Yesterday the thirty year borrowing rate surged to 5.6%. Its one day spike worst level under Truss was just 4.8%, so Reeves has pushed it up by 17% on a rate she said had crashed the economy.
The ten year rate hit 4.6% compared to the 4.38% highest one day spike under Truss.
The latest borrowing figures showed another surge in last month’s borrowing. Debt interest charges are over £100 bn a year and growing. The debt is high and growing too fast.
The Chancellor needs to take urgent action to control spending. Forget giving billions to Mauritius over the years ahead. Veto all new charges to be imposed by the EU for re set. Tell the DWP to be firmer in evaluating new claims for benefits and to issue fewer sicknotes for life. Reinstate the two child cap. Raise the future pension age for state pension. Cut the absurdly high Bank of England, railway and steel losses.
The Chancellor now has a spendthrift reputation in the markets. The UK is being charged higher rates than most Advanced countries as a risk premium or extra levy because the government is not trusted to run the finances prudently. It is no good the Chancellor constantly claiming prudence and doing the opposite. The markets have formed a bad view and are making the UK pay a lot extra as a result.
The OBR does not provide discipline over the deficit as its control relates to the distant fifth year of its forecast. It is a rolling target so Year 5 never comes!
March 21, 2026
Exactly.
The doomloop spins ever more quickly as this appalling government (and the dire list of potential post May Starmer replacements Rayner favourite then Streeting and Miliband) keep further damaging the economy and confidence every single day.
They have no chance of power after the next election and so will surely take a scorched earth policy for the next three years they have already started it seems.
March 21, 2026
Again, I cannot see Reeves or the government changing course.
They will continue to be spendthrift.
March 21, 2026
Spendthrift, doom-loop, scorched earth, net zero vandals – 3+ more years!
March 21, 2026
The good news is is there is so much fat that could so easily be cut. Net zero, benefits for the feckless, Chagos, bloated government, taking real advantage of Brexit, cutting immigration, drill baby drill and frack amd mine and the win, win of bonfires of red tape, easy hire and fire and lower tax rates actually giving more revenue.
The bad news is their agenda is the complete reverse of all these!
March 21, 2026
Yup, we’re in the realm of socialist dogma trumps economic common-sense. Starmer/Reeves are not in control anyway, the cadre’s on the benches appear to hold the power and they want the ‘state to provide’, damn the markets.
Trump is moving Marines and close air support aircraft into theatre, (no boots on the ground my a..e!) so unless there’s a capitulation from the IRGC, or Trump gets too many irate calls from the banks, then we’re going to be in this ‘interesting times’ for a while yet. Costs to rise, and the conflict draws in more participants.
March 21, 2026
Things are certainly not good but debt rocketeted under Sunak as Chancellor and PM – only need to look at a 10 year GILT chart. Labour are indeed hapless and have confounded any problems but they were left a difficult fiscal premise..
March 21, 2026
I listened to a bit of radio 4 news yesterday too suddenly they seem very excited about all the damage that will be done to the UK by high oils and gas prices, high fertiliser costs, plastics, interest rates, farming problems… now that they can blame these high prices on Trump they seem keen on lower energy costs.
I would remind them that energy costs in the UK are circa four times those in the US due mainly to insane net zero and mad energy policies from the last 20+ years of UK governments and May and Miliband in particular, the fracking, mining and drilling bans and vast over taxation and market rigging – all of which the BBC is a huge supporter of and propagandiser for!
March 21, 2026
I wonder why the Bank of England isn’t conspiring to bring this Government down, the way it did Truss?
Let me guess ….
“Andrew Bailey, the current Governor of the Bank of England (since March 2020), chaired the Left-leaning Cambridge Fabian Society while a student at Queens’ College, Cambridge.”
Well bless my soul. Who could possibly have suspected that?
Two-Tier, Reeves, Mad Red Ed and Bailey, all Fabians who are jointly creating the mother of all economic crashes.
March 21, 2026
Gridwatch 7am – Energy supply:
Gas: 36%
Inter-connectors: 30%
Nuclear: 16%
Biomass (trees): 12%
Wind: 6%
Solar: 0%
https://gridwatch.co.uk/
And the conclusion for the Eco nutters in the Establishment: We obviously need to import and massively subsidise far more windmills and solar panels.
No wonder the country’s effectively bankrupt.
March 21, 2026
Indeed bonkers. For bio think young coal about 2 times less efficient than old coal and far more environmentally damaging too. Loads of fossil fuels used to harvest, transport, dry…
March 21, 2026
The markets are doing what markets will always eventually do, they are pricing in risk. The mark to market principle of valuing has started to impact the UKs asset worth/future security risk to investors,
Reeves has failed to convince even the most optimistic investor the UK is a safe long term bet. When her colleague Ed Miliband continues to destroy industry and her boss continues to flip flop about, who believes in Britain? With no sign of any strategy to return the UK to its rightful place as a key member of NATO and a key nation in world affairs, London is no longer seen as the seat of stability it once was.
Once the market becomes spooked, there is a very short period before money loses its value. The experience of the German currency crisis a hundred years ago looms large and is real.
Go long on barrows.
March 21, 2026
Truss got labelled a heretic and removed before her policies could take effect. Labour still blame her for certain aspects of our gloomy prospects, but labour have been 100 times worse….. Why haven’t the market forces got rid of this government in the unholy way that Truss was removed?
Truss would have achieved a lot better results than the amateurs now sitting in government.
There is only one direction this government is taking us and it’s not towards a land of milk and honey – they have failed to learn from history – they really should be forced to read The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith to get an idea of what they should be doing.