Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 Pressure on the country's finances calls into question whether HS2 is worth the investment Source - Daily Telegraph - 30/09/22 Link Liz Truss risks falling into a “gambler’s trap” by ploughing on with HS2, as business leaders and academics urge her to ditch the £98bn rail line to help protect public services. Lord Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of Next, said the controversial project is a “waste of money” and should be scrapped to help manage the nation’s finances. His intervention quickly drew the backing from prominent figures as well as those involved with analysing HS2's original business case. The Government's latest official budget for building HS2 is £98bn.   Sir Paul Marshall, chairman of hedge fund Marshall Wace, told The Telegraph that he supported Lord Wolfson’s calls to halt work on the high-speed rail line. Meanwhile, Jeremy Hosking, the multi-millionaire financier behind Marathon Asset Management, also called for the Prime Minister to reverse the decision

 If the IMF is so concerned about inequality perhaps it should look at the US   The economic orthodoxy hates it when governments do anything unusual   The Sensibles have a lot riding on supply-side reform petering out Source -capx - 28/09/22 Link The IMF is less than impressed with Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s first mini-budget. In the kind of admonishment you’d normally expect them to make about an emerging economy, they said, ‘the nature of the UK measures will likely increase inequality… [the government might want to] reevaluate the tax measures, especially those that benefit high income earners’. This is a bizarre statement to make. The UK is substantially less unequal than the USA, and the inequality/growth relationship is not particularly strong for developed economies. Should the IMF be expressing concern that the American economy will be undermined by its low top tax rates? The cut in the highest rate of tax from 45% to 40% has driven a huge amount of media coverage, but is e

 Traders are concerned about the Bank of England's failure to raise interest rates fast enough, not a minor adjustment to the 45p tax band Source - Daily Telegraph - 26/09/22 Link On Friday the pound fell fairly sharply against the dollar. In early trading on Monday that continued, and at one stage the pound was at its lowest ever exchange rate versus the dollar, though by late afternoon trading it was back above its Friday close. Quite a lot of the recent sterling movement has been more a story of dollar strength than sterling weakness – the dollar is strong against almost all other currencies. But, in addition, there was a fairly clear weakening that was specific to the pound, and UK gilts markets also weakened markedly, with implied sharp rises in interest rates. Markets do what markets do: sometimes up, sometimes down. The price is just the price, not exactly “wrong” in that it’s the market equilibrium, but of course the market equilibrium might not accurately reflect what is r

 Giorgia Meloni isn’t a threat to Italian democracy – the European Union is. Source - Spiked 26/09/22 Link Here I was thinking the populist revolt was over. After all, the neoliberal elites said it was. They pronounce populism dead every six months or so – seemingly convinced that one election result or external event has finally finished it off for good. Covid was supposed to kill populism, by reminding the supposedly ignorant oiks of the importance of experts. Then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to kill populism, by reminding ‘nativist’ voters of the importance of international cooperation and the folly of authoritarian strongmen – something they are supposedly enamoured of. And yet those pesky voters just keep on electing the ‘wrong’ governments. If the triumph of the Sweden Democrats in supposedly sensible Sweden earlier this month wasn’t symbolic enough, Italy has just made the right-wing, anti-immigration Brothers of Italy the largest party, paving the way for what the

 Incident in the town of Ust-Ilimsk comes just days after the Russian president announced the mobilisation of 300,000 men Source - Daily Telegraph - 26/09/22 Link A man opened fire and wounded a recruitment officer at an enlistment centre in Siberia on Monday, the local governor said, as tensions mount over Russia's military mobilisation. The incident occurred in the town of Ust-Ilimsk in Irkutsk, a vast and thinly populated region of south-eastern Siberia In a video published on social mediat the gunman is seen identifying himself to police officers as Ruslan Zinin, 25, and firing at least one shot inside the draft office Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the head of the draft office was in hospital in a critical condition, and that the gunman "will absolutely be punished" "I am ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united. We must not fight with each but against real thre

 The mini-Budget announced not only a new economic era focused on growth, but a new dawn for the Tory party Source - Daily Telegraph - 24/09/22 Link We need a new approach for a new era, focused on growth,” announced the Chancellor, prompting hoots from Labour MPs, who like to remind everyone that the Tories have been in office since 2010. Yet what followed really did mark a new era. It felt as if the party that had rescued Britain in the 1980s was back after 32 years in Opposition. The stunning thing about Kwasi Kwarteng’s statement was not the amount of money he announced; it was his relentless, Terminator-like pursuit of growth. Forget the Labour charge that he is creating some sort of minimalist, Randian state. His Treasury is still hoovering up more moolah than Gordon Brown’s, let alone Nigel Lawson’s. Actual tax cuts – as opposed to the cancellation of scheduled rises – accounted for the teensiest sliver of Friday’s statement. By far the largest chunk was a new spending commitmen

 With one move, Britain’s competitiveness, its investor friendliness and its attractiveness to top talent has been hugely amplified Source - Daily Telegraph 3/09/22 Link This was the best Budget I have ever heard a British Chancellor deliver, by a mass margin. The tax cuts were so huge and bold, the language so extraordinary, that at times, listening to Kwasi Kwarteng, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, that I hadn’t been transported to a distant land that actually believed in the economics of Milton Friedman and FA Hayek. But Liz Truss and Kwarteng are very much for real, and in revolutionary mood. The neo-Brownite consensus of the past 20 years, the egalitarian, redistributionist obsession, the technocratic centrism, the genuflections at the altar of a bogus class war, the spreadsheet-wielding socialists: all were blown to smithereens by Kwarteng’s stunning neo-Reaganite peroration. Hardcore, unapologetic liberal Toryism is back. This fiscal statement is in some wa

 Kwasi Kwarteng is unashamedly putting wealth-creating enterprise back at centre stage Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/09/22 Link In one bound, the Tories have transformed themselves from the fiscal conservatism of the Cameron/Osborne era into a Reaganite show of fiscal incontinence and Thatcherite derring-do economic reform.  Call it a kind of liberation, if you like, but like all liberations, it carries with it a high degree of risk. Risk that voters will see it as a rich man's charter, and will, as Labour expects, turn against the new regime's tax cutting, deregulatory zealotry.  And risk that it won't generate the growth the Government hopes for, and will therefore put the public finances on a path to oblivion, requiring extreme austerity at some stage in the future. But it was also a breath of fresh air after the fiscally constipated Budgets that have ruled ever since the financial crisis – high political and economic risk, no doubt, but a seemingly determined attempt to

 A mini-budget could turn out to be the most consequential fiscal event in many years   There are three key things Kwarteng should do to boost growth   There’s a political imperative for a straightforward tax cutting agenda, and a moral case too Source - CAPX 22/09/22 Link Most weren’t expecting fireworks from Friday’s mini-Budget. Experience suggested it would be a straightforward affair, making good on key campaign pledges – cancelling the corporation tax increase, undoing the National Insurance hike – but leaving other big policy decisions for a later date.  If rumours circulating over the past few days are to be believed, however, tomorrow could end up being the biggest day for pro-growth policy that the UK has seen in decades. Reversing the former chancellor’s tax increases may only be a starting point. Not that changes to National Insurance and corporation tax should be underplayed. Scrapping the short-lived ‘Health and Social Care Levy’ will take 1.25 percentage points off Natio

 King Charles will need to start work immediately if he is to help convince the Scottish people to stay in the United Kingdom Source - Daily Telegraph - 11/09/22 Link King Charles has to face the fact that there will be some who’ll claim that the Union is now at risk because his mother’s is a hard act to follow. But he knows, too, that this view is seriously flawed for the simple reason that her love of Scotland was not an act. Her affection for the place and its people was entirely genuine. Moreover, just as she did with a selfless devotion to service, he will accept that work must begin immediately to maintain the respect of a nation where in election after election almost half the population vote for a party - the SNP - which wants to break up his United Kingdom.  I’ve no doubt that he’ll do just that and, furthermore, I think there are already enough signs to suggest that the Union is safe in his hands and that the new king can emulate his late mother by continuing to stall any mom

 You don’t have to hate the royals to want to abolish the powers of the crown. Source - Spiked ,- 17/09/22 Link A British republic can rarely have seemed more distant, or a less attractive propositn to many people. The outpouring of popular mourning for Queen Elizabeth Il has also prompted an outburst of sympathy and support for King Charles III. Commentators agree that the magic of monarchy retains the ability to unite our divided nation. And almost everybody has been moved by the pageantry and popularity of the week-long funeral events. Even the governments of Australia and New Zealand have been prompted to distance themselves from any early bid to cut links with the British crown. By contrast, the minority protesting against the monarchy have looked more like ignored children throwing a tantrum. The lasting image will probably be of that crazy chip-shop lady in the Scottish Highlands, who posted a Facebook video of herself waving champagne and a blackboard bearing the legend ‘Lizard

  If everyone is getting richer, few will be bothered about bankers' bonuses Source - Daily Telegraph 17/09/22 Link Next Friday will see the Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, deliver a mini-Budget that will set the tone for the kind of government Liz Truss intends to lead. That is why it is imperative that it is bold and sticks firmly to the growth-promoting agenda the Prime Minister espoused in her campaign for the Conservative leadership. Already, the Left is carping about a possible move to reverse the cap on bankers’ bonuses. It is always easier to play class war than fix Britain’s long-term, underlying economic malaise. So the Prime Minister and her Chancellor will need to be brave and pursue novel, even occasionally unpopular measures. They should take heart from the fact that orthodoxy and timidity have got us nowhere. They should indeed scrap the bonus cap, as well as the rise in National Insurance and increase in corporation tax. A reworking of perennially unpopular business rat

 Moscow’s disastrous war in Ukraine is weakening its influence in former Soviet states that it has long dominated Source - Daily Telegraph - 17/09/22 Link   Some have predicted that Russia will disintegrate in the face of humiliation in Ukraine. Perhaps, but we are already beginning to see signs of the weakening of Moscow’s hold on its “near abroad” – the former Soviet states that have remained under close Russian influence. Domination of Moscow’s erstwhile empire is vital for Putin’s rehabilitation of Russia as a great power, but his disastrous war in Ukraine may have fatally undermined it. The conflict has inflicted economic damage on all of the former Soviet states, mostly dependent to one degree or another on Moscow. It has also affected their own security concerns in different ways: some emboldened by Russian setbacks, some fearful for their own independence, and some realising they may not be able to rely on hobbled Moscow for help when they need it. Azerbaijan last week, for exa

 Keir Starmer now needs to start sketching out a Labour platform of government that is more than just saying, we are not the Tories Source - Daily Telegraph 16/09/22 Link Politics is necessarily and rightly in the sidings just now, awaiting a suitable time following the late Queen’s funeral when it will re-emerge, get back on track and begin the long run-up to the next general election. Appropriately enough, that long campaign will kick off in a frenetic way, with a mini budget on Friday, September 23, followed immediately by Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool and the Conservatives’ gathering the following week. It’s almost as if the political melodrama of the summer, culminating in Boris Johnson’s removal from office, then followed by the Queen’s death, has not only cleansed the political pallet of the electorate but has reset the battlefield itself. On one side at least. Barely a week ago, Britain had a female head of state and a male prime minister. In two short days that was r