets. According to briefings from the Treasury, 'the goal is to be as boring as possible'.

In his speech in Munich on Saturday, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, made it very clear that he was planning to rejoin the European Union’s single market, perhaps as early as this year. The argument in favour of this is that it will boost growth – and it will put Britain at the heart of a defence-fuelled industrial revival. But there is just one problem: joining the single market won't do anything to improve Britain's failing economy and may well make it worse. Sir Keir has gone further than any of his colleagues in embracing the EU. Instead of just joining the European customs union, he now wants to align fully with the single market. Very soon he may well be campaigning to rejoin the bloc completely.

It should have moved ‘Beyond Petroleum’ by now, with wind, solar and hydroelectric power powering its profits. If you rewind twenty years, BP had a clear plan to place itself at the forefront of the green energy transition. It hasn’t worked out as they had hoped. Instead, today the company announced it was suspending share buybacks to shore up its balance sheet, sending its shares tumbling. Its rival Shell is in better shape, but only just. As both of Britain’s oil giants struggle, it is becoming painfully clear that the obsession with net zero has destroyed what was one of our major industries – and it will be very hard for it to recover now. It has turned into yet another dreadful day for BP’s long-suffering shareholders.