Boris apologised – but is it too late? Resolving the innumerable crises facing the UK requires political focus, and less of the politically expedient indignation being displayed in parliament. It won’t make anything better, threatens further destabilisation, and diminish the UK’s global competitiveness..
The risks of Plan B and a further Covid Lockdown are multiplying. It will clearly impact markets, but the real economic effects of Covid combined with energy costs, supply chains and bleak company earnings forecasts may be pushing us towards stagflation anyway.
Across the Occidental Economy there seems a trend towards political failure as polarization, sleaze and opportunism takes hold, even as electorates suffer from increasing inequality and declining prospects. As the threat of post-pandemic inflation rises, the ingredients are all there for further instability and labour strife. It’s all happening as the geo-political spheres of influence between China and the West are being redrawn.
Markets anticipate the end of pandemic, but the news flow from India highlights ongoing global crisis and Covid is here for the long-term. The risk of political instability from failed Covid policies is high. In the UK, political instability could ratchet higher on the rising tide of Tory sleaze and Dominic Cummings taking his revenge cold.
The UK should be flying high on the success of the vaccination programme, government stimulus and the expectations of growth, but the negative news optics and an increasing sense of government mismanagement could unsettle recovery.
