Archive

November 26, 2025
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UK Backloads A Tax Trap

  • The UK’s fiscal hole was even smaller than we thought (£6bn), allowing the government to backload a fiscal tightening that is unsurprisingly focused on tax increases.
  • Delaying prudence to an election year is implausible. There will be a substantial deficit in 2029-30, not the current budget surplus in the OBR forecasts based on existing policy.
  • Labour is setting up a tax trap for Reform and the Conservatives to say how they’d avoid tax increases, similar to the backloaded spending cuts they myopically ignored in 2024.

By Philip Rush

November 24, 2025
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UK Labour Party: Damned If They Do…

  • Whatever Rachel Reeves comes up with in her 26 November budget, she is bound to run into criticism from within her own parliamentary party.
  • Bond markets seem set to react badly to this, especially if it seems likely that her overall objectives will be undermined by internal resistance to proposed measures.
  • She and the PM will probably survive this, but a market-unsettling change and slide to the left look increasingly likely by mid-2026, followed by defeat at the next election.

By Alastair Newton

November 12, 2025
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Oil: Wisdom of (Mohammed bin) Salman

  • Most analysis of Opec+’s 2 November decision is as overly simplistic as the cartel’s public justifications. Calling an unwinding ‘time out’ in 2026Q1 is by no means unwise.
  • Most notably — and despite continuing economic and political uncertainty — it is very likely that the market will be awash with oil in any case for some months to come.
  • In other words, the cartel may already have done enough to achieve its primary objective, i.e. clawing back market share at the expense of US shale producers.

By Alastair Newton

October 27, 2025
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China/US: Sauce For The Goose…

  • Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s 30 October summit will likely stave off, for now, any further escalation of trade tensions between China and the US.
  • However, thanks to its monopoly on strategic minerals and Xi Jinping’s willingness to play a long game — even beyond ‘mere’ trade — China holds the stronger hand.
  • Irrespective of whatever Mr Trump concedes this week to secure a ‘headline grabber’, Xi Jinping will therefore come back for more, not least on Taiwan.

By Alastair Newton

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