Beyond Currency

The “Special Relationship” between the UK and the U.S. stretches beyond intelligence gathering and security, mutual defence treaties and NATO membership. Furthermore, the cliché that the countries are “nations divided by a common language” perfectly illustrates the bond between the two. The royals, high tea, and Downton Abbey are among the “quant traditions that form �

Rachel Reeves appears to have been backed into a corner this week as she faced the wrath of the CBI at their annual conference in London. Having relied on the flimsiest of semantics to justify her raising national insurance rates and thresholds for employers, it seems that she was left with little chance but to tell the bosses' union that this was her only opportunity to set the c

Following her appearance at the CBI’s Annual Conference earlier in the week, Rachel Reeves has been told that to keep her pledge not to raise taxes again during the life of this Parliament, she will be forced to slash public services from 2026 onwards to stay within her own fiscal rules if growth remains at its current level. Economists believe that this is why the Government is

The Government is in danger of wasting its first six months in office as the country begins to lose faith in its ability to effect real change to its economy and social structure. The Prime Minister is suffering the most rapid fall in popularity of any Party Leader in the past 100 years. His approval rating is below those of both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage; one has just starte

It is becoming clear that the Prime Minister and Chancellor badly misjudged the level of militancy that farmers are capable of when they decided to apply inheritance tax to farms with a value of more than a million pounds from April 2026. There is a significant disagreement between the Government, which believes that the tax will only apply to around 500 of the more than 200k farm

Several of the country’s business bodies want the Government to try to rekindle a relationship with Brussels to allow them to rediscover export markets despite the rigours of Brexit. The UK’s departure from the European Union was always far more about individual opinions than those of the business community, and even if there are significant opportunities to be explored in the

The Head of Britain's leading independent economic think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, labelled the Budget delivered to the House of Commons on 30th October as “ludicrous.” Paul Johnson has described how he was baffled by the cut in pensioners’ winter full payments and the increase in stamp duty and inheritance tax for family-owned farms, calling them “counterpro

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey delivered his Mansion House Speech last evening and, rather surprisingly, called for the UK to rebuild ties with the European Union. In the past, Bailey has studiously avoided commenting on what he considered to be political decisions since his remit is to create monetary policy based on the political and social environment created by Parliam

In a speech earlier this week, Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s Chief Economist, made an interesting point about a matter that has been exercising his colleagues for decades. The UK has a history of needing higher interest rates than its G7 partners to tame inflation and even now, that phenomenon is seen as the MPC grapples with wage levels that are still above the inflation rate

Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill believes the Bank still has work to do to tame inflation. Despite voting for a cut in the base rate last week, Pill spoke of his concern that the October employment report published yesterday showed that inflation pressures are still too high to stay at the Bank's two per cent target consistently. ""As we saw in the labour market data, pay