An independent (financial adviser's) view

Maybe it’s the heat, but there was many a rant which I had to spike this week for fear of extending exponentially beyond my usual four articles and losing what audience interest I might still have. But I will just throw in, for interest: What happened to ￡350m a week for our NHS, look at the ambulance queues, why don't Thames Water sort out their own pipes before banning our hoses and isn’t the huge number of unfilled job vacancies an argument for more immigration? Anyway. I’m off to the Independent Republic of Cornwall (we can dream) for a few days, then it’s Bank Holiday so back, a calmer person, in a couple of weeks.

“TORY ‘BULL’ ON COST OF LIVING ‘NATIONAL CRISIS’ RISKS LIVES”

I have on occasions found MoneySavingExpert Martin Lewis a tad annoying, especially in his old ‘DIY and save yourself a tenner’ mode. He’s passionately bang-on-the-money, however, on the extreme effects our non-government’s lack of action will have this winter, when average energy costs will eat up at least half of the average state pension and ‘heating or eating’ will become a harsh reality for many. More dangerous is the lack of ideas (I don’t count ‘tax cuts’ as an idea) of any future leader of any party. Heard anything from Keir or Ed recently???I’d suggest Martin or Richard Walker (boss of Iceland) to take over but both are too sensible to want the job or pay cut, I’d guess.

“AMERICA’S JOBS BOOM ROLLS ON, FUELLING FEARS OF SUSTAINED INFLATION”

Full employment used to be a worthy goal. Surely if everyone who can work is working, we’d all be happier and tax cuts really would be a way to Level Up. In America, however, those that supposedly know are saying that more unemployment is needed to bring down inflation. The logic is that interest rate rises will make employers cut jobs, the non-working workers won’t have anything to spend and so prices will stop rising. ‘If it’s not hurting, it’s not working’ is fine if you’re well-paid, unlikely to be laid off without a big pay-off, and hearing it from your personal trainer. But not if you’re at the bottom of the pile and likely to be the first out, back-on-the-street Cannon Fodder once again.

“TWO THIRDS OF ADVISERS ‘CONCERNED’ OVER CLIENTS RISKING IMMINENT HMRC FINES”

Until now, you only had to tell the taxman you had money in a trust if there was tax to pay; in the same way you have a duty to tell him if you have any other income for which you might owe tax. Someone at HMRC had the bright idea that they should know about every trust, everywhere, just in case you might have got it wrong. And they want it all to be done online by 1st September. This is a huge and very fiddly exercise, which many won’t realise they have to undertake. There’s supposedly a ￡250 fine for those that don’t make the deadline. In the words of the Kaiser Chiefs, I predict a riot. Or at least, many a disgruntled trustee, who may not have even realised they were one!

"CALLS TO BRING BACK 110% LTV MORTGAGES IN DEPRIVED AREAS"

The average mortgage term is now 30 years, the only way the average loan needed to buy the average home can made be affordable to the average borrower. And here’s proof, were it needed, that things are about to go wrong again. Yes, those in the poorest areas aren’t likely to have deposits or funds to buy or do up the grotty properties they’re renting but encouraging them to with 110% mortgages (last offered by Northern Rock RIP in 2008) seems madness. Any slowdown, let alone recession, will first hit the jobs of those who can least afford to lose them. We’ll be back to the misery of negative equity, arrears and repossessions which were all supposed to be things of the past following the post-banking crisis ‘never again’ reforms. Full circle. Again.

I loved both ‘When God was a Rabbit’ and ‘Still Life’, so went for this, alas without hesitation. Set in Oxford (and not the posh part) between 1950 and the 90s, it’s the story of the 3-way love affair of Ellis, an artist made to be a Cowley car worker by his father; his childhood writer-friend Michael; and Ellis’s wife Annie. There’s tragedy, loneliness and quite a bit of explicit stuff, as it’s Michael and Ellis’s love which is the story’s focus. Maybe I expected too much, but despite the local and identifiable setting, it didn’t draw me in and I did not, this time, care enough about the characters to feel sad yet satisfied when I finished, as I did with 'Still Life'. Three stars from me.