News

In our ongoing political saga, Andy Burnham has formally indicated that he will enter a Labour leadership contest if he wins the Makerfield by election on 18 June, saying he would seek to represent the constituency “at the highest possible level”. His comments follow suggestions that Wes Streeting may also be preparing a leadership bid. Under Labour rules, any challenger must be an MP and secure backing from 81 colleagues. Polling for the by election shows Burnham ahead of Re

I am not sure I completely believe the daily news of a possible peace agreement in the Middle East. Each day a different angle on a breakthrough, and then more bombings and harsh words. Again, today I read that the United States and Iran have reached a tentative agreement to extend the current ceasefire by 60 days while peace talks continue. This comes despite renewed clashes around the Strait of Hormuz, where both sides have exchanged fire as Israel intensifies its operation

The UK political environment continues to shift uneasily, and many clients are naturally asking what a future Labour government might mean for economic policy, taxation, and the performance of UK stock markets. While no election outcome is guaranteed, it is reasonable for clients to consider how different leadership styles and policy priorities could influence the investment landscape. One figure who attracts particular attention is Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchest

No Labour Prime Minister has ever been removed from office through a formal leadership contest. I wonder if this fact might change in the coming months. The combination of Andy Burnham’s plan to return to Westminster, Wes Streeting’s resignation, and mounting pressure on Sir Keir Starmer, has created a level of uncertainty that is rippling through UK financial markets. Andy Burnham has formally announced that he will seek Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) approval t

Reading back over my weekly emails since the end of March, I seem to have mentioned an end to the Iran / Middle East conflict on a weekly basis, yet here we are still hanging on the news flow. This weeks Memorandum of Understanding issued to Iran by the US, via Pakistan, gives hope for an end to the loss of human life, an opening of the Straits of Hormuz and more stable investment markets and less inflationary pressures as the oil price gradually falls. We keep our fingers cr

Yesterday the Bank of England has maintained interest rates at 3.75%, while indicating that further increases may be required if the ongoing energy shock linked to the conflict in Iran continues to place upward pressure on global prices and, in turn, UK inflation. At its latest meeting, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 8–1 to keep rates unchanged for a third consecutive time. The sole dissent came from Huw Pill, the Bank’s Chief Economist, who supported a 0.25 percen

Since I last wrote, economic news continues to be dominated by Middle Eastern tensions, much to the relief of our Prime Minister who would otherwise be front and centre of just about every newspaper, every day this week. He must have thought a few months ago that he was through the worst of his political nightmare. Apparently not. Since stories concerning a resolution to the Iranian conflict surfaced two weeks ago and markets surged, the last fortnight has reflected the deepe

Over the past 48 hours, the geopolitical climate in the Middle East has shifted noticeably, and so has the rhetoric coming from Washington. A rather weary looking President Donald Trump addressed the US nation last night and began signalling a softer, more conciliatory stance stating that the conflict was almost over. This was a sudden change from some of his most forceful threats just days before. Markets, ever sensitive to the ebb and flow of geopolitical risk, have respond

Throughout this week, you may have noticed that US President Donald Trump has occasionally asserted that the United States is engaged in meaningful talks with Iranian leadership to end the ongoing war. He understatedly described Iranians as “great negotiators” and claimed they were “begging to make a deal,” even suggesting that the U.S. and Iran were already aligned on several key points. Trump also implied that his administration had paused certain military actions because n

Major central banks spent this week navigating a delicate balance: maintaining credibility in their inflation fighting campaigns while acknowledging that the escalating conflict involving Iran has injected fresh uncertainty into the global economic outlook. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank, and several others opted to keep interest rates unchanged, signalling caution rather than complacency as geopolitical tensions threaten to reshape the path of in

It will not surprise you that this week’s missive focuses on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has issued his first public statement calling for the Strait of Hormuz to “remain closed”, signalling a hardening of Iran’s strategy. He also warned that Iran would continue targeting US bases in the Gulf, despite intelligence sources suggesting he has already been injured during the conflict. The closure of the strait—through whic

Our thoughts this week have focussed on those caught up in the Middle Eastern conflict centred around Iran and Israel, that has since spread out into the surrounding region. The latest escalation—particularly Iran widening its response beyond Israel and signalling potential disruption to the Strait of Hormuz—has increased concerns about a spike in global energy prices and the risk of a broader economic slowdown. The Strait remains open, but higher insurance costs and the thre

What a confusing world we find ourselves in. Cast your mind back ten years – imagine one of the leading businesses in the marketplace announcing forecast revenue of $78 billion dollars in a three-month period, and its share price doesn’t react. That is indeed strange, but here we are today. Chip maker Nvidia’s latest earnings underline the scale of the AI boom but also how nervous investors have become about how long it can last. The company delivered another blockbuster quar

For once, the UK’s inflation story is drifting from grim to vaguely cheerful. After four years of outpacing the US and euro area, and after a 3.4% rise in prices over the past year, inflation now looks set to drop sharply. Come April, it is expected to fall to around 2%, basically bang on the Bank of England’s target. Even President Trump might secretly envy a central bank that looks like it can actually hit 2%. Three forces are doing the heavy lifting. First, energy. The c

Our Prime Minister is hanging on, but only just. The argument goes that although Sir Keir Starmer’s government is weak and unpopular, replacing him would likely make things worse. British politics has seen leaders cling on after losing authority, and maybe we should hope Starmer can as well – not because he can turn this around, but because the alternatives are worse. If Starmer falls, his successor would almost certainly come from Labour’s left, pushing policies voters have

I do not imagine that any of this is new to you, however I should start this week’s missive with comment on Sir Keir Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. The story has quite fairly dominated news flows this week after the prime minister admitted he did know about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein from a document he was handed at the end of December 2024. Crucially this was before he appointed Mandelson as British ambassador to the United States.

The first few weeks of 2026 have been anything but dull. Over just one weekend, America threatened to slap Canada with 100% tariffs, US Congress started squabbling toward yet another possible shutdown, Japan experienced its own Liz Truss style bond meltdown, China accused one of its own generals of leaking nuclear secrets, and the US dollar continued to weaken. And yet, in the middle of all this “noise,” the stock market has pretty much sailed through the storm as if it was a

European leaders in Brussels breathed a collective sigh of relief this week after Donald Trump suddenly decided not to slap new tariffs on them or try to “buy” Greenland. It was, in their eyes, the diplomatic equivalent of waking up from a bad dream — one that could have wrecked decades of transatlantic friendship. Trump’s original plan to grab Greenland and punish Europe with trade barriers had shocked leaders from Copenhagen to Berlin at this week’s gathering in Davos. The

Markets have come a long way in the last ten years. 2009 heralded ten years of low interest rates, ample liquidity via Quantitative Easing and a strengthening global supply chain. In the last three years this has morphed into higher inflation, huge public debt, and reshoring of industrial capacity and sudden fall in global trade. As a result, policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, and capital movements now influence markets as strongly as traditional economic cycles. For inves

Looking back on last year, it was very pleasing to see that investment returns defied the barrage of political and economic noise throughout the year. In spite of ongoing debates around whether governments are spending too much, if the economy can continue to grow, the impact of military flare-ups across the world, and concerns over various market bubbles, nonetheless major equity indices were up between 12-20% in 2025, with the fourth quarter doing nothing to halt the gains.