The Month That Was……February 2022

Ah February…..you offer hope as we reach the end of that long winter road as you flirt with longer and warmer days. What a pleasure.

Unfortunately, you allowed Covid to knock on my door this month and, being the gentleman that I am, I was a gracious host. A little too gracious. It wasn’t pleasant……and BoJo’s rhetoric that Covid is over and sooooooo last year in a bid to win a little political goodwill seems to be missing the target for many. Me included.

However, of all the symptoms I endured, complete and total anger at a wide range of things is the ailment that seems to have lasted the longest.

Take one morning in my post Covid anger-induced world…..

I made a purchase on the internet. My money was taken within 3 seconds……I have now changed my mind (bright green lycra is just not my colour – who knew?) and as per the terms / conditions I would like a refund. No problem……that will be up to 15 working days to appear in your bank account. Not minutes. Not hours. Days. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Whilst we are here……three little words that mean the world to me these days: Tumble. Dryer. Friendly. I cannot begin to tell you the anger I experience at the thought of a purchase that doesn’t include those words. Maybe the bright green lycra wasn’t my colour but I would have given it a shot if only they had thought about the drying options of such a garment.  How on this ever warming earth am I meant to get clothes dry?

I then decided to tackle a little domestic DIY and this led me to conclude that I have one real remaining ambition in life. I would love, just once, for a question I have about a product that isn't working to actually be covered in the 'Frequently Asked Questions.' That's the dream. Just once. Yes the tumble dryer was beeping……. CONTSTANTLY! No it wasn’t covered in the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ despite being told by Shane in the call centre that it was a frequent issue. Clearly full justification for sky high blood pressure. Clearly.

Can we all agree on a new rule. When we call up a company and are on hold for a depressing amount of time we NEVER EVER want to be told by a robot we can do everything online when the online ‘help’ told us to call. We've called for a reason.

Oh, and while we’re on the internet subject…..cookies. Bloody cookies. SURELY I've accepted all possible cookies by now on every website that has ever been built?

I then flick through social media whilst on hold waiting to talk to Shane and see #DickResigns is trending. Perfect……“time for Rishi” was my first thought……only to realise that Cressida had resigned from the Met Police. I cried in anger. 

And if that wasn’t enough, news broke after my chat with Shane that BoJo will soon make England the first country in the world to be fully free of all the Covid rules that he and his mates never stuck to anyway. Brilliant.  

I just can’t take much more. I’m done. Covid 1……Covid Sufferer 0.

And then Vlad flexed his military muscles over the flimsiest of reasons!

 

The Numbers

We had a ‘super’ Thursday’ in February, though most people would say ‘black’ was a more appropriate description.

First off was the announcement of a huge 54% increase in the energy price cap by Ofgem, the energy regulator. Then came Rishi’s measures to ease the energy burden with yet another significant fiscal announcement made separately from a budget or other formal occasion. 

Then the Bank of England has raised the official interest rate to 0.5% and slashed its growth forecast. Interestingly, 4 of the 9 members of its monetary policy committee voted for a bigger increase. The Bank of England also said households will see their post-tax disposable income fall by 2% in 2022. The fall is largely a consequence of higher energy bills, the rising tax burden and comparatively weak earnings. This is likely to see the biggest squeeze on income since the statistical series begin.

What does the first back-to-back interest rate increase for 17 years and Rishi’s response to energy rises tell us? Well, first and foremost, policymakers have been badly caught out by the surge in inflation as there was an element of panic in these moves.

This time last year the Bank was forecasting that inflation would be 2% now. Instead, the consumer prices index is already sitting at 5.4% and the new forecast indicates inflation to rise to 7.25% in April - the highest level since the summer of 1991. Such happy memories.

It is not just the UK that has inflation issues……US inflation surged to a 40-year high of 7.5% ......and Turkey hit 36%. Maybe we should be thankful for our lot!

British car production collapses to a 65-year low. Car production slumped by 40% last month as manufacturers grappled with a shortage of parts on top of disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. It was the fourth monthly drop in a row and contributed to the weakest monthly output since 1956.

Oil traded at above $105, its highest price since 2014. It was $60 a year ago and analysts predict that it could “easily” surpass $120 a barrel in the coming months. The increases have been largely driven by a rebound in global demand as the pandemic eases and the uncertainty in Eastern Europe. The rise in forecourt prices was worsened by retailers increasing profit margins in an effort to recoup losses during the Covid lockdowns. Petrol prices have hit record highs, with the average cost of petrol rising to 151p a litre.

I love this quote from RAC: “Prices go up like a rocket, but fall like a feather.” A perfect summary.

The fallout from Brexit appears to be clearer with exports to the EU falling 14%. A big deal? That’s £20 billion lost in exports. Enter Jacob Rees-Mogg from stage left as the new Minister for Brexit Opportunities to inform us that he would soon cut all the red tape he’d just spent 20 years campaigning to create. What a farce!

Spare a thought for university graduates……the announcement that RPI was 7.84% means that Plan 2 Student Loans will revert to RPI +3% from the 1st March. Good luck with that and the monthly compounding impact!

We were warned this month by the Financial Stability Board (definitely in my top 5 of independent think tanks – it’s probably up there for most people to be fair) that the rise of cryptocurrencies poses a significant risk to global financial stability. The cryptomarket has grown to $2.6 trillion and is evolving at great pace. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Here’s one for you to contemplate when you start swearing at your next energy bill……

There are 2 fuels, 3 ways of paying for gas and 4 for electricity, 2 charges (a standing charge for having the supply and a price per unit of energy used) and 14 Regions. That’s 196 different prices. And that's the simplified version!

And when you’ve got your head around that, 22.02.2022 was both a palindrome and an ambigram. My mind was completely blown at 22:02 that day.

 

Trump of the Month

I keep a rolling calendar of Trump of the Month nominees. It’s the way I roll. Each time I added a new idiot to the list this month it felt like the stupidity levels were raised by the next candidate. “I’ll see your foolishness and raise you to lunacy levels.” 

It stared with Liz Truss using a Government aircraft to fly to Australia at an estimated cost of £500,000 to the taxpayer instead of taking a scheduled flight business class (£7,000). The foreign secretary declined to travel business class and instead used an aircraft leased by the Government to make the 22,000-mile round trip last week. Personally, I don’t mind paying £500,000 towards Liz Truss flying to Australia……it’s paying for the return ticket that I object to.

Then the High Court ruled that former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and current ‘Milk Tray man’ broke equality law when appointing Conservative peer Dido Harding to an emergency health job during the Covid crisis. An unlawful appointment or not……it was an appointment that went on to waste billions. The consequence? Absolutely nothing. Presumably a promotion, peerage or knighthood is not far off for Hancock.

Then Prince Andrew stepped up and paid around £12 million to someone he has never met to stop them accusing him of something he definitely didn’t do. He’s just too honourable. Nothing quite says “totally innocent” like a huge bag of cash to stop talking about it.

Next Rishi decided that the best way to tackle the huge increase in energy prices was to give everyone a £200.00 credit off their energy bill that they then need to repay at £40.00 a year for the next 5 years. Am I missing something or has the government essentially announced a Buy Now Pay Later scheme for energy bills? Exactly what will he do with the £1 billion in extra VAT from households alone on the rising gas and electric bills?

And don’t get me started on the Council Tax rebates for those in bands A to D……when the banding is based on property values from 1991! Absolutely crazy.

But then crazy stepped up to lunatic level. February’s ‘Trump of the Month’ is……Vladimir Putin.

When The Trump described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “genius move”, there could only be one winner.

No further questions your honour.

Sometimes the state of the world makes you want to adopt the brace position.

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

 

And Finally……

Word of the month……'arsle’: to find yourself going backwards in a task rather than making any progress at all.

The Month That Was……January 2022

Oh my word. It’s only just clicked into a new year and I already feel so weary with all the dumbness. It is everywhere.

It started with somebody somewhere in Westminster (where else) thinking that sending 200 Army personnel in to cover the 35,000 that were off each day on average in the NHS would do just fine. Don’t get me wrong, you need to be made of a special substance to serve your country but the maths just doesn’t stack up. Rather than use them for a cheap political publicity stunt, I’m a great believer that the army should just do army stuff. I’m a little old fashioned like that.

Perhaps the stunt was to deflect interest in the publication of the feasibility study into BoJo’s £335 billion bridge to Northern Ireland that cost £900,000 to conduct. £900,000 for a Structural Engineer to look out across the Irish sea during a storm and say “nah, not doable.”

Then the Daily Mail got involved in the loopyness with the first politically motivated bad maths of 2022……“Global population inches towards EIGHT BILLION after increasing by 74 million in a year”. Followed by the bewildering “America added 707,000 — with one new migrant every 130 SECONDS”.

Slow your horses there a mo. This makes no sense. The migrants already existed surely? They were just in other countries and have already been counted (years ago) as part of the global population. Total madness…..but that’s the Daily Mail for you. 

Then one of the world’s great sports stars got in on the craziness. Novak Djokovic tried to muscle his way into Australia for their ‘Wimbledon’ without any vaccinations or respect for the law of the land. He failed. Incredible to think that a white privileged millionaire didn’t get his own way. Bonkers.

IKEA then went on a campaign of “we don’t want anti / unvaccinated people in our stores.” Nothing like stoking the fire of the Anti-Vaxxers who immediately retaliated with #BOYCOTTIKEA. Could they not have made it any easier for IKEA?

Then I start getting bombarded with adverts for Nespresso’s new reusable capsules. Acutely aware that the turn against disposable plastic could spell doom for its domination of the super-easy-but-not-very-nice espresso market, Nespresso has launched a metal pod that you simply fill with ground coffee, use, empty, clean, dry and use again. Errrrrrr, so just like all espresso machines since the dawn of time! Congratulations, Nespresso, you have literally uninvented your only product.

The news then filled me with Ed Sheeran’s planning application for a burial chamber at his home where a specially built ‘prayer retreat’ in his garden will allow “guests to enjoy calm and separation and a venue for celebration.” What happened to pop singers doing normal weird things — like building a water park in their back garden, chucking a TV out of a hotel window or sleeping on a 30ft bed?

Then the BBC pulled me in with their teasing of the new series of the Apprentice. Damn them. I regret watching it every year……every year I watch it though. People are always staggered that the Apprentice candidates are eccentric nutters with egos and odd personalities. But that’s the whole point of the programme. “We’ve found 16 experienced, excellent, sensible business candidates to bore you to tears for 2 months” doesn’t quite work for TV. The whole point of the show for me is swearing at the craziness on the screen.

And if all that isn’t enough, social media is full of too many normal people losing the plot and wild swimming in winter. Very sadly and suddenly, I lost another close friend to wild swimming. They haven’t drowned……they’ve just become an insufferable bore. Wild swimming is the new vegan. What is wrong with these people? When you think about it, heated, indoor swimming pools are……rather nice. I feel like it needs to become socially acceptable again to swim somewhere with a roof and not take countless pictures.

Enough of the madness 2022……I can’t take another 11 months of this. I deserve a little more after your offerings over the past 2 years.

The Numbers

There is a common theme to predictions for 2022 in that the first half of the year will be dominated by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Downing Street lockdown parties and the cost-of-living squeeze. They are all linked.

Russia-Ukraine tensions add to upward pressure on energy prices. “Partygate” adds to the impression of a dysfunctional, rule-breaking Government led by a chaotic BoJo in which any action to ease the cost-of-living squeeze has to be seen through the prism of political positioning.

Inflation hit 5.4% this month (a 30 year high) and it will go higher. The last time inflation was higher was in March 1992 when it was 7.1%. The biggest impetus will come from energy bills, which are due to increase sharply in April when the price cap rises by as much as 50% and likely to push inflation to 7%.

Rishi Sunak has previously suggested that a sustained 1% increase in inflation could add £25 billion to the cost of servicing the interest on Government debt. Good luck with that.

The UK economy surpassed pre-Covid levels for the first time after recording slightly stronger-than-expected growth. It meant the economy was 0.7% larger than in February 2020.

One of the questions I get asked most is whether the economy can continue to grow even as high inflation bites? The puzzle is easily stated. It is a matter of simple arithmetic……it is hard for the economy to grow unless consumer spending (which accounts for more than 60% of our economy) is also doing so.

Given that the cost of living will put pressure on household incomes, you would assume that consumer spending will slow. However, those lockdown savings totalling £200 billion still haven’t been spent as yet and that is what is driving a positive economic outlook for the next 18 months.

It is all well and good having hard cash but the product needs to be available to buy……and Covid had a huge impact on supply. Falling shipping rates point to an end to the great supply chain crisis.

The Baltic Dry Index (my second favourite index after the Purchase Managers Index obviously – it’s a class index that has stood the test of time) is anything but an arid subject. It measures the price of shipping bulk materials around the world and as such is used as a yardstick to measure the stability and efficiency of worldwide supply chains.

In times of market dislocation, it rises sharply to reflect the difficulties in transporting goods — and during the pandemic it has done little else but rise, peaking at more than 5,700. That peak in the Baltic Dry Index was hit on 7 October 2021. Since then, the index has fallen sharply to 1,300. To put that in to context, that puts the index back to the average over the past decade. It indicates not only that things are a lot better than they were only three months ago, but also that the great supply chain crisis may be over. May be.

This month saw Apple become the first firm to hit a $3 trillion market value. The US doesn’t even feel like a country any more……it's just four corporations in a trench coat.

Trump of the Month

When you live in a time when every hour of every day news outlets run stories solidly on the behaviour of the Government, there can only be one winner……BoJo. It seems that the media has suddenly realised that BoJo is exactly the person they knew he was before the election but forgot to say.

How do I measure success? Success to me is using the self-checkout in the supermarket without Brenda coming over to bail me out. Success when you are the leader of a country should not be used by the same metric……yet I fear it is. 

January 2022 saw BoJo issue a “humble and sincere” apology to Lord Geidt (his ethics adviser) for withholding critical messages from an inquiry into the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.

If you withhold evidence from an investigation that confirms your unequivocal guilt, what does that make you? Fit to be British Prime Minister apparently. What have you got to do to break the Ministerial Code?

Then came the High Court ruling that a 'VIP lane' was used by Government to hand out PPE contracts to two companies during the first coronavirus wave, which was unlawful. The contracts amounted to £340 million.

All of this seemed to be missed as daily fresh revelations of parties at Downing Street swamp us.

Downing Street parties……where do you even start? Well, just for the record, I wasn’t there……I was thoroughly sanitising my home delivery from Tesco, not having a haircut and keeping immaculate timing to ensure I clapped on the right day at the right time .

The biggest embarrassment for BoJo is that even when people weren’t legally allowed to have any other social plans he still only managed to get 30 out of the 100 invited people to turn up to his party.

Bizarrely, BoJo stating that “nobody told me it was against the rules” is a pretty weird thing for someone to say who was literally on TV every night for an hour telling people what the rules were.

Rishi’s office overlooks the parties in the garden. Hancock visited Number 10 every day. Raab was deputy when BoJo was in hospital. Gove ran the cabinet office. Surely it’s impossible they didn't know. It’s not just BoJo……I fear it’s all of them.

After coming under pressure for weeks, the Metropolitan Police's decision to launch an investigation into potential breaches of covid regulations inside Downing Street and Whitehall is a huge new twist. Being investigated by the police is where no Prime Minister wants to be. It certainly stops the full ‘independent’ report from Sue Gray being published in the short term. 

So, BoJo waits to find out if the inquiry ordered by BoJo finds that BoJo attended a party at BoJo’s house.

Officially ‘guilty’ of breaking the rules or not, it matters little. We are missing the point as the whole fiasco goes against the 7 Nolan Principles that are the basis of the ethical standards expected of anyone in public office:

1. Selflessness

2. Integrity

3. Objectivity

4. Accountability

5. Openness

6. Honesty

7. Leadership

They might as well say Maureen, Anne, Coleen, Linda, Denise and Bernie.

(ask your Mum kids – she’ll know the words to “I'm In the Mood for Dancing" inside out).  

All very shameful stuff. All very like The Trump.  

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

And Finally……

"I should regret to see the day in which the people should cease to express intelligent, honest generous criticism upon the policy of their rulers."

Abraham Lincoln

 

The Month That Was……December 2021

We will not remember 2021 with great fondness, I suspect. A year in which we were supposed to shake off the coronavirus and return to something like normal turned out rather differently. We ended the year almost as we began it, amid great uncertainty.

Nothing quite says “Christmas festivities” like a variant of concern, the near constant threat of a Christmas lockdown and a dithering Government ignoring anything scientific to base their decisions on and choosing the least damaging option for their opinion poll rating. In the words of the great Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Aside from all of the festivities, December is that period of the year when everyone has way too much time on their hands……and a lot of big questions get answered. Is it time to move house? Shall we have another child? Do I really want to spend another year with (insert name as appropriate)?  

For me though, it’s all about sweating the small stuff and spending a staggering amount of time trying to box off some of the completely irrelevant topics that consume my ‘way too active’ mind. Forget the festivities or spending quality time with a 7 year old filled to the brim with Christmas magic……it’s just not productive enough. The downtime is put to much better use in finally boxing off some key subjects.

For example……

- Panic stock piling lateral flow tests during a pandemic makes way more sense than toilet rolls. As a society, we are making some progress. Well, of sorts.

- “You better watch out.” Got it. “You better not cry.” These are pretty big ‘deal breakers’ for most kids.  Santa’s got a lot of nerve the way he’s making such huge demands of children. For me, a rethink is required to lower the tone.

- Windchill factor is an absolute joke. If it feels like 0 degrees, then it’s 0 degrees surely? It can’t be 10C but feel like 2C with the wind. Come on……we’re better than that. Another rethink required.

- Why is Matt Hancock staging a comeback and why are the media entertaining it? He is a bin fire of mismanagement and corruption……he’s not ABBA.

- When is a party not a party? When it really needs not to be a party in case someone gets in trouble.

I'm just glad Rishi Sunak didn't take Priti Patel's advice last year when she said people should snitch on their neighbours if they were having parties during lockdown.

- The Metropolitan Police say in relation to the Downing St Christmas party that they don’t investigate crimes retrospectively. That is literally the only way you can investigate crimes. Surely?

The other issue is that there was an “absence of evidence.” Well, yes. There isn’t any evidence yet……because you haven’t started investigating it. I’m no expert in these matters but I am fairly sure that No 10 must be one of the most CCTV-riddled buildings on the planet.

- Has Lorraine Kelly ever discovered something that isn’t “absolutely really fantastic” yet?

- Is it OK to body shame a Christmas Tree? How much must Norway hate us to send that thing?

 - In the UK, this is actually a sentence that makes sense: “Excuse me, sorry, do you mind if I just… thanks.”

- I grew up in a time when a stranger breaking into a lone woman's remote house and leaving some sub-par chocolate box for her was considered dashing. The ultimate romantic gesture. Simpler times before CCTV and video doorbells.

- The contactless card limit has now increased to £100. We really do live in an age of miracles……I can remember a time when it was just £25. The young cool kids simply won’t believe that. Just like they won’t believe that we used to get free toys in cereal. Mind blowing.

- Can we now move on from Elf on the Shelf……it’s been done and seems very last year. I’m all up for Andy Murray having a curry or Benedict Cumberbatch weeding the pumpkin patch. If you really push me, I would be fine with Jacob Rees-Mogg de-fleas a dog.

I’m sure you would agree that I have put the extra time off over the festive period to good use!

 

The Numbers

When future historians look back on it — certainly, economic historians — there will be a curiosity. Looking at the latest official figures published this month, economic growth in 2021 will be around 7% (give or take a decimal point or two). A big number that suggests an economic boom.

Yet, consumer confidence has faltered in the wake of Omicron, though it has not collapsed. Households have increased savings yet are facing a cost of living squeeze that will intensify with the huge increases in energy bills and tax increases due in April. People will not have the luxury of putting so much aside. Whether or not the great UK consumer can be relied on to spend through adversity will be one of the big questions for 2022.

Inflation will dominate the UK landscape for some time. The cost of living surged to 5.1% up from 4.2% the month before……a 10-year high. The International Monetary Fund predicted inflation would reach around 5.5% early this year, which seems very optimistic.  

Some 720 items are monitored to determine the inflation figure, with big variants across the range. Second-hand cars have risen 27.1%, fridge-freezers 10.3% and sporting event tickets 8.4%. On the other side, chocolate is up only 1.7%, beer 2% and museum entry 1.6%. Now the baking fad has passed, flour is down 10.3%.

To combat the level of inflation, The Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1 in favour to increase the base interest rate to 0.25%. This was the first rise in more than 3 years.

Is this really going to tackle surging inflation? For me, this will have no impact on inflation and will only hurt the economy at a time of uncertainty around Omicron.

Property has seen huge inflation through 2021, with house prices in the UK growing at the fastest pace in 15 years. Nationwide announced that house prices had risen 10.4% in 2021 and were 16% above pre-pandemic levels. This was powered by 1 in 16 homes changing hands in 2021!

The jobs market remains very buoyant, with the number of employees on payrolls rising to pre-pandemic levels as companies hired 257,000 in December, taking the total to 29.4 million. It seems hard to believe that the Government effectively employed 11 million people through furlough not that long ago.

Post-Brexit trade deals continue behind the scenes, with the latest confirmed with Australia. Official estimates have previously suggested that in the long run, it would produce an increase of 0.01% to 0.02% to UK GDP. This is partly because Australia accounts for only about 1.7% of UK exports and 0.7% per cent of imports. This was probably the reason there was no chest thumping from BoJo to announce it.

Elsewhere……the Conservatives lost their North Shropshire seat that they held for nearly 200 years. LibDem winner Helen Morgan overturned a Tory majority of almost 23,000. One for the attention of BoJo to reflect on.

 

Trump of the Month

We live in a time of such distrust in politicians that every breaking story of lies, corruption and greed is met with a mild eyebrow raise. We are punch drunk to it. It’s no longer a shock.

I really miss Theresa May. There…….I’ve said it. The lady I rallied against with anyone that would listen and whose premiership seemed to touch new lows of blank unmeaning. It feels all so different now. I’m overwhelmed with nostalgia for the permanent traffic jam that was her politics and leadership. Mrs May was the Imodium of modern British politics and I long for constipation at a time of political diarrhoea.

Which leads us perfectly to the Trump of the Month…… Jacob Rees-Mogg.   

The Mogg is being investigated by the Commons standards watchdog after being accused of breaching the rules for failing to declare £6 million in loans he received from one of his Cayman Island companies.

Which leads me to ponder some questions:

Why does an MP need to raise £6 million?

Why does he have a company set up in the ‘tax efficient’ Cayman Islands?

If the capital raising is due to financial trouble, is he in the right frame of mind to represent his constituency?

If the money is for business interests, does he have enough time to represent his constituency?

If he has not disclosed it through the right Parliamentary channels, does he possess the right moral compass to represent his constituency?

The series of loans began in 2018, so why has it taken 3 years to get to the point of investigating? Is there really that much of a backlog in questionable standards that need to be investigated?

And you can guess which MP it was that led the Government's failed attempt over Owen Paterson to change and reform the House of Commons Standards system that is now investigating Jacob Rees-Mogg! And he nearly got away with it!

Everything you need to know about why there is such distrust of MP’s in one story.

Come back Theresa and make it boring again!

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

 

And Finally……

“Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."                     

Archbishop Desmond Tutu