News

No Labour Prime Minister has ever been removed from office through a formal leadership contest. I wonder if this fact might change in the coming months. The combination of Andy Burnham’s plan to return to Westminster, Wes Streeting’s resignation, and mounting pressure on Sir Keir Starmer, has created a level of uncertainty that is rippling through UK financial markets. Andy Burnham has formally announced that he will seek Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) approval t

Reading back over my weekly emails since the end of March, I seem to have mentioned an end to the Iran / Middle East conflict on a weekly basis, yet here we are still hanging on the news flow. This weeks Memorandum of Understanding issued to Iran by the US, via Pakistan, gives hope for an end to the loss of human life, an opening of the Straits of Hormuz and more stable investment markets and less inflationary pressures as the oil price gradually falls. We keep our fingers cr

Yesterday the Bank of England has maintained interest rates at 3.75%, while indicating that further increases may be required if the ongoing energy shock linked to the conflict in Iran continues to place upward pressure on global prices and, in turn, UK inflation. At its latest meeting, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 8–1 to keep rates unchanged for a third consecutive time. The sole dissent came from Huw Pill, the Bank’s Chief Economist, who supported a 0.25 percen

Since I last wrote, economic news continues to be dominated by Middle Eastern tensions, much to the relief of our Prime Minister who would otherwise be front and centre of just about every newspaper, every day this week. He must have thought a few months ago that he was through the worst of his political nightmare. Apparently not. Since stories concerning a resolution to the Iranian conflict surfaced two weeks ago and markets surged, the last fortnight has reflected the deepe