Mike Newton was Conservative parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton West, and worked for the Bank of England during his career in the financial markets. 

This past week has seen the greatest level of financial market chaos in this country since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. This is partly the fault of the Iran war, but more broadly represents a massive political and economic policy failure on behalf of those who we trust to run the economy.

As a former Bank of England staffer, who was there at time of Eddie George and Mervyn King, I am mortified by the lack of a policy response.

The danger we face is serious and affects the stability of everyone’s finances: from you and me to the small businesses we use every day, and to the government. Anyone who borrows or wants to borrow is about to get much poorer. And lenders will worry if their loans are still ‘money good’.

This attitude leads to a credit crunch. Mortgages are being pulled by the bucketload. Private credit, where borrowers and lenders face each other directly to finance things like infrastructure and property, is in a huge mess. No one quite knows how much the banks are exposed to these risks. How long before there is a wider banking system problem?

Short-term interest rates have gone through the roof with Bank Rate hikes now being priced for the Bank of England this year and next with a 60 per cent chance of a 25bp (quarter of a percent) hike next month. 88bp (nearly a full percent) of hiking in Bank Rate is now priced for the full year.

The benchmark ten-year gilt, the price at which the Government borrows, has shot up to levels not seen since the height of the 2008 panic. It closed up nearly 20bp on Friday: a huge one day move.

While the Iran War has been the catalyst, the outcome has been significantly worse for Britain than in the US, Germany, Japan or even Italy and Spain, due to combination of short-term policy mistakes and the UK’s particularly weak fiscal foundations.

The main culprits here are the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Energy and the Bank of England. But also guilty are the enablers, the Labour backbenchers, willingly blind to the laws of economics in pursuit of open-ended public spending on their client vote. And Reform has gone along with this fashionable fiscal incontinence with its calls for unfunded tax cuts, welfare largesse and strategic stakes in industry.

So, what exactly has happened? I will keep it as readable as possible.

When the US and Israel attacked Iran, the price of oil and gas rose very rapidly. The UK is particularly dependent on energy imports, largely due to poor policy decisions which have been exacerbated by Ed Miliband’s political choices.

This has led to expectations that inflation would rise sharply, which caused what is known as ‘repricing’ in interest rate markets. Interest rates are usually thought of as a ‘curve’ with a different rate of interest for each time point being joined together to form on a graph what looks like a curve.

The ‘short end’ of the interest rate curve, which is the cost of borrowing for two years or less and is heavily affected by expectations of Bank of England policy, blew up as traders abandoned views that the Bank would cut and moved to price hikes for 2026 and 2027. This is a huge reversal and appears to have been also driven by a technical issue of traders being ‘caught short’ in the options market (more on this later as it is important).

The ‘long end’, which is the benchmark n-year gilt, hit levels on Friday not seen since 2008 at just shy of 5.00 per cent. This is very important as much corporate credit, home mortgages and of course government borrowing take the lead from this part of the curve.

So far, readers might wonder why I am blaming the Chancellor and the Bank of England for this? Isn’t it the fault of Mr Trump, Mr Netanyahu and the now departed Ayatollah?

Not really. That is just the catalyst. The Chancellor’s destruction of growth and wasteful spending has left the public finances on a weak footing. The OBR commented on this in its Spring Statement analysis noting the ‘structural vulnerabilities’ from the excessive tax and spend mix in the public finances.

I doubt whether the OBR thought these would be revealed quite so quickly. The Government has done nothing but tax and spend, and over-regulate, since it was elected and it is no surprise that the country is now skint and unable to cope with events several thousand miles away.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) is responsible for arranging the funding of UK government debt and in recent months decided to be ‘cute’ with the markets by moving more funding to the ‘short end’ where it was notionally cheaper to borrow. This looked like a clever wheeze at the time, designed to buy Reeves fiscal headroom.

However, this strategy was more dangerous than the DMO let on given that short-term debt by definition has to be rolled over sooner, and if interest rates are then higher, the taxpayer is on the hook to pay more, and more quickly. It was also reliant on the Bank of England cutting interest further: but the fact that the Bank is now priced for hikes means this particular stout party has collapsed. The Chancellor should never have agreed to such an ill-judged high-risk strategy, nor should officials have suggested it.

On Friday it was reported in The Times that Cabinet had discussed loosening the fiscal rules to allow it to spend more. This was a pointless thing to do anyway, going against a basic law of economics at a time when it was least appropriate to do so with gilts under huge pressure. It would be rather like turning on the taps when your house is flooding.

But the leaking of this discussion by a Cabinet member was irresponsibility of the highest order and almost treasonous for the impact it has had on the country’s ability to borrow money cheaply. It has cost taxpayers a huge amount of money because it pushed interest rates on gilts higher.

Furthermore, where has the economic leadership been during this? Has the Chancellor done anything to try and reassure the markets and public? If so, I must have missed it. Where is she when markets need her most? Why is the Energy Secretary not looking at temporary measures to boost the supply of ‘dirty energy’ from the North Sea? His views are one thing, and we must respect them as political opponents, but his inaction is unforgivable.

The Bank of England held its regular Monetary Policy Committee meeting last Thursday. It meets every six weeks to set interest rates and offer guidance to the market.

The meeting on Thursday was a disastrous failure of communication that frightened already scared markets further. Rather than take a very cautious approach to future decisions, the markets perceived the Governor and Committee to have done a full 180 degree turn from the previous meeting and started pushing interest rates higher, increasing market volatility.

It has also been suggested been suggested by some market participants that the Bank may have failed to appreciate the depth of the exposure of investors to the short-selling options strategy outlined above, which would be a major failure of supervision and surveillance if true.

Indeed, the Bank has form for missing these important technical details with the Liability Driven Investments (LDI) affair.

Last Saturday I was listening to Andrew Griffith MP talk to Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking podcast (outstanding advocacy for Thatcherite values by the way). The Shadow Secretary of State, speaking about his time as City Minister, made it clear that the Bank was not fully cognisant of the risks from LDIs, and needed private sector help before it got up to speed on this existential issue.

I remember similar being said after the collapse of Barings when I worked at the Bank. It will never learn unless it meets more regularly with practitioners and hires more people who understand the details of markets.

So, what is the Conservative response to all this?

Politically, we need to ensure that the guilty parties are held to account for the errors made so far, and in doing that be mindful of the fact that Labour cut us absolutely no slack whatsoever for the economic impact of the COVID and Ukraine shocks.

They have sown the wind and now must reap the whirlwind. Their failure to prepare and manage will likely lead to recession, and soon. And with gilt yields now way higher than when Liz Truss was PM, we have an opportunity to nail that tired piece of ‘whataboutery’ for ever. We should play the hardest of hardball politics with them.

Strategically, the case for fiscal consolidation and pro-growth deregulation is now stronger than ever. A higher bar for welfare, including a review of all expenditure including the Triple Lock, and repeal of anti-business measures such as the Employment Rights Bill must feature prominently. The public finances must be strengthened and hard decisions on priorities taken.

Policy coordination needs to be improved. The Bank of England must be more accountable and aligned with broader macroeconomic objectives. It needs to do its job better.

There is no alternative to the above measures. Under Kemi, the party has shown it is willing to go to the root of a problem and find solutions. These desperate economic circumstances require hard-edged small state policies. We can no longer afford to be stranded on the economic middle ground.

US president Donald Trump has begun deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to US airports to assist with security checks.

The news comes after a partial government shutdown caused major funding issues for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In turn, this has led to increasing waiting times at airport security checkpoints.

Tom Homan, Trump’s border tsar, told CNN that ICE is “helping TSA [Transportation Security Administration] do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick as they can while adhering to all the security guidelines and the protocols”.

Homan claimed ICE agents won’t be directly involved in passenger screenings.

Meanwhile, the TSA agent’s union hit back with a statement that staff:

deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents.

ICE: untrained, armed and dangerous

Showing his characteristic degree of professionalism, Trump first threatened to deploy ICE on Truth Social. On 21 March, he posted:

I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before.

The partial shutdown has dragged on because Trump has tied re-opening the DHS to the condition that Democrats sign off on his ludicrously-named ‘SAVE America Act’. Again on Truth Social, he wrote:

I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.

It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate, and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems (who are to blame for this mess!), a Five Billion Dollar cut in ICE funding, a deal which, even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people – UNLESS it includes their approval of Voter I.D., (with picture!), Citizenship to Vote, No Mail-In Voting (with exceptions), All Paper Ballots, No Men In Women’s Sports, and No Transgender MUTILIZATION [sic] of our precious children … In other words, lump everything together as one, and VOTE!!!

Advertisement

Because shutting down government departments to force the opposition party to pass a bill removing voting rights and trans rights definitely isn’t a clear sign of fascism.

Vote rigging

This move is a transparent attempt at vote rigging, as Trump himself has admitted. At a press conference on 9 March, he boasted:

They know if we get this, they probably won’t win an election for 50 years, maybe longer.

As such, it’s unsurprising that CNN has called the chance of the act passing “near-impossible”. Meanwhile, the DHS has received no funding since mid-February, resulting in the current TSA shortage.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents TSA workers, said:

Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe.

They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.

Here, Everett was presumably referring to the multiple high-profile murders carried out by ICE thugs. Likewise, whilst some TSA members are currently working for free, more than 400 have quit their jobs since the shutdown began.

‘The last thing that the American people need’

Homan is in talks with the DHS to determine ICE agents’ role in airport security. Reportedly, the current plan revolves around having ICE cover entry and exit points, freeing up TSA officers to conduct screenings.

Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader of the US House of representatives, also criticised the use of Trump’s armed militiamen as airport bouncers. He told CNN:

The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalise or in some instances, kill them. We’ve already seen how ICE conducts itself.

These are untrained individuals when it comes to doing the current job that they have, for the most part, let alone deploying them in close exposure in highly sensitive situations at airports across the country.

The US House of Representatives will break for Easter on 30 March, if all goes according to schedule. With no resolution in sight for Trump’s SAVE America Act, and ICE agents already deployed in US airports, the stalemate is set to get worse before it is brought to a close.

Featured image via The Guardian/ David Grunfeld/ AP

What is a dumpling lasagne?

How do you make a dumpling lasagne?

A stock market investor took to social media to share the vast benefits of renewable energy, namely solar panels. His electric bill dropped 71% in the week that began on 10 March compared to the same time last year. He is likely to save even more as fossil fuel prices surge because of the war on Iran, given gas largely sets the price of energy bills.

Two weeks ago we had solar panels and a battery fitted. We have just completed our first full week with the system.
Our electric bill for the week commencing 10th March 2026 compared to the same week last year has dropped by 71% from £31.71 to £9.05.

We also have not received… pic.twitter.com/lqRtuI35X5

— Justin Waite (@SharePickers) March 21, 2026

Solar panel scale across the country

The issue is low income people do not have the disposable cash to install a solar panel and battery system, which can cost £8,000 to above £14,000. And the Labour government is predominantly letting the market solve the energy and climate crisis, rather than taking an active and strategic state investment approach.

In Green party leader Zack Polanski’s first economic speech, he pointed to Spain as an example of a country that has “doubled” its renewable energy capacity:

Spain… has doubled its wind and solar capacities since 2019, taking it from having some of the highest energy bills in Europe to some of the lowest. Other countries have been able to learn the lessons from previous crises and prepare – why is our response so weak when disaster strikes?

Spain’s investment in renewables means that gas set the price of electricity just 15% of time, compared to 89% in Italy and around 66% of the time in the UK. The FT further notes:

Spain’s average electricity price for the remainder of this year is forecast at about €66 per megawatt hour, or half the level of Italy’s.

Going backwards?

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry and many politicians want to take us into the past with increased fossil fuel usage. Labour MP Henry Tufnell, writing in the Sun, called for ministers to scrap the ban on new North Sea drilling – over 90% of which has already been used up. He attempted to reverse reality, saying that the move away from fossil fuels is “impoverishing our communities”.

Big Oil has long propagandised against renewable energy, despite its own reports from 70 years ago predicting the dangers of climate change.

No-brainer

While the war on Iran is a catastrophe, it is highlighting the benefits of renewable energy.

In 50 years burning fossil fuels will be looked on as being as ridiculous as burning candles for light is now.

It is stone age technology, expensive, polluting and inefficient.

— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) March 22, 2026

Quite.

Featured image via the Canary

High Court, 1998: Naz Shah and her sister Fozia protest against their mother’s conviction for murder | Image by: : PA Images / Alamy

3 min read1 hr

A fearless memoir of survival, Honoured is both painful and inspiring. Naz Shah recounts her life with unflinching honesty, a witness to her father’s violence towards her mother, enduring his abandonment, and being taken out of school aged 12 and sent to Pakistan. She shares her experiences of living in Pakistan, including only being allowed to return after being forced into marriage at 15.

Back in the UK, as education was no longer an option, she ends up working in a factory packing nappies. Just as adulthood seemed to offer some relief, she experienced more trauma. Her mother Zoora was arrested for killing the man Naz had believed to be a trusted uncle. Convicted and sentenced to 20 years, Zoora’s imprisonment shocked Naz. She had been unaware that he had been physically and sexually abusing her mother for many years. Naz writes with raw honesty about how, as a child, she had even questioned her mother’s character, not realising that Zoora had endured so much to protect her children, even sending Naz to Pakistan to protect her from being exploited too.

Through these memories, the weight of abuse and societal shame becomes clear. Her mother carried the blame, while those responsible were often protected by silence. Shah explores how honour, or izzat, shaped their lives: how shame silenced her mother, how single mothers were judged unfairly, and how coercive control – unrecognised at the time – governed women’s lives.

Honoured is not just a story of trauma  but a story of resilience, faith, activism, and triumph

She also reflects on her own lack of agency in her first marriage: “When I first went to Pakistan, there was a list of things I couldn’t do because I didn’t have a father. I was returning to the UK with the same lack of control, only now I belonged to a man who had power of veto over my life. My existence was once again defined by a man.”

Forced to grow up quickly, Naz recounts shouldering parental responsibility for her younger siblings while navigating a marriage she never wanted. She confronts her darkest moments with unflinching honesty, including her suicide attempts. Amid this turmoil, she campaigned relentlessly to reduce her mother’s prison sentence – a campaign she ultimately won. Early in her efforts, she sought support from then long-serving Labour MP Marsha Singh, never imagining that one day she would rise from hardship to occupy his seat as the MP for Bradford West.

Honoured is not just a story of trauma  but a story of resilience, faith, activism, and triumph. Naz’s Islamic faith provided a quiet anchor through her hardships, and her grit propelled her to a remarkable political victory, defeating George Galloway in the 2015 general election despite his aggressive campaigning. The book begins on the eve of that election, marking the start of a new chapter in her life.

Naz’s experiences continue to fuel her politics. The same fire that helped her survive childhood drives her advocacy for vulnerable women, children, and families, especially those who, like her, feel abandoned or unheard. She confronts uncomfortable truths about abuse, honour culture, and the justice system, challenging readers to face these realities. Ultimately, Honoured is a story of transformation – showing how one life, forged in hardship, can ignite change for countless others.

Baroness Gohir is a Crossbench peer

Honoured: Survival, Strength and My Path to Politics

By: Naz Shah

Publisher: W&N

In an interview with Green Party leader Zack Polanski, BBC presenter Nick Robinson insisted on amplifying the voice of genocidaires and genocide-deniers. He even claimed it’s the BBC‘s job to do so.

With the overwhelming weight of expert opinion calling Israel’s mass murder in Gaza genocide, however, people expressed serious concern about the BBC still clinging to its longstanding efforts to downplay the genocide.

BBC wants to be “fair” to the people committing genocide

In the interview, Robinson interrupted Polanski to say:

I don’t want to have a debate about the word, but I do want it noted that no court has said it’s genocide and Israel completely rejects the idea it’s genocide.

Criticising the BBC‘s pro-Israel bias in 2025, actor Liam Cunningham asked:

Are we saying, due to impartiality, that if this was 1944 or 1945 when we discovered the horrors of Auschwitz, would we be contacting Heinrich Himmler for his take on the genocide? Because that’s what’s going on now.

Fast-forwarding to 2026, Robinson did just that. Because after emphasising the genocidaires’ denial, he insisted:

it’s only fair to point that out.

And when Polanski challenged him on X after the interview, Robinson doubled down:

Simple answer Zack. Our job is to report. We interview you & those you quote who use the word genocide. We do the same for those who disagree. We also report that no international court has yet made a judgment. Nor has the UN. That’s not me or the BBC taking sides or downplaying…

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) March 22, 2026

Hi @bbcnickrobinson, you said “Nor has the UN made a judgment” but on the 16th of September 2025 the UN made a judgment (see below). I trust you’ll have the integrity to acknowledge your honest oversight to @ZackPolanski & BBC licence fee payers.

Source: https://t.co/yBkL6cU3VZ https://t.co/3aldaJ8H1x pic.twitter.com/uzcvSYGgK0

Advertisement

— Ben Goren (@BanGaoRen) March 23, 2026

As the Canary has documented in depth, UN legal expert Francesca Albanese absolutely has called Israel’s actions genocide, as has the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Countless genocide scholars, legal professionals, human rights groups, and humanitarian organisations have joined them. Even prominent Israeli genocide scholars have reached the conclusion that Israel has committed genocide. And a Dutch media report summarised that “leading genocide researchers are surprisingly unanimous”.

This overwhelming consensus is why so many people are sick of BBC figures trying to explain away their shocking ‘both sides‘ approach to genocide:

When the overwhelming body of experts describe it as genocide, and you still disagree, this is making a judgement. The BBC would not deny climate change. Nearly every major human rights and academic experts on genocide have determined Israel has carried out genocide.

— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) March 22, 2026

You’re wrong on the UN. The UN Commission concluded in their report in September 2025 that Israel has committed genocide. You should not only know this, you should state this every time the issue arises.

https://t.co/iUD5AUgWlG

— Omar Baggili 💙 (@OmarBaggili) March 23, 2026

Balance, Nick. Please.
We’ve have been here before on climate change denial. pic.twitter.com/4ChWfVTFuP

— Mick ☕️🍉 (@MickCoffey2) March 23, 2026

Advertisement

Giving genocidal allies an equal say is complicity

Genocide expert Martin Shaw has previously called media outlets avoiding the word genocide “tame“. And he highlighted that the BBC has hardly been rushing to amplify his voice, saying:

But Nick you don’t “interview those who use the word genocide”. I’m one of the most prominent British genocide scholars and I called Israel’s genocide in October 2023. I’ve had a lot of international media attention but my BBC total in 30 months is one interview on Radio Ulster.

He also suggested that the BBC probably wouldn’t jump to highlight the voices of genocidaires in other cases:

This. Even in his interview with @ZackPolanski, @bbcnickrobinson had to say ‘but Israel says’.

I don’t think he would have said ‘but the Myanmar government says’ if Zack had referred to the genocide of the Rohingya. https://t.co/isUZQCdcb0

— Martin Shaw (@martinshawx) March 23, 2026

Advertisement

A terrible betrayal of journalistic standards & duty of BBC @bbcnickrobinson

Genocide Convention 1948 is designed to stop genocides. Not for the world to wait for a final court judgement

The evidence of a genocide in Gaza is conclusive

BBC is protecting Israel, the… https://t.co/tRRP0mQGSm

— Tom London (@TomLondon6) March 22, 2026

Advertisement

And as experts have highlighted, genocidal campaigns would struggle to get off the ground without favourable media coverage:

From the Gaza Tribunal, which of course the BBC completely ignored.

Genocide denial is ALWAYS a part of genocide. https://t.co/ifRPWmxYpZ pic.twitter.com/kFGfJkHUnP

— Wokerati Marty (@WokeratiMarty) March 23, 2026

Polanski: “it feels like it’s getting a lot worse”

Polanski, meanwhile, shared a speech that he thinks is appropriate to consider:

whenever a BBC journalist denies the evidence in front of our very eyes in the name of “balance.”

The speaker was former BBC presenter Emily Maitlis, who spoke about the famous ‘boiling frog’ scenario, where a frog will jump out of already boiling water but stay in water that gradually boils around it. She said:

we have to stop normalizing the absurd.

And in a critique of the kinds of attitude that lead the BBC to both-sides genocide, she explained that:

we don’t have to be campaigners, but nor should we be complacent, complicit onlookers. Our job is to make sense of what we’re seeing and anticipate the next move. It’s the moment, in other words, that frog should be leaping out of the boiling water and phoning all its friends to warn them. But by then, we’re so far along the path of passivity, we’re cooked.

The BBC has a history too. In the past, for example, the broadcaster’s director of news and current affairs had to admit that its climate-change coverage was “wrong too often”, insisting that:

You do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate.

The speech from Maitlis, Polanski said, “should have been a turning point”. Instead, he stressed:

it feels like it’s getting a lot worse

And it really is hard to get much worse than constantly straining to emphasise the denial of genocidaires when experts overwhelmingly conclude they’ve been committing genocide. We know the BBC is state propaganda. But this is just nauseating.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/BBC Politics