Boris Johnson and Michael Gove stole our horse. They forced themselves into the leadership positions in the Leave campaign as a means to power for themselves. They decided the issues that the Leave campaign would fight on. In doing that – and mainly by conflating Brexit with the […]
I was delighted to read the article (more like a dissertation) called ‘The Great Game Will Never End: Why the Global Financial Crisis Is Bound to Be Repeated’ which was published in the Journal of Risk and Financial Management and written by my good friend Professor David Blake of the Finance Faculty, Bayes Business School, […]
Germany has been resistant to many measures of the European Central Bank, not least the size of its bond-buying programmes and its latest ‘Transmission Protection Mechanism’ approved at the main meeting of July 2022. The aim of the ‘TPM’ is to avoid ‘fragmentation’, meaning the yields on the bonds issued by some Eurozone member states […]
Two countries are currently in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism II – Bulgaria and Croatia. ERM II is the Euro waiting room. Croatia has now passed the tests to get on the plane – but should it pause and apply some tests to the Euro itself?
We recently ran some tests on the situation of its […]
I had the top ‘Reader’s Letter’ published by the Daily Telegraph on 9 June 2022, occasioned by an email to all Tory party members by the Supreme Leader, telling us all the things that weren’t in the 2019 Manifesto that were now going to happen, and avoiding mention of everything in that manifesto that was […]
The Queen’s Speech, delivered on 10 May 2022, promises legal protection for access to physical cash. The protection is to be afforded in a new Financial Services and Markets Bill (the ‘Bill’). One might be forgiven for believing that this will ensure economically viable and convenient […]
Balances of banks sitting in the Eurosystem and percentage of respective country’s GDP
As previously published by irefeurope.org but with more detail behind the numbers
The European Central Bank (ECB) held its latest Governing Council meeting on 14 April 2002 and issued its normal press release. It issued its longer ‘Combined monetary policy decisions and statement’. Finally […]
The subscribed and paid capital contributions of the 19 ESM members
This article was published for the first time on www.brexit-watch.org on 6th April 2022.
The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is the main Eurozone bailout fund should further members be unable to access capital markets directly: the ESM would finance the member state, as they have done […]
Government announcement of the Spring Statement CASHBACK
Mr Sunak’s Spring Statement was far less impressive than his rhetoric has made it appear. Once again a senior member of this administration reaches a Gold Standard in rhetoric, but at best a Bronze one in achievement. The claim does not stand up to examination that these were the […]
Original IREF article of 16 March 2022 accessed on 21 March 2022
The EU recently announced partial financial sanctions on Russia, designed to keep payments for energy moving. The EU accepted the contention – disproved below – that a bank either gets cut off from SWIFT, the global financial telecommunications network, completely or not at all. […]