Introduction Speaking to journalists at a lobby briefing in 1964 – when the sterling crisis was raging – Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said “a week is a long time in politics”. What, then, is a month? Especially a month like September 2022 when enough happened to fill a year’s worth of Bulletins. In the […]
Introduction August started with US Speaker Nancy Pelosi visiting Taiwan. We comment on China’s reaction below – and we also describe the environmental and economic challenges facing the country. With domestic crises brewing at home, some commentators have noted the convenience of an external crisis for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). “The position of the […]
At the beginning of July, an article appeared in City AM, stating: ‘UK business bosses most pessimistic since the start of the pandemic’. It started by describing business leaders as ‘disheartened’, saying that ‘soaring inflation and Brexit pains’ had ‘crippled confidence’. (In the interests of balance and fairness, we should point out here that City AM has consistently […]
Despite the current economic pressure the UK Private Medical Insurance (PMI) market continues to see strong growth as many households prioritise the longer term protection of their health. This growth is being driven by the ongoing deterioration of the NHS after many consecutive years of underfunding and the compounded pressure of the Covid-19 related treatment delays. Unfortunately, […]
A happy retirement doesn’t just happen by itself. You’ve got to make it happen, and that involves lots of careful planning and asking yourself what you really want from your post-working life. The most obvious answer to that question is money, as we’ll all want financial security when we retire. But that’s not all. We’ll […]
Financial knowledge and awareness can affect countless aspects of our lives, from being able to budget for our weekly food shop and pay bills, to meeting our mortgage payments and having enough money to live off during retirement. So why are so few people receiving proper guidance and education on how to manage their finances? […]
Do you know how much your home has gone up in value since you bought it? If you purchased your house more than 20 years ago, chances are it’s worth a great deal more than it was originally. According to Aviva, the average value of a property owned by 65 to 74-year-olds is now £287,000. […]
Coronavirus restrictions forced many of us to fundamentally change how we live and work, which in turn affected how we spend our money. With socialising being out of the question, travel restrictions meaning we couldn’t go on holiday, and stay-at-home rules forcing those who could do so to work from home, many of us simply […]
Introduction As many readers know, this Bulletin is written from notes we compile throughout the month. One of the most interesting aspects of this is the occasional feeling of ‘was that really this month’ as we start to write the Bulletin. So it was this month. The race to replace Boris Johnson seems to have been going […]
If your glass is by nature half-empty, you didn’t need to look far for confirmatory information last month. Energy bills were going up – and are set to rise even further in October. Inflation was up again – with grocery inflation hitting its highest level for 13 years, And, of course, the National Insurance rises […]