Spring Budget 2021
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, delivered his second Budget on 3 March declaring that “we will recover”. The key fiscal event, which had been delayed from the Autumn due to the pandemic, centred on a £65bn three-part plan designed to continue supporting British people and businesses through the pandemic, ‘fix’ the public finances once recovery begins and lay...
Window of Hope for 2021
Our vulnerabilities have been laid bare over the last year, as the pandemic took hold of all our lives, and continues to present challenges on a variety of levels. Economic frailties have been exposed but, as we enter 2021, hope hangs in the air with the prospect of recovery in the New Year and beyond. Slowly but surely A fitting portrayal of the situation was coined in...
Tatton – COVID worsening the UK’s high street headache
The ‘scientific cavalry’, as Boris Johnson likes to put it, has arrived. The UK became the first western country to implement a COVID vaccine for mass use, and authorities are wasting no time rolling it out. 800,000 doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s celebrated vaccine are expected to be started, with the world’s first, 91 year old Margaret Keenan, gaining world wide media...
Home sales pipeline increases
According to Zoopla, the home sales pipeline is now 50% bigger than this time last year, with 140,000 more buyers rushing to buy a home before losing out on the Stamp Duty holiday, which is due to end on 31 March 2021.Elsewhere, Nationwide have reported a total 91,500 mortgages approvals were granted in September, which is well above the August figure of 84,700 approvals...
COVID – a true black swan event?
The severity of the impact of the pandemic on economies and societies around the globe has been overwhelming; it seems not one person has been free of its force. However, critics are unrelenting in their claims that the ramifications could (and should) have been anticipated. Does this make COVID-19 qualify as a ‘black swan’ event? As devised by financial theorist and...
Brexit bother as Boris’s Mexican stand-off misfires
Having spent most of 2020 hoping things can get back to normal, Britain’s political news over the last couple of weeks has left us thinking ‘be careful what you wish for’. Stalling Brexit talks, political disarray and the potential for a full-blown constitutional crisis all created that familiar feeling of prepandemic times. Indeed, as if there was not enough déjà vu,...