The Month That Was......May 2022

 

What a bizarre month it was. We spent half the month debating Angela Rayner’s legs (she has two) and how off putting they may be for a sexually charged beast of Prime Minister. The other half was spent discussing the Tory MP Neil Parish’s viewing of pornography while in the House of Commons. All this has happened against a backdrop of 56 MPs being under active investigation for allegations of sexual harassment, misconduct or assault. Good luck in finding someone in politics who doesn’t treat it all like a stag weekend!

At the same time, the Conservatives suffered significant losses in local elections, losing almost 500 seats and control of 11 councils. BoJo said the results had been “mixed”. Oh, the embarrassment.

Bizarre moments were not just contained to politics……I had a few bizarre episodes and realisations myself……

- I admitted openly that I have the blind self-confidence that I could fillet a fish based only on the fact that I’m quite good at cutting open a pitta bread.

- I failed to go a day without having to reset yet another password.

- I bought an item of clothing on my own without my good lady and when I showed it to her, she actually liked it and didn’t make me return for a refund. I know……incredible news. Pretty confident I can buy the other sock now. 

 - Clare Balding should get done under the Trades Description Act……she's got a fine head of hair.

- France gave the UK 12 points in the Eurovision Song Contest. What on earth is happening? Is everyone OK? It shows the pity the rest of Europe has for us when we finish 2nd to a war torn country. Europe literally feels sorry for us.

- I considered for far too long whether dogs panic when they see police dogs.

 

- How bizarre that they closed the streets in London to allow Prince Charles to catch a lift to Parliament to deliver the Queens speech which included a bill that stopped people closing all the streets in London to protest.

- I pulled a new chest of drawers out of the cardboard box by its feet and it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to delivering a calf.

- I also googled ‘do you need a passport to be an astronaut’?

Like I said……May has been a truly bizarre month.

 

The Numbers

The Bank of England’s latest report dominated economic news and provided the backdrop to the deepening gloomy outlook.

The Bank interest rate was raised to 1%, the highest level since 2008. The Bank of England announced its latest predictions that will see the economy slow sharply at the end of 2022 and risks dipping into recession next year, shrinking by 0.25% (down from the previous forecast of 1.25% growth).

Inflation hit 9%, which is a 40-year high. The Bank of England has warned inflation might reach 10% within months, as the price of fuel and food put pressure on household budgets.

The UK’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.8%, the lowest level since 1974. The Office for National Statistics said that the economy had more open job vacancies than unemployed people for the first time since records began. This can only further fuel inflation if businesses raise wages to retain staff.

House price inflation continued at speed with prices rising for the tenth month in a row. The price of an average home increased by 1.1% over the month. Year-on-year, house prices are 10.8% higher. It is the longest run of continuous gains in house prices since the end of 2016.

The economic big boys of US and China also have their own troubles that are impacting the world economy.

The US central bank announced its biggest interest rate increase in more than 22 years as it toughens its fight against inflation running at 8.5%, a 40-year high.

Unlike most of Europe, which is exposed to higher Russian energy costs, US inflation has been driven by domestic factors led by a booming labour market. The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion pandemic-era bazooka is now widely seen as fiscal overkill that helped the economy to overheat.

Perhaps most worrying for the world’s largest economy is consumer confidence declining to its lowest level in more than 10 years as sentiment fell by 9.4%.

China produces more than 35% of the world's electronic goods. Expect shortages or price increases as production is hit by China battling Covid and many parts of their economy remain locked down.

And some tabloid fodder for you to consider. The Metropolitan Police ended their ‘partygate’ inquiry. Detectives investigated 12 gatherings held over 8 dates while Covid restrictions were in place. 126 fines were issued to 83 people. A team of 12 detectives worked through 345 documents, including emails, door logs, diary entries and witness statements, 510 photographs and CCTV images and 204 questionnaires. All at a snip for the taxpayer……a total cost of £460,000.

 

Trump of the Month

My goodness the ‘bizarre’ state of May gave me a raft of considerations for the Trump of the Month award. 

The ever cringy Michael Gove MP gave an interview so bad he was trending with ‘cocaine’. See for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBQCPZOnxF4

George Bush gave us the greatest Freudian slip in history (or guilty conscience?). The guy is literally obsessed with Iraq……

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6-aUVgBCFs

Oliver Dowden MP donated a bottle of champagne signed by BoJo to a charity event in Hertfordshire. Read the room Oli, read the room. 

Lee Anderson MP was condemned by, well, pretty much everyone after arguing in the Commons that food banks are largely unnecessary because the main cause of food poverty is a lack of cooking and budgetary skills. Oh yeah, because nothing says ‘solution to food shortages’ like cooking pasta al dente darling. Idiot.

Not to be out done, BoJo has been banging the drum for everyone to get back to the office as working from home doesn’t work. “In my experience you make a coffee, go to the fridge, hack off a piece of cheese and walk very slowly back to your computer,’ he said. This from a man that literally works from home!

BoJo then went on to Channel 4 News to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol that he designed and signed off. "Yes, I agreed it but I hoped and believed our friends, the EU, would not necessarily want to apply it". He literally signed a contract in the hope the other party would not enforce it.

But May’s Trump of the Month has to go to……the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey.

As a starter, he signed off a £50,000 redesign of the Bank of England logo to be more inclusive for those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The St George’s Cross was dropped from the central bank’s logo and replaced with the Union Jack.

Call me a little picky, but surely the issue might be in the word ‘England’ not a dated logo? Might just be me. Just a thought. 

Before......

 After £50,000......

Then for the main course…..Andrew Bailey blamed high inflation on Ukraine in the Treasury Committee hearing. Yet UK inflation was already at 6.2% in February before Russia’s invasion……way above the 2% target he is tasked with.

With room for a desert, Andrew Bailey then claimed that “it is a very difficult place to be in to say that there will be 10% inflation and there is nothing we can do about 80% of it".

So, what is the point of Andrew Bailey and the rest of the Monetary Policy Committee if you are powerless to control the one thing that you are tasked with controlling? Why do they exist then? What is it that we actually get for the £5 million being spent on those 9 salaries?

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

And Finally……

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

Winston Churchill

The Month That Was......April 2022

There is some very weird energy in the world right now. War, pandemic, BoJo party fines, celebrity violence at the Oscars, food inflation and poverty.…..but the thing that seems to matter most (certainly in the media) is the increase in cost of gas and leccy.

The only light relief amid the wretched gloom of the fuel bills crisis has been people trying to outdo each other in the “our house was colder than yours when I was a nipper” stakes. Competitive misery is so British and we seem to revel in the hardship. I heard a chap ‘boast’ in the gym changing room (where else) in full Yorkshireman-style that pre-central heating his net curtains welded to the window with ice. Good effort……6 points. This was swatted back through a talcum powder cloud by his mate proudly exclaiming that the glass of water by his bed would freeze in winter. Brilliant……10 points.  

I like remembering pre-radiator days (we didn’t get central heating until I was about 10) because it proves that, despite now being a massive heating wuss, I must have been quite resilient at some point. And I’ll be honest, I’d like some of that resilience back. Dashing out of the unheated bathroom wrapped in a towel to shiver in front of the living room gas fire, feet against the bars until they burnt, is an indelible memory. That sweet smell of burning flesh as a child. Happy days.  

40 years later and I have gone full circle……10 jumpers on and strictly no central heating being used. What a horrible irony that it was April the 1st when energy bill tariffs became an absolute joke. Dare I suggest……April Fuel (I know, I’m better than that).

All of this heating and leccy mess leaves me pondering one thing……does Marcus Rashford not know anything about the energy crisis? Haven’t we usually deployed him to sort out a U-turn by now?

What a mess. 

The Numbers

Inflation dominates the economic and financial news given it is pretty much out of control worldwide as Governments seem powerless and ineffective.

The main contributors to the inflation issue have been covid (what else), Brexit (not quite ‘oven ready’ after all) and the devastating invasion of Ukraine.  

At face value, the UK’s trade with Ukraine represents only 0.2% of all UK imports. The UK imported £830 million worth of goods from Ukraine last year with Russia accounting for 3.6% (£18.1 billion).

Clearly the two countries are not huge providers to the UK economy but drill down on what makes up those imports and it impacts all of us on a weekly basis…… wheat, maize, barley, rice, vegetable oils. It’s easy to see why your Tesco shop is creeping up if supplies are reducing from Eastern Europe.

Anyway, off (very slowly) to Dover, to find a month of 23 mile / 30 hour traffic jams due to a cruel cocktail of Brexit paperwork and P&O problems.

Kent had a "temporary traffic management system" that we were told would be scrapped in October 2021, by which time Brexit would be simply marvellous. This month that temporary traffic system was made permanent in recognition that Brexit may never be oven ready.

Which brings me on to a cross-party report this month, which found Brexit has caused 500,000 agriculture vacancies. Enter BoJo and the Government with their cunning plan to solve the employment riddle……issue 30,000 temporary visas……6% of what we need. It’s simply amazing that this didn’t solve the problem.

The outcome of the Brexit issue has led to an increase in food prices and costs for farmers. Lack of workers means crops are going unharvested and left to rot.

There was a time when it was impossible to get away from Covid-19 as it dominated the news agenda for nearly 2 years. One day we will be able to tell our grandchildren that we were there when Professor Chris Whitty said: “Next slide, please.”

The pandemic, of course, has a huge human cost, which continues almost unannounced. There has been a significant economic consequence also. You might think that is all behind us now that the unemployment rate is slightly below pre-pandemic levels (at just 3.8%) and the economy is back where it was on the eve of the pandemic. It would be easy to conclude that we have quickly returned to normal……but the economic effects are enduring.

The cost of the pandemic to the public finances is running at £450 billion, in addition to other Government debt…..that is a 60 year high and the debt interest is rising fast. It is, of course, too soon to close the books on the pandemic. There will be costs for a number of years in clearing the NHS backlog, which is the main reason for the National Insurance hike. It is hardly a surprise that the Government has offered little financial support to help with food and energy prices soaring. Their hands are tied.

Mix the impact of covid, Brexit and the invasion of Ukraine into a decent sized mixing bowl and the outcome is inflation soaring to 7%, the highest rate since 1992. Unfortunately, inflation is not done yet and there is more pain to come.

A final thought on this month’s figures……

If those inflation figures are not scary enough, calories will now appear on menus in large restaurant chains. What next? Pubs listing the likelihood of getting into a punch-up with your mates on each of their beers? Heaven forbid we’re allowed to enjoy a night out without getting guilt-tripped into eating a tofu salad.

I’ve had enough of figures this month.

Trump of the Month

A pretty easy winner of Trump of the Month……a joint award to BoJo and Rishi.

BoJo

A brief history of the Partygate investigation from BoJo’s own quotes:

“All guidance was followed completely by Number 10”

“I have been assured that there were no parties”

“I certainly broke no rules”

So why did BoJo, his wife and Rishi all receive fixed penalty notices for attending a birthday gathering for BoJo at Number 10? Congratulations BoJo……the first sitting Prime Minister in history to have broken the law. More worryingly, I have yet to find anyone that is surprised or shocked by that.

BoJo made a grovelling statement in which he said “people had a right to expect better of their Prime Minister” before insisting that it didn’t “occur to me then or subsequently that a gathering in the Cabinet room could be a breach of the rules.” The statement was very much that he was sorry that you’re sorry.

I’m no expert on this but if you have a Prime Minister that doesn’t know a birthday party was violating his own lockdown rules then perhaps, just maybe, it's not a great idea to have him in charge of a country during a war. Is it just me on this?

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

Rishi

Oh Rishi…..you were my star. The one politician that gave me hope for the future……and then you went all stereotypically Tory and ruined it. We’re over. I’m done with you.

Firstly, you followed like a lemming straight into the Partygate scandal by being BoJo’s friend. What have I told you about playing with him……he’s no good for you and will only get you in trouble.

Secondly, using the same political PR team as BoJo is only going to make you look more like…… well……BoJo.

Borrowing a Sainsburys worker's Kia Rio for a petrol station photo shoot to look like ‘one of the people’ by pretending to own a ‘car of the people’ is not a good look. Presumably you filled up in your slippers, went back home for a bottle of Blossom Hill and watched Eastenders on your SCS sofa.

Because we all believed that the guy that married the daughter of a billionaire drives a Kia Rio

Which leads me nicely on to the third point……that daughter of the billionaire (AKA your wife).

A newspaper story revealed that Rishi’s wife, Akshata Murty, holds a ‘non-dom’ residency status. In short, this means she pays UK tax on UK earnings but it enables her to earn money from abroad free of UK tax.  

The story reported that she received £11.6 million in dividends in the past year from Indian firm Infosys. But her non-dom status means she is not liable for UK tax on income earned abroad. She would not have paid UK tax at a rate of around 40% on the dividends. 

It is important to note that non-domiciled status is given to no-one if they do not apply for it……and it is not illegal. This was a conscious decision.  

Morally though, how on earth does a chancellor who will never have to scrimp on spending fully understand the needs of the vast majority that do? It is obviously untenable for a Chancellor to be setting tax rates that his own wife exempts herself from. It is a question of the most basic probity and morality. She literally lives in Downing Street……except for tax purposes. Letting your wife pay only a sliver of their earnings in tax offends against fairness and erodes trust.

Obviously untenable? I don’t see any resignation in the offering.

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

And Finally……

"If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want."

Oscar Wilde