The Severn Estuary is about an hour’s bicycle ride from where I live.  It has the second largest tidal range in the world – around a 50 feet difference between a high and low spring tide.  But here’s the thing, the tide does not recede the moment the high tide …

OPEC and out The political fallout from the OPEC+ decision to cut its oil production target by two million barrels a day – which would leave the world economy around six million barrels a day short of its pre-pandemic peak – is sufficient to push us closer to collapse.  The …

When economies fall apart, politicians point to issues of confidence.  So it is, that this weekend we witnessed “Dagenham Liz” Truss blaming the collapse in the Pound on a “failure to prepare the ground,” rather than understanding it as evidence of the underlying weakness of the UK economy.  This has …

A new prime minister and chancellor attempt to put some economic and political “distance” between them and their predecessors, only to trigger a major economic crisis which leads to electoral defeat and a long period of opposition.  Not – or at least not yet – a story about Truss and …

Trading safety Within the inner sanctum of one of the world’s oldest and most esteemed universities, an ageing professor sits in a battered leather armchair.  Oblivious to the day-to-day sensations within the room – the slow tick and tock of an antique grandfather clock, the shimmering particles of dust caught …

Marx was right… No, bear with me.  Marx was right when he argued that there must be some input to the productive process which provided far more value than was paid for.  Because if everything involved in the productive process was paid exactly what it was worth, then there could …

It takes a special kind of cynical self-interest to make people pay twice for something they already cannot afford, while claiming you are doing them a favour.  This though, is the energy price relief package announced by Liz Truss yesterday.  The package plays that old political card of being not …

Ever since the cheese speech went viral, satirists and serious opponents have latched onto the idea that our new “worst prime minister ever” is intellectually challenged.  For sure, her inability to find her way out of her own press conference, and more alarmingly, her apparent belief that Ukraine was an …

Growth of a sort Unsurprisingly, incoming “worst prime minister ever,” Liz Truss has announced that she will prioritise “growth” for the remainder of the parliament.  Unsurprisingly, that is, because it is what every incoming prime minister says they are going to prioritise and, increasingly, what they fail to achieve.  Rather …