London is creeping back to work, but the scars will last a while. All giant cities will be damaged, for they are centres for the entertainment and hospitality industries as well as transport hubs. So New York and Paris will be damaged too. But there are troubling reasons to suspect that the London economy may … Read more
We have to get back to work – but the Government’s plan for how we should do so will only be part of the story. The key thing here is that the speed of the recovery matters much more than the depth of the slump. Last week, the Bank of England forecast that this year … Read more
The dividend drought has begun. For people who rely on dividends for their income, either directly or indirectly through their pensions, the past three or four weeks have been a catastrophe. Share prices may have clambered back some 20 per cent from their lows of March 23, when the FTSE100 index dipped below 5,000 – … Read more
People are getting back to work. The Government will update its guidance as to what we should and should not do, but already within the present guidelines more and more companies are opening up. But only some can. What business needs now is clarity. Construction is in the vanguard of the march back. Persimmon, the … Read more
HAMISH MCRAE: We may not have coped with the coronavirus downturn very well, so now we have to manage the upturn better By Hamish Mcrae, Financial Mail On Sunday Published: 21:52 BST, 18 April 2020 | Updated: 22:28 BST, 18 April 2020 We may not have coped with the downturn very well, so now we … Read more
It is Easter – in any normal year, a time of renewal, of celebration and of hope for Christians and non-Christians alike. While these are the strangest of weeks, there is at least some good news. We can begin to see the turning point of the pandemic in several countries and glimpse the ways in … Read more
We have to get the economy going again, and it is time to start thinking about how this might safely be done. Sadly, the peak in UK deaths may not be for another week, as the Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned. Even then, severe restrictions on movement will surely remain in place, and may … Read more
HAMISH MCRAE: Government and Bank can’t kick-start economic recovery by making us spend money that we no longer have or don’t want to part with after the health crisis is over By Hamish Mcrae, Financial Mail On Sunday Published: 22:55 BST, 28 March 2020 | Updated: 22:55 BST, 28 March 2020 At a human level, … Read more
For ten years, we were told there was no magic money tree. But austerity is over. In war, everything is different – and what we are witnessing is a classic case of war financing by the Government. The Chancellor Rishi Sunak is putting no limit on what he spends both to combat the coronavirus pandemic … Read more
Crash! Everything has changed over the past week – or has it? What has happened over the past few days is profoundly troubling, but when you get a shock such as this you have to distinguish between what is really new and different – and what is within our past experience. The global collapse (and … Read more