Mansion messaging

Andy Haldane, the former chief economist of the Bank of England, does not fit the conventional profile of a heretic. Yet he is among the few big experts out there declaring himself optimistic about the UK's growth plans.

Addressing a meeting of the Arab Bankers Association in London last week, he pointed to Rachel Reeves' first appearance as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Mansion House speech on Thursday as a massive boost to the finance industry and investment.

Ms Reeves is expected to pitch “growth brought by unlocking private-sector investment, including in our financial services industry, and growth brought about by reform – both of our economy and of our public services”.

The Chancellor is also expected to highlight “the untapped potential we have here in Britain, the opportunities available that can be realised, the partnerships that can be forged, the wealth that can be created” as “the prize on offer”. This could include partnerships with economies in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the US.

But there is no talk from Ms Reeves of world-beating, large-scale digital, medical and science centres, Blackhurst writes. No power plants, either. Little in the way of creating. Nothing inspiring is in the pipeline.

France has les grands projets; in Britain, there is a plan to spend ￡100 million to create a tunnel to protect bats on the new, much-reduced HS2 rail line . At Mansion House, to mark the installation of a new lord mayor of London, Ms Reeves will change the rules on investing pensions but not say much about the purpose of her shake-up.

Put simply, Britain has stopped doing. While that is bad enough for a country once renowned for ambition, design and innovation, it fails to realise two things: major projects are an excellent, proven way of galvanising the economy, providing jobs across the supply chain as well as long-term improvement; and the UK is in grave danger of slipping behind the facilities provided by its peers, and in an increasingly competitive market for international investment such a backward step is deeply troubling.

Trench warfare (luxury edition)

I saw someone on the Tube last week in a new Burberry coat last week. I immediately tagged the man as a tourist. For a start he was wearing the obviously new overcoat and the weather didn't quite justify an elaborate swathing of gabardine.

None of that is Burberry's fault but might explain why its in a predicament. Tomorrow it is expected to say sales came in at about ￡1.1 billion for the first half, a fifth lower than for the same period last year. Meanwhile, the company is predicted to post a loss of about ￡45 million, compared to last year's interim profit of ￡225 million.

Burberry's shares have struggled of late, recently hitting lows not seen since 2009. However, rumours of a takeover boosted the share price earlier this month, as a report in the trade journal Miss Tweed claimed Moncler, the owner of Stone Island, was considering making a bid for the British company. It's been speculated that LVMH , a large shareholder in Moncler, was pressing for an offer to be made.

Jelena Sokolova, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said with Burberry's share price at its current level of around ￡8, Moncler would get a bargain, should a future bid be successful, given that Morningstar's fair value for Burberry is ￡13.30 a share.

“We believe there is about 70% upside to our fair value estimate for Burberry,” she commented. “We believe Burberry is taking the first steps in the right direction."

Spare a thought for....

The Cop29 proceedings in Baku, crucial events that will keep the world on track to meet the 1.5°C global warming cap.

He writes that a successful UN climate change summit would hand the world a trillion-dollar green war chest on the scale of the Marshall Plan, and put money aside to deal with catastrophes that can no longer be stopped.

Negotiators at the finance-focused Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan face the task of putting wars, economic strains and the incoming Donald Trump presidency aside to agree to a 197-country deal on funding the green agenda.