Growth in private sector output slid to six-month low in August, survey finds

Former England cricketer and crossbench peer will ‘bat for business down under’, says Liz TrussIan Botham, the former England cricketer and crossbench peer, has been appointed a UK trade ambassador to Australia, the government has announced.He is one of 10 parliamentarians given a new role as a trade envoy, taking the total number of MPs and peers performing unpaid trade ambassador roles to 36. Continue reading...

‘Freedom day’ was supposed to bring business as usual but Nando’s is out of chicken and carmakers are low on chipsFirst there were empty supermarket shelves and “pingdemic” staff shortages; now Nando’s is out of chicken and the car industry short of chips. It’s an unusual state of affairs for a country where normality was supposed to resume a month ago.After the lifting of most pandemic restrictions on the government’s 19 July “freedom day”, the long hard slog of Covid-19 was meant to be all over bar the shouting. Britain’s economic potential would be unleashed, allowing for the fastest growth since the second world war. Continue reading...

Regions worst hit by the religious persecution are substantially economically worse off than areas that escapedHistory isn’t just of historical interest – it matters for understanding economies today. That’s the lesson of a growing body of research demonstrating the very long shadow cast by events.A new paper on the Spanish Inquisition proves the point. The Inquisition lasted from the late 15th century to the early 19th century. Its aim was to root out heresy and its methods were the denunciation of suspects followed by torture and executions. The researchers examined how active the Inquisition was in local areas by considering the number of trials and reveal its lasting effect: areas with little or no Inquisition activity have around 8% (€1,450) higher average incomes than those that had lots of persecution. Continue reading...

Many of us have been confounded by recent figures, but the British model remains flawedBritish capitalism seems to be on a roll. A million job vacancies were advertised in July, a new monthly record. Early signs are that unwinding the furlough scheme, now under way, is not going to cause a sharp rise in unemployment.House prices are rising at the fastest rate since 2004. Public borrowing in July halved compared with last July. Many new companies are being created. Business confidence is rising. The recovery is moving so fast as threats of lockdown recede that the UK on average will get back to pre-pandemic levels of output before the year is out. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, can indulge his boss’s tantrums; his political position could hardly be stronger.The US private equity group Clayton, Dubilier & Rice’s unsolicited – and swiftly rejected – takeover approach for the supermarket chain Morrisons is the latest in a flurry of bids for UK firms from private equity firms since the start of the pandemic.Kwarteng and the chancellor collude in the fiction that Brexit presents opportunities that trump its obvious costs Continue reading...

The UK’s feebleness abroad and supply-chain problems at home show how absurd the Brexiters’ dream of a transformed nation wasSo much for Global Britain. The fiasco and tragedy of the retreat from Afghanistan have laid bare the folly of the Brexiters’ Faustian pact: choose the irresponsible but vote-winning Boris Johnson as your leader; say “goodbye European Union, hello world”; and, oh dear, it turns out not to be the triumph they promised.The combination of the insanity of Brexit and the Johnson government’s manifest incompetence is now seen to be adding geopolitical impotence to economic self-harm. What an achievement! Global Britain? Whatever you say, President Biden. Three bags full, sir.It may never – in Browning’s words – be 'glad confident morning again' for Johnson as prime minister Continue reading...

Trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic has soared this year, while life for British exporters looks set to get grimmerIt was supposed to be a deal no UK prime minister could ever agree to, an Irish sea border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Half a year on from Boris Johnson doing exactly that, while denying the fact, the economic consequences are becoming clearer.Figures published by the Irish government last week indicate that a heavy toll for British trade can be added to the political turmoil unleashed by Johnson’s signing up to the Northern Ireland protocol. The data shows evidence beginning to emerge of deeper economic unity on the island of Ireland, at a time when shipments between Britain and Northern Ireland have been disrupted by the Brexit border checks the prime minister promised would never happen. Continue reading...

At the Jackson Hole bankers’ summit this week, the talk will be of ending quantitative easing – and this time it will be seriousIt is credited with preventing the worst global recession since at least the second world war from turning into something far worse. But after the injection of trillions of dollars into financial markets to cushion the blow from Covid-19, the era of quantitative easing could be coming to an end.This week, attention will turn to the gathering of central bank chiefs in Jackson Hole for clues about how the US Federal Reserve plans to bring its vast QE bond-buying programme to an eventual halt after more than a year of emergency stimulus.Leading central banks now own more than £18tn in government bonds and other assets, an increase of more than 50% on pre-pandemic levels Continue reading...

Caution is needed when extrapolating from statistics in times that are far from normalSome economic effects of the coronavirus are obvious. Pre-pandemic, the share of retail sales conducted online had taken around eight years to go from 10% to 20%, but then in nine months shot up to 36% in January 2021.But perhaps more surprising was a recent dramatic headline from Bloomberg: “UK Wage Growth Hits a Record as Vacancies Pass 1 Million”. This was based on estimates from the Office for National Statistics’ monthly wages and salaries survey that average regular pay had increased by 7.4% over the past year. So why should we be cautious in interpreting this huge rise? Continue reading...

For the hardline conservatives ruling Poland and Hungary, the transition from communism to liberal democracy was a mirage. They fervently believe a more decisive break with the past is needed to achieve national liberation. By Nicholas Mulder Continue reading...

Industry faces mounting problems as Covid and Brexit pressures continue, says retail expert

Analysis: sense of foreboding will gnaw away at chancellor’s Treasury team as October spending review looms

Cheap money, the Delta variant and China’s sluggish performance add up to tough times aheadFinancial markets these days react to any whiff of tighter monetary policy in the US, so a little drama on Thursday was par for the course after the US Federal Reserve’s minutes suggested the winding-down of the huge pandemic stimulus programme could start soon. The Fed will still be buying assets in the autumn, but maybe not at the rate of $120bn (£89bn) a month. Commodities fell and shares globally took a hit. The FTSE 100 index dropped 1.5%.Context is needed, of course. The Footsie had risen by 25% in a straight line, more or less, since the arrival of vaccines last November. If one goes back further to the start of the pandemic, the S&P 500, the main US index, has roughly doubled from its low point. So the odd percentage decline hardly shows up on a medium-term view.Related: European stock markets tumble on Covid support concerns Continue reading...

Shares slump amid signs that central banks could start withdrawing pandemic assistance

Analysis: pressure to calm UK economy with higher borrowing costs has eased for now

Cheaper electronic goods also push down July rate to 2% from 2.5% in June

Claim that wages element of formula is distorted by pandemic backed by latest figures, which would mean rise of over 8%Rishi Sunak has come under further pressure to suspend the state pension triple lock after wage figures showed that the chancellor is on course to pay pensioners a rise of more than 8% next year.Sunak is understood to be considering telling Britain’s 12 million state pension claimants that the pandemic has artificially inflated the official wages figures and a new formula is needed to calculate the rise in the basic state pension for next year.Related: Ending pension lock is a start, but there’s no easy fix to the yawning generation gap Continue reading...

Analysis: chancellor warns of ‘bumps in the road’ as Covid, furlough and Bank verdict loom

June and July figures show rocketing demand for workers as country emerged from Covid lockdown

With service industries and foreign tourism decimated, the potential fall in ore prices and demand shows just how much the country relies on mining exportsIt seems not all that long ago all the talk was about how gloriously the economy was going and how the Covid recession was in the past. But now the two states encompassing 55% of the nation’s economy are in lockdown and the second half of this year looks to be tough for the economy – especially as our iron ore exports might be about to take a hit.One of weird things about the pandemic is that our major exports of iron ore and coal have seen an absolute prices boom:Related: Think Morrison was wrong about electric cars and weekends? Wait till you hear him on emissions | Greg JerichoRelated: Australia urged to embrace stronger 2030 climate targets in ‘crucial’ fight ahead of Glasgow summitRelated: The IPCC report is a massive alert that the time for climate action is nearly gone, but crucially not gone yet | Greg JerichoRelated: Pensioner slugged with jobkeeper debt accuses Coalition of double standardsGreg Jericho writes on economics for Guardian Australia Continue reading...

Economic output defies expectations to expand in Q2 – but analysts warn of contraction risk

Fewer than 25% intend to lure new recruits with better wages despite challenges, CIPD report showsFewer than a quarter of UK companies struggling to hire staff after the easing of pandemic restrictions plan to increase the wages they offer to lure new recruits, according to a report.Employers’ hiring confidence has hit a nine-year high as firms attempt to tackle what some recruiters have described as the worst staff shortages since the late 1990s, according to research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).Related: Bottleneck Britain: turmoil has raised job vacancies and firms now jostle for staff Continue reading...

Readers respond to reports on the state of social care in England and lack of support for vulnerable familiesPatrick Butler is right that the pandemic has made the crisis in children’s social care “even more acute” (Crisis in children’s services in England is shocking if not surprising, 11 August). However, it is difficult to see how the government’s review of children’s social care will achieve the radical changes needed, for two reasons.First, it will require a commitment to more progressive taxation and increases in the minimum wage and universal credit to combat major inequalities, including those associated with the rising demand for children’s and youth services: childhood poverty, social deprivation, homelessness, poor health, ethnicity and disability. Continue reading...

Debbie Colson says the chancellor’s short-sighted approach to spending upfront will lead to a far larger global disasterYour article “Treasury blocking green policies key to UK net zero target” (13 August) suggests extreme myopia on the part of Rishi Sunak. This is surprising as he has shown with his coronavirus policies that it is possible to spend large amounts upfront to prevent large-scale future disaster. Climate change, if not addressed, will be a far larger global disaster. It needs a multi-pronged and global approach from central and local governments, the private and public sectors, and individuals. The state of the planet we leave to our children is, after all, a shared responsibility. Central governments must provide the lead, due to the scale and complexity of the challenge.Spending now will generate new technologies that will open up global business and economic growth opportunities. It will also save huge sums that will otherwise be needed – if we delay – to deal with worse flooding, drought and fires, as well as the physical and mental health consequences. Continue reading...

The decision has led to volatile financial markets, geopolitical tension and inflated asset pricesFew dates in economic history classify as turning points but one of them was 15 August 1971 when Richard Nixon went on TV to announce that the US would no longer exchange dollars held by foreign governments for gold.Nixon’s announcement 50 years ago this week had lasting ramifications. It was a statement to the world that the US was too weak to continue anchoring the global monetary system as it had done for the past quarter of a century. It would remain the world’s biggest and most important economy, but the days when it was uniquely dominant were at an end.In 2019, Mark Carney floated the idea of a global digital currency as a replacement for the dollar Continue reading...

All signs are that the chancellor will end his wage support initiative next month. If he does, it will be a chance missedIt seems inevitable that the Treasury will turn down requests from trade unions to maintain the furlough scheme as a permanent safety net beyond autumn.The TUC said it would be a step forward for the UK to have the kind of underpinning to incomes that German workers and many others across the world’s richest nations enjoy. The Kurzarbeit income protection scheme that Berlin has maintained through thick and thin since 1924 always comes to prominence in a major crisis, but it is in place to cope with a mini-crisis as much as a major one.An increase in universal credit is due to be cut back by Sunak in September. This tells everyone a permanent replacement for furlough is unlikely Continue reading...

Author of government study says Treasury resistance to green spending programmes could halt progress to net zeroImposing “premature austerity” again will undermine the fight against climate change and stop poorer households going green, one of the world’s leading climate economists has warned the government, amid claims that the Treasury is resisting policies to tackle the crisis.Nicholas Stern, the author of the seminal 2006 government study into the costs of climate change, said comprehensive programmes were needed to help poorer households make the switch to electric cars and away from gas heating, if the government hoped to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.Related: Calls for G7 spending restraint misguided, warns Lord Stern Continue reading...

HSBC analysis gives a good half-dozen reasons why buying a house will not get easier for years – which is very bad news for most British youngstersAnyone hoping for a property crash is going to be sorely disappointed. The main element of Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty giveaway may now be in the past and the Delta strain of the virus still ever-present, undermining consumer confidence, yet all the elements are in place for prices to continue moving up.Without the market having much time to catch its breath, the 7% to 8% increases of the past year will only moderate as the mania for property as an investment marches onwards. Continue reading...

The real worry is the gap between what the country produces and what average folks can afford to consume. Inequality is eating our economyHours after the Democrats passed their $3.5tn budget for Joe Biden’s American Families Plan – including childcare, community college, extended Medicare and measures to slow climate change – the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, whose vote is necessary to get it through the Senate, made an ominous announcement. He had “serious concerns” about its size, warning it would add trillions of dollars to the national debt and spur inflation.One expects Republican lawmakers to demagogue about inflation and spending. To hear this from a Democrat is jaw-dropping.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

UK inhaler maker plans to back tobacco giant Philip Morris International’s takeover bid, despite health charities urging them to oppose it

Analysis: GDP figures show attempts to revive business investment have not got off to a flying start

Official data shows 1% growth in June after further easing of lockdown restrictions

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as UK mid-cap index hits new peak and blue-chip FTSE 100 closes at 18-month high

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Sterling hit €1.1833 against the single currency, its highest level since February 2020The pound rose to an 18-month high against the euro on Tuesday as fears over rising Covid-19 infections triggered a sharp fall in German investor confidence.Sterling hit €1.1833 against the single currency, its highest level since February 2020, after investor morale in Europe’s largest economy fell to its lowest level in nine months. Continue reading...

Data collected from 38 member countries says UK among the major economies now in the slow lane

Some say the greenback’s dominance of cross-border payments will be erodedThis week marks the 50th anniversary of “the weekend that changed the world”, when the US president Richard Nixon suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold at a fixed price and rang down the curtain on the Bretton Woods international monetary system. The subsequent half-century brought many surprises. From a monetary standpoint, one of the greatest was the dollar’s continued dominance as a vehicle for cross-border transactions.Under Bretton Woods, the dollar’s supremacy was readily explicable. The financial position of the US coming out of the second world war was impregnable. Changes in the price at which dollars could be converted into gold were unthinkable, first because of that financial strength and then, as the country’s monetary position weakened, because of the possibility that one devaluation would create expectations of another.The game gamechanger would be if central digital bank currencies were interoperable Continue reading...

Trade body calls for business rates reform to help boost investment in high streets battered by lockdownsThe end of lockdown has come too late to prevent fresh store closures on Britain’s high streets as businesses count the cost of 18 months of pandemic disruption, the latest update on consumer spending has shown.Despite a boost to activity after the lifting of restrictions, the trade body for the sector, the British Retail Consortium, said the pace of recovery was slowing and more town centre sites were falling vacant.Related: One in seven shops now vacant across the UK Continue reading...

Population, the size of the economy and inequality are all factors in deciding which nations perform wellSo who won the Olympics? The easy answer is to look at the medal table. But that table is very much loaded in favour of those with large populations. To answer the question we must consider a few other factors to discover who really won the Olympics and at what cost.Related: The Brisbane Olympic Games deserve a gold medal for hyperbole when it comes to economic benefits | Greg JerichoRelated: Ten of the best Australian stories of the Tokyo Olympic Games Continue reading...

The Thatcherite wing of the Conservative party desires a restoration of ideas whose time has come and goneThe Conservative party hooked British capitalism to the state’s life support system for the past 18 months. So it takes chutzpah to think, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng does, of putting the free market at the heart of a post-Covid recovery. Yet lengthening NHS waiting lists, hiking consumer energy bills and welfare cuts when poverty is rising all betray a mindset that regards the re-legitimation of state intervention as threatening a way of life rather than securing it.What the Thatcherite wing of the Conservative party desires is a restoration. For them this is an opportunity to go back to 1979 and use tried-and-tested ways to stabilise prices, crush labour and discipline poorer nations. These rightwingers yearn for higher interest rates, to prioritise financial returns on assets and the use of creditor power to squeeze the global south. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as cigarette maker Philip Morris and private equity group Carlyle battle to own UK health company

There are lessons to be learned from how and why GB Olympians have gone from under-performer to globally competitive in 25 yearsForget the feelgood factor. The warm glow generated by Team GB winning gold for three-day eventing or the modern pentathlon will quickly fade. Anybody who thinks sporting success will prompt a mini-economic boom is deluded.That, though, doesn’t mean the Tokyo Olympics have no bearing on the economy and its performance. There are important lessons to be learned from how and why Great Britain’s athletes have gone from serial under-performers to globally competitive in the past 25 years. Continue reading...

What it means to you, as the Bank of England predicts prices are set to rise by 4%, the highest in yearsWhen the Bank of England announced on Thursday that it had left interest rates on hold at just 0.1%, it made a prediction about inflation. The rate of price rises would increase in the near-term it said “and is projected to rise temporarily” to 4% in the winter.This would put it at its highest rate for 10 years, and would be double the level the Bank is tasked with targeting. After that, it forecast inflation running at 3.3% in a year’s time, 2.1% in two years and falling back to 1.9% by the summer of 2024. Continue reading...

All countries have suffered Covid, but the UK has uniquely been exposed to the economic and moral damage of Brexit tooSo far, the Johnson government has hidden behind the disruption of Covid to divert attention from the consequences of Brexit.But not for much longer. The chaos caused by the removal of the Team GB economy from the single market while leaving Northern Ireland within is already manifest. It is also abundantly clear that the disruption of Northern Ireland’s trade cannot be blamed on, or confused with, Covid-induced damage.It is not just Brexit. It is what Brexit brought in its wake: the erosion of respect for the rule of law, and a corruption and coarsening of standards Continue reading...

943,000 jobs were added last month, but 5.4% remain unemployed at a time when some employers are having difficulty recruitingThe American economy added 943,000 jobs in July, demonstrating another month of steady, positive growth. However, 5.4% remain unemployed at a time when some employers are having difficulty recruiting workers. Continue reading...

Frustration over choices is putting people at risk of scams but there are accounts worth consideringThings are going from bad to worse for savers. A few days ago the Bank of England reported that interest rates were continuing to fall “to new historically low levels” and providers are still sending out letters to customers telling them that returns are being hacked.That isn’t only causing frustration among those who rely on their savings for income or are trying to build up a nest egg – it is also tempting people to take extra risks and play into the hands of scammers. “Consumers looking around for more attractive savings rates is a fraudster’s dream,” Gareth Shaw, the head of money at the consumer group Which?, told Guardian Money this week. “With more people moving online to work, shop and bank since the start of the pandemic, and the ease in which scammers can post fraudulent content to attract would-be investors, consumers are at significant risk from this growing crime.”Related: Covid lockdown savings: how to make the most of spare cashThe top-paying one-year fixed rate bonds are offering a little over 1% Continue reading...

Rolling live coverage of business, economics and financial markets including July’s US jobs report