Well, that will teach us bothersome Brits. We may have escaped Europe’s clutches to plough a furrow of our own in global commerce but they have had the last laugh (so far). With Eurovision back to its pre-Covid worst, divine retribution was drawn out over several painful hours on Saturday evening. James Newman (who he?) was apparently our representative with his rendition of Embers. Despite the title, the performance failed to [...]
Tea and cake in the rain. A snow-covered coffee and sandwich. Even a pint in the sleet. All were available to the enthusiastic unlocker on Monday. Personally, I can wait although I fully understand those that feel we should all be doing our bit to aid the commercial recovery. I am wholeheartedly in support of that ideal or at least will be as soon as I can do it in rather [...]
As budgets go in troubled times this one wasn’t too bad and times don’t get much more troubled than this past year. It must be remembered that when the economic brakes were slammed on it was self-imposed and not the result of financial problems, overheating or any of the usual reasons for recession. Much like my old tortoise, large swathes of the economy have been in hibernation, waiting to resurface full [...]
If ever a topic displayed how right we were to leave the EU it is the Covid vaccine fiasco. Freed from the Brussels harness the UK’s vaccine taskforce set off at a gallop last year securing contracts early with multiple potential suppliers. As those suppliers’ products have successfully trialled and been authorised for use the vaccine delivery plan has motored ahead with the UK sitting third in the world’s delivery league. [...]
I’m sure we are all glad to see the back of 2020 but how do we think 2021 will shape up? We are out of the EU and thus far our ports seem to be havens of tranquillity. The Covid vaccines have arrived, greeted by confusion over whether our expert team’s suggested gap between the first and second doses will work. I also read that India already has 50m doses of [...]
A year ago we were exalting Boris’s General Election success, comforted by the fact that we would, at long last, have a government that enjoyed a considerable majority – so important as we headed into a year during which post Brexit negotiations were to take place. Did we think that fully a year on those negotiations would be continuing with little sign of agreement? Probably not but it shouldn’t really come [...]
Quite why so much airtime is afforded the output of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility is beyond me. Its record is, quite frankly, abysmal and yet the Chancellor is bound by its forecasts when he sets his abacus to work. This time around the margins for error are enormous – even more so than usual. Over just four months the OBR has revised its forecast for the unemployment peak up to [...]
This Government certainly has the ability to dampen spirits. I know we are in precarious times but, God forbid, give us a break occasionally, please. Having locked us down again earlier this month Boris was firmly insistent that we will be released by no later than the 2nd December. How excited we all were when Pfizer-BioNTech announced their Covid vaccine had enjoyed a terrific success rate of 92% in its trials. [...]
So many things for the market to worry about. It is currently in one of those phases during which, even when presented with good news, it worries about the bad news that might follow. Faced with the sunny, bright uplands it searches for the heavy rain clouds over the hills. On the Brexit front there now seems every likelihood that an agreement will be reached. In these dire times when even [...]
I mentioned in my last blog on the 29th September how the cheapness of our equity market relative to the other global majors was beginning to be evidenced by overseas predatory interest in some of our companies. I suggested that, whilst the UK’s discount remained so wide we should expect that interest to grow, particularly from America. Not long after that article G4S, the FTSE 250 security firm, found itself on [...]