British borrowing costs remain elevated since Burnham’s first comments as PM yesterday. Healey was firehosing last night and this morning…
After Burnham said he would use all “flexibility” possible in the so-called fiscal rules, UK 10-year gilt yields closed eight basis points higher at 5.03% at the end of the day. The 30-year rate also rose by nine points to 5.75%. They only dropped a bit after Healey was announced instead of Mahmood or Miliband…
Andy Burnham’s first spending pledge – to lift VAT on electricity bills – was shot down by ex-Chief Secretary to the PM Darren Jones, who specified this morning that the Digital ID scheme scrapped to fund it was itself unfunded. Kapow…
Amid the US-Iran situation oil prices by more than 2% and international borrowing costs followed. The 10-year yield on Treasury bonds briefly hit 4.640%, its highest level since 20 May. For those who said Burnham is lucky the war is over…
Today 10-year yields have risen above yesterday’s peak to 5.065% and are now hovering at 5.05%, still above Monday. 30-year yields have risen again to a peak of 5.774%. Borrowing – of which there will be more under Andy – is getting even more expensive…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”