Beyond Currency

The UK returned to growth in May as the economy grew by 0.4% after flatlining in April. The news gave a boost to the new Labour Government, which has pinned its spending plans on seeing the economy grow to such an extent that it will not need to either raise direct taxes or increase borrowing to fund its manifesto undertakings. While the Prime Minister has been in Washington attend

Catherine Mann, the Monetary Policy Committee’s resident hawk, only stopped voting for raising rates at the MPC meeting in February. Along with fellow hawk Jonathan Haskel, she tempered her view that inflation was still far from under control. Speaking earlier this week, Haskel cast doubt on the possibility of an August rate cut, saying that he feels that pressure remains in the

Before the election, Labour’s bywords were “change and trust”. Having romped home comfortably, those bywords have been distilled down to “growth”. The IMF has reconfirmed its prediction that GDP growth this year will be 0.7% and 1.5% in 2025. It is unclear what level of growth is needed to generate sufficient tax revenue for the new government to fulfil its manifesto comm

The first week of the new Labour government started with an encouraging speech from the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, in which she announced an end to the ban on onshore wind farms and re-introduced mandatory house-building targets. As MPs arrived in Westminster to begin their five-year terms, the Prime Minister visited Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, meetin

By far, the most significant outcome of the General Election, which was won comfortably by Labour, was the fact that they managed to gain a majority of 172 seats while only increasing their share of the vote over 2019 by 2%. Furthermore, Reform UK gained over four million votes yet only won five seats in Parliament, while the Liberal Democrats received fewer votes, but managed to w

The General Election has, as expected, gone the way of the Labour Party. with massive swings against the Conservative Party recorded in several constituencies. In the run-up to polling. Sir Keir Starmer, now Prime Minister-elect, warned about complacency and asked voters to go out and vote if they wanted change. In the event, the overall turnout is expected to be around 56%, making

Will today mark a sea change in the fortunes of the United Kingdom? With the Labour Party seemingly on course to gain a Supermajority in today’s General Election, that should be the electorate's expectation. However, any real change is virtually impossible due to the “first past the post” electoral system. Since 1997, when “New Labour” was invented by Tony Blair, sweeping

The more positive economic data is released, Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a General Election is deemed premature and ill-advised. With campaigning all but done, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been conspicuous by his absence from the limelight as the Conservatives have attempted to play catch-up, appeared at a Conservative rally yesterday and galvanised supporters

The Bank of England’s base interest rate has remained at 5.25% for ten months. In most circumstances, this should be sufficient to have brought inflation under control and would have been at any time during the past fifty years. Still, as the economy evolves there are different drivers, particularly globalisation which has had a “butterfly effect”. G7 nations each saw inflati

News that the economy grew at the fastest rate of any G7 country in the first quarter may well provide cold comfort for Rishu Sunak and his colleagues in the Conservative Party. Sunak has insisted that the country has “turned a corner” in the first half of the year but the government will likely “pay” for the past “sins” of others. After fourteen years of cuts of public