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’
A five hundred quid shopping voucher for everyone. Five per cent off VAT across the board. Maybe suspending income tax for a couple of months, or getting rid of corporation tax until the end of the year. As today’s disappointing GDP numbers landed on his desk, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak must have been tempted to
A huge increase in job centre advisers; special grants for companies taking on trainees; free cash for anyone insulating their home; cuts to National Insurance; reduction in VAT, and a £500 shopping voucher to re-boot a collapsing High Street. Oh, and an emergency GCRF, or Garden Centre Rescue Fund, to subsidise anyone who helps our
Huge infrastructure projects. A massive rise in public spending, and the creation of public works for an army of unemployed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has started pitching himself as the new Roosevelt, modelling himself on the 1930s American president who spent big to pull the country out of the Great Depression, and re-wrote the rules of
Its rescue fund will bail out the poorer states. It will fuel a rapid economic recovery. And perhaps most of all, it will finally turn the European Union into a fiscal union, raising its own money, and distributing it based on which region needs its most. The EU’s new €750 billion (£680 billion) rescue fund has
He doesn’t know much about how to control a virus. Nor does he show much sign of being able to run an administration with any semblance of competence. But there is one thing that Donald Trump does know how to do. Hit a raw nerve. And in his decision to attack Germany, and its increasingly
At least we now know where Rishi Sunak is getting all the money from. The Bank of England has today unveiled the latest round of what should probably be called Covid rather then Quantitative Easing. It will print another £100 billion which in the roundabout way these things work will find itself in the Treasury’s
The car workers would pay a heavy price. The City would be muscled out of crucial markets. The Treasury would be sinking in red ink as tax receipts went into freefall, and farmers would lose their subsidies. During the long, painful debate about the UK’s departure from the EU there were lots of different groups
Goldman Sachs is still operating out of London. Airbus is still making wings in Broughton, even if the order book is not looking so healthy right now. Nissan has backed its Sunderland factory. Still, at least those who are clinging to the notion that leaving the European Union would lead to a mass exodus of
Covid-19 has hit us harder than just about any country in the world. Lockdown has been eased chaotically, and no one has any idea what the rules are any more. And now, on top of everything else, it looks as if we are about to run out of medicines if the government doesn’t mange to
It would have to close down its factories. Thousands of job would be lost. Suppliers would be abandoned, and the local economy would be shattered for a generation. It was sometimes a little hard to work out why a few hardcore Remainers cared quite so much about Nissan. Its range of mid-market, family SUVs were not
It will receive €9 billion (£8 billion) in free money from the government. It will be protected from any threat of a takeover. And, with a restored balance sheet, it will be free to make predatory acquisitions across the continent. It is of course Lufthansa, the German airline, which has just been given a massive
There are not that many advantages to electing a former investment banker as president. They are often aloof. They don’t have much in the way of a common touch. And they have a sense of entitlement that blinds them to their failings. There is, however, always this to make up for all that. They know
It is finally here. Die-hard European Union federalists have plotted for it for years. Economists and thinks tanks have argued for it. The Greeks and Italians have pleaded for it. And French presidents have made no end of grand speeches, full of references to solidarity and common visions, proposing it. The Germans have finally relented
So far, so good: the Oxford university trials on a potential vaccine for Covid-19 is reported to be going well. It has been tested on more than a thousand people, and it looks to be safe. There is another, more important question, however, and one where an answer might take a frustratingly long time. Does
Who are we kidding? If you are still furloughed through July, August, and September, the chances are that your job isn’t on hold as you wait for lockdown to gradually be lifted or for your company to get back to normal levels of demand. In truth, you have probably been fired. It’s just that no
An epidemic has been raging across the continent. The economy is in lockdown, and GDP is in freefall. But, hey, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the eurozone it now has a financial and currency crisis as well, and one that is being made worse by the week with the shambolic
British Airways is laying off 12,000 staff. Virgin Atlantic is desperately looking for a buyer. Air France-KLM is being bailed out by the French and Dutch governments, Lufthansa is getting rid of planes, and Airbus is furloughing workers. The once mighty airline industry is in terminal trouble, with massive state support now required to keep
You can get 80 per cent of your salary, and sometimes even 100 per cent, without actually working. Companies are getting virtually free loans, and can dump their often troublesome staff on the Treasury payroll, and entrepreneurs can get direct injections of cash from the state without actually having to launch any products. Sure we
Emmanuel Macron is, for all his carefully polished image as a radical moderniser (and with the possible exception of not having multiple mistresses), a very traditional French president. He protects domestic industries, especially if they happen to manufacture cars or guns. He subsidises farmers, sends soldiers to small African states, and accumulates more and more
Italy’s hospitals have been overwhelmed. Its mortality rate is among the highest in the world. Its economy has cratered, its bond yields have soared. And it is starting to drown under the weight of its accumulated debts. But, hey, at least the EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen feels sorry about the way Italy has
