Despite disturbances in the commercial Force, such as Brexit or US tariffs, the UK is fundamentally a trading nation, buying and selling goods and services all around the world. Indeed, those sorts of disruptions mean that British businesses are constantly having to deal with new stakeholders in new markets. This creates a quite different set of risks from relationships within
Much of the economic focus so far this year has been on the tariff chaos cascading from the White House, but with the passing of the latest trade talks deadline at the beginning of August it may be that calmer financial geopolitics lie ahead. The UK remains very much a favoured-nation with its overall rate of 10% compared to higher
Each month we publish a report into the financial fortunes of one of the major sectors in the UK economy, covering in turn retail, hospitality, construction, manufacturing and logistics amongst others. This gives us a view of the economic weather in each industry on a broadly bi-annual basis. Over the past two to three years most of these sectors have
It’s been difficult for some months now to focus on anything other than the geopolitical mayhem emanating from the White House, whether it is the shilly-shallying over tariffs or the apparently empty rhetoric about the endlessly imminent solution of the many vicious conflicts around the world. The degree to which utterly extraordinary events have become normalised is an astonishing development,
As we look at the economy this month, here in the UK there is little cheer. With a succession of adverse statistics in recent weeks doing little to dispel the feeling that the government’s efforts to promote and then deliver the growth that is desperately needed to repair the public finances, have yet to bear any tangible fruit. The initial
A flexible, high skill and plentiful UK labour market is central to the government’s ambitions to grow the economy through investment and increased productivity. Unfortunately, any discussion of the current state of the UK labour market is almost entirely anecdotal, a regrettable situation at such a crucial time but one made inevitable by the shortcomings of the only comprehensive set
