Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

If the new Covid variant proves benign, it will turbo-charge global economic growth and trigger another leg of the commodity boom Source - Daily Telegraph 30/11/21 Link It is almost too good to believe. The days go by and there is still little evidence that the Omicron wave in South Africa is leading to a concomitant surge in severe illness.  Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute, says we cannot rule out the “highly optimistic scenario” of a late-epidemic mutation that is extremely contagious, displaces delta, but does less harm. If we are “a bit lucky”, he says, the replication rate of the virus in host cells proves slower than the delta variant, leading to less hospitalisation and death. If we are “really lucky”, it also replicates preferentially in mucosa cells of the upper airways, rather than in organs such as the lungs and the kidneys where it does greatest damage. This would be the answer to our prayers. Laymen cannot usefully judge the 30-odd mu...

A joint letter from powerful banking groups says the bloc faces a 'cliff edge' unless Brussels extends derivative trading exemptions Source - Daily Telegraph - 29/11/21 Link The eurozone’s most powerful banking groups have demanded long-term access to London’s multi-trillion dollar derivatives trading market in a fresh blow for Brussels’ plans to seize business from the City. In a joint letter, finance trade bodies said that the bloc faces a “cliff edge” unless it extends exemptions that allow trades by European Union institutions to take place in the UK and other major markets. The letter has been signed by organisations including the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the European Association of Co-operative Banks, the European Banking Federation, the Futures Industry Association, the Global Financial Markets Association and the Nordic Securities Association. It said: “If the temporary [arrangements] are allowed to expire without being replaced by equivalence de...

Like its predecessor “the Irish backstop”, the protocol is nothing more than a ruse by eurocrats to make Brexit as tough as possible Source  - Daily Telegraph - 28/11/21 Link Northern Ireland accounts for 6pc of the UK’s land mass and 3pc of the population – but just 2pc of GDP. It’s a relatively poor part of this country. Yet Northern Ireland has tremendous economic and commercial potential, if political stability can be maintained and the ongoing post-Brexit row with Brussels is brought to a close. It was a century ago that six of the nine Ulster counties were partitioned, creating Northern Ireland and what was then called the Irish Free State. Prime Minister Lloyd George and Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill retained Northern Ireland for all kinds of reasons, not least because the British Empire was disgusted by the idea of full capitulation to the likes of Michael Collins and other Irish nationalists, whatever the Americans said. But economics also played a key part. Back th...

 Today on Spiked By Fraser Myers 26/11/21 Link The middle-class agitators of Extinction Rebellion are outside Amazon today. They want you to think they’re fighting the billionaires. Taking on the multinationals. But the day they chose to block Amazon’s distribution hubs says it all. Today is Black Friday, when Amazon and others compete to slash their prices. It’s when people with less money can get their hands on consumer durables. What XR really hates is not billionaires like Jeff Bezos (himself a committed green), but ordinary consumers treating themselves to nice stuff. That, after all, is the core message of the green movement: that ordinary folk are using up too many resources and should make do with less. XR is a movement for austerity; a movement against the people.

Mayor fears policy backed by Labour leader to make wealthy pay more could drive rich people out of the capital Source - Daily Telegraph 26/11/21 Link A wealth tax could unfairly hit people who are "equity rich, but cash poor" and lead to a "flight" of high net worth individuals out of the UK, Sadiq Khan has said. The Labour Mayor of London also warned Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, that his plans to "level up" the country could not happen at "the expense" of London and the South East. Mr Khan added that he wanted to see more statues of women, black and disabled people in London to reflect the multicultural nature of the UK. Senior Labour figures are increasingly talking about a new tax on assets, or wealth tax, as a means to force the rich to pay more to fund public services. Sir Keir Starmer, Labour's leader, said in September he would back "a wealth tax, in the broadest sense of the word" on people's "properties, divi...

European Commission under fire for telling financial firms to set up subsidiaries within the bloc Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/11/21 Link Brussels risks undermining the competitiveness of the European economy with attempts to force financial companies to set up branches and subsidiaries within the bloc, a top business group has warned. The European Commission is seeking to crack down on companies based in other nations selling financial services cross-border into the EU, requiring them to set up branches within the area instead. Meanwhile it wants larger branches to become subsidiaries, as part of a series of steps to move more financial services staff and capital within its borders, allowing the European authorities, rather than merely national regulators, greater control over the industry. Emma Reynolds, from The City UK, said this risks raising costs in finance which could be passed on to banks’ customers - European households and businesses across the economy. “It is part of an ov...

AstraZeneca is today opening a new global research and development facility in Cambridge, a £1bn investment that will be seized on by government ministers as proof positive that Britain can continue to thrive as a science powerhouse while outside the European Union. Admittedly, the investment has little to do with Brexit as such; the decision to base the facility in the heart of the Cambridge science park was taken more than eight years ago, long before Britain voted to leave the EU. Nor does it help with the Government's pet but fast coming off the rails "levelling up" agenda; the vast majority of high tech investment in Britain continues to be heavily focused on South East and Eastern England. But it does at least lend some support to claims that this kind of high end industrial and research spending is unlikely to be much affected by the decision to leave the EU, contrary to some of the more alarmist forecasts of what might become of it at the time of the vote. The gra...

Critics said it would turn Britain into a 'plague island', but reopening in July has proved to be a masterstroke Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/11/21 Source    cases of Covid-19 soaring across Europe, the people who were calling Britain a "plague island" a few weeks ago no longer look so clever. When Eastern Europe saw a surge in infections in October, it was easy to blame low rates of vaccination. But Ireland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands have since overtaken the UK. Germany and Switzerland are close behind, while exponential growth in France and Italy suggests that it is only a matter of time before most of Western Europe is in serious trouble. This is not a good place to be with winter approaching, and it explains why England dropped all restrictions in July. At the time, however, few seemed to grasp that. The decision to end lockdown in the summer was described as a “dangerous and unethical experiment” in a letter published in the Lancet, and the s...

 The best way to deal with the £550bn emergency borrowing is by issuing 'consols'   The Covid debt isn't normal debt, so let's why should we treat it like it is?   If we really are committed to ‘balancing the books’, we need to isolate the Covid debt Source CAPX 19/11/21 Link State spending is the highest it’s been since the 1970s. The tax burden is the highest it’s been since the 1950s. Government debt is at record heights too – twice as high as 20 years ago as a percentage of GDP, and seven times as high in cash terms – over £2 trillion, or around £72,000 per household. Yet still the Government plans to spend more, tax more and borrow more. With debt like that, you can see why the Government might give up on the idea of ‘balancing the books’. First, a £2 debt is a problem, but a £2 trillion debt is a statistic. What difference would the odd £200 million (or £200bn) more make? Second, £2tn is such a huge number, that ministers (who won’t be around forever) might see no...

Never have I seen such a concentrated level of misery among decent, hard-working people — none of whom asked for the chaos HS2 has unleashed Source - Daily Telegraph - 18/11/21 Link The Prime Minister’s announcement of the Integrated Rail Plan has unveiled a stark truth behind one of this country’s most disastrous megaprojects, HS2. Having begun with an utterly hollow business case, the reality of this £200 billion railway is now clear – it will not deliver for the very people it was supposedly intended for. With the Eastern Leg scaled back, the entire project is left hanging on borrowed time.  It is not too late to scrutinise properly the seemingly endless pot of taxpayers’ money devoted to HS2, or to question seriously whether it is worth going ahead with at all. The Government must come forward with what the severed leg means for the overall cost. Much has happened since the original proposals for the railway were tabled over a decade ago, most notably the coronavirus pandemic. ...

Europe is at the mercy of Russia's gas supply, and a showdown with Brussels looks certain to blow up Source - Daily Telegraph - 18/11/21 Link Europe’s energy crunch has returned with a winter vengeance. We are back to warnings of power rationing and industrial stoppage, a looming disaster for the European Commission and the British government alike. Vladimir Putin has tightened his stranglehold on gas, driving up futures contracts for January by 40pc in barely a week. Prices are nearing the levels of September’s panic. The difference this time is that the underlying geopolitical crisis is an order of magnitude more serious. Russia has mobilized 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border in what Nato calls a “large and unusual build-up” with hostile intent. American and British intelligence officials last week showed Ukraine’s top brass satellite images and electronic intercepts indicating a “high probability” of military attack this winter, led by the sorts of Spetsnaz special forces dep...

Russia is likely to see it as a hostile move and it could fuel growing tensions with the West Source - Daily Telegraph - 16/11/21 Link Germany on Tuesday suspended the certification process for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.  The German regulator said the suspension was “temporary” and it appeared to be a technical rather than a political decision.  But Russia is likely to see it as a hostile move and it could fuel growing tensions with the West.  Vladimir Putin has been pressuring Germany to approve Nord Stream 2, which will allow Russia to bypass existing pipelines through Ukraine.  Critics say the pipeline could undermine Ukraine because it currently gets transit fees from existing pipelines which run through the country. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opposed the development and said on Tuesday that maintaining "peace and stability" in Ukraine must be a priority.  The German regulator said it has suspended its approval process be...

England’s ‘dangerous and unethical experiment’ of lifting all restrictions has been a resounding success. Source - Spiked - 12/11/21 A year ago this week, Pfizer announced the results of its Covid vaccine trials. Two weeks later, AstraZeneca announced the results of the phase-three trials for its own candidate vaccine. Both were impressive. By 8 December, jabs were going into arms and the world was breathing a sigh of relief. It took another gruelling lockdown in Britain to suppress the coronavirus while the vaccines were rolled out, but the end was in sight. If we could have seen then where we are now, most would have agreed that things have gone… pretty well, actually. The so-called Delta variant caused this year’s restrictions to last longer than we would have liked, but fears about a new variant escaping the vaccine turned out to be unfounded. The vaccine roll-out was a triumph and there was less public hesitancy than expected. We always knew there would be an exit wave and we alwa...