While the country waved the next generation off to start a new school year, the same old issues still loitered in the global playground.
The tedious game of moans between the US and China continues unabated. The trade stalemate was highlighted with mirrored tariffs, showing a much harder stance from China. This was highlighted with their refusal to acknowledge that talks were progressing, despite Trump’s tweet of having deep and meaningful telephone conversations.
When the deal is not going your way, the art is to find someone else to attack. So, Trump continued his open criticism of the Federal Reserve on Twitter, with their “tremendous lack of vision” and asked: “who is our bigger enemy? Jay Powell or President Xi?”
It is this political pressure that casts many doubts over the world’s most important central bank, which finds itself in detention for not having reduced interest rates quickly enough. The Federal Reserve meet next week, which will be monitored closely for their rhetoric as well as their actions.
However, the biggest playground skirmish was around Brexit. Reacting to the controversial plan to suspend Parliament, the rebel alliance forced through a bill requiring an extension of Article 50 until 31st January 2020 if a deal to exit the EU is not in place by 19th October 2019, ruling out the possibility of a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
As a result of voting against the government, 21 Conservative MPs have effectively made themselves ‘independent’ in the House of Commons. Such a weak government would normally result in an election, however there is no demand for an election before the bill to rule out a ‘no deal’ is enshrined in law.
All we know for sure, is that the process has much longer to run and a general election looks all but certain in the near term. All of which is having an adverse effect on the UK economy, which continues to weaken with uncertainty continuing to linger on the horizon.
So, we have all been given a new timetable to learn.
