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’
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, his many critics gleefully predicted a catastrophe. We were told that everyone would quit the site for its rivals, such as Bluesky and Mastodon. The rebranding to X made Musk the object of ridicule. Musk was warned that he was unlikely to see a return on the $44
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Rachel Reeves is in the headlines again, for all the wrong reasons. The Chancellor’s entry in Who’s Who lists her as a contributor to the Journal of Political Economy. The problem? Reeves has, in fact, only published a single article in a far less prestigious publication, the European Journal of Political Economy. At this rate,
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The Labour government was pinning everything on an ambitious industrial strategy to boost growth. It was meant to make the UK the fastest-growing economy in the G7, reboot the economy, raise real wages and generate all the extra tax revenues that were going to pay for improved public services. The trouble is, there is not
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Electricity bills are going up. Netflix is adding a couple of pounds a month to the price of a standard subscription, and council tax is going through the roof. Most of us are probably struggling with the cost of living. There is, however, one piece of good news: the sub four per cent mortgage is
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They won’t have liked the message or the messenger. With characteristic bluntness, the American vice president J. D. Vance tore into the European Union’s smothering regulation of artificial intelligence today. Still, Europe’s leaders should listen. Vance happens to be absolutely right. When President Macron convened an AI summit in Paris this week, he was probably
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The European Union has hit back against Donald Trump’s decision to impose 25 per cent tariffs on steel imports. “Tariffs are taxes – bad for business, worse for consumers,” the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said, adding that the levy “will not go unanswered”. Yet for all the fire and fury, Europe will
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So, it seems that Donald Trump wasn’t bluffing after all. On his way to the Superbowl, the president made time to impose 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the United States, ramping up a trade war that has been looming ever since he moved into the White House last month. Speaking
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Mexico and Canada have been given a last-minute reprieve from Donald Trump’s tariffs. China has offered only the most half-hearted response to them. At this rate, even the European Union may be off the hook. Equity markets have rallied strongly as the trade war which seems about to crash the global economy appears to have
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It will hit back immediately. It will target the industries that will hurt the most. And it won’t be bullied or pushed around. We can expect to hear lots of tough rhetoric from European leaders today as the bloc prepares to retaliate against Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs of 10 per cent or more on
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The wait is over. After six months in government, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has decided that today is the day to step forward and pull the big lever marked ‘growth’. In a widely-trailed speech, she has outlined all the different ways her government is going to get the economy moving again. There is just one snag.
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Business confidence is falling. Companies are warning that profits will be lower than expected, and they are already planning to cut their output. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves might have hoped that this week would open with better news on the economy, especially as she is planning a major speech to relaunch her plan for growth
