Aside from Valentines Day (another disappointing but predictable showing), the 11 year old complaint of burnt pancakes (we are giving up pancakes for Lent next year) and being absolutely shocked that the days are getting longer (including the daily offering of “can’t believe how light it is at 5 o’clock), February offered the quadrennial spectacle of the truly bizarre Winter Olympics.
The closest most of us Brits get to a winter
sport is de-icing the car or putting the bins out in the rain, so it is of
little surprise that the Winter Olympic sports look like they’ve come from
another planet.
As someone who can slip over on a wet pavement
(actually, on a dry pavement as well) I have tremendous admiration and respect
for those taking part in the winter Olympics as I could never be brave enough
to even attempt half the sport on offer.
But with little or no warning, I was suddenly
invested in a British man going 80mph on a tea tray with his chin an inch from
the ice run suddenly winning gold.
As you would expect, post-race analysis in my
household was thorough:
- How do you even find out that you are good at
it?
- It felt like we were watching several
thousand identically dressed people doing exactly the same thing one after
another. Not a sport with much in the way of variety.
- Having located the sledge and duct-tape, how
are me and my 11 year old going to get some decent practice in for France 2030
if we live in a constant monsoon?
And then before you could acknowledge another
medal in the curling (bowls on ice), it was all over and back to complaining
about the weather.
Bizarre as it is, it was fun while it lasted.
The Numbers
Aside from The Trump’s latest war on……(take
your pick……he lurches from one battle to another like a toddler in a toy shop),
the only story in town was the legality of the tariffs the orange one imposed
last year.
The Supreme Court’s majority ruling of 6-3
found that The Trump did not provide legal justification for most of the
sweeping tariffs he had announced on returning to the White House.
The 145% tariff on Chinese goods or 25%
on Canada was not legal under the 1974 Trade Act that allows a tariff of up to 15%
(The Trump has gone for 10% across the board) that expires after 150
days without congressional approval.
The Trump acting in illegal ways? Who’d have
thought it!
The court ruling means that more than $175
billion in US tariff revenues are at risk of now having to be refunded. So
The Trump increased tariffs across the board to 15% to offset this (the
maximum permitted level) and this can remain legally in place for 150
days. He’ll make it up from there when that expires!
The Trump has called tariffs his “favourite
word in the dictionary” but they are not popular with Americans, with 6 out
of 10 believing that The Trump has gone too far. Interestingly, Americans
paid 86% of the total cost of tariffs in November through increased
prices offsetting the increased tariff.
Perhaps the big story in all of this is the
fact that a court of 9 justices, 6 appointed by Republican Presidents
and 3 of them by The Trump himself ruled against the President……going
completely against the narrative that The Trump can just do as he pleases.
Interesting times!
Closer to home……
There were some nuggets of information in the
latest monthly dump of economic data from the Office for National Statistics ……
with the labour
market report the most alarming.
Unemployment rose to a 5 year high of 5.2%
and youth joblessness increased to its highest level in 10 years (even
including the pandemic). Private sector wages rose at the slowest pace in
nearly 6 years and job vacancies extended a run of decline that
stretches back to the spring of 2022. Little surprise that UK inflation
fell sharply to 3% and likely to fall further.
Whilst many think the labour market is going
through a natural cooling down period after running hot in the 2 years
after the pandemic, it is clear that policy choices by this Government have
made matters much worse.
Lower inflation, sluggish economic growth and
the rise in unemployment have raised expectations in financial markets that the
Bank of England will lower interest rates to 3.5% (from 3.75%) at
its next meeting on 19th March……this is on the back of interest
rates being lowered 4 times in 2025.
All eyes now on the Spring Statement in March
as Rachel Reeves tries to spin the positives out of the current public finance
mess.
And my favourite number of the month was……28……the
number of years sharing life with this one!
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Trump of the Month
There was only one circus in town this month. The
Trump of the Month for February 2026 could only be……Andrew Albert Christian
Edward Mountbatten‑Windsor.
What a disgraceful mess.
Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10
And Finally……
“If you change the way you look at
things, the things you look at change.”
Wayne Dyer
