Anna Macdonald

@ShippersUnbound Surely it’s time for a mangling of the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Go Wes, where the skies are blue’

The future Lord Ward shows that personal loyalty still counts in politics

Why great management matters more than market noise hl.co.uk/news/why-great… my debut column for @HLInvest

@russellcrowe Master and Commander is my all time favourite film. I wish there were sequels…. So much more material in the novels!

Nice article that I missed when it came out. One writer, Luke Buckmaster’s opinion, but, he does give some solid reasoning. As I get older, I am humbled that someone would even think to write an article like this. Russell Crowe’s 20 best roles – sorted! theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/…

@geoffaberdein Hard agree!

Severity of crisis befalling us is result of many years of soundbite cross-party political posturing - ignorant of reality of UK’s energy system & supporting critical infrastructure. Renewables central to future but oil & gas has & remains bedrock to sustain security of supply.

@Arfxyz @BBCBusiness @SallyBundockBBC Yes, all good. Thank you Arthur.

Good morning @_Anna_Macdonald and thank you for your early report and analysis on @BBCBusiness with @SallyBundockBBC I hope all is well with you.

@Amelia558rs Elspeth

Vintage old lady name for this DOG please

@MerrynSW I’m curious about why you are asking?

Burlesque. This is just soft porn right? Or am I missing something?

@jonburkeUK @Frencheconomics This fall is because of punitive taxes and a changing capital allowance regime. Norway is expanding its exploration of the North Sea. The oil *is* there And how do you replace all the downstream products of oil (about 20m bpd used for this)

@Frencheconomics Sorry Simon, even with new licences, the output of North Sea oil and gas, which peaked in 1999, is still expected to fall by 95% between now and 2050. The only route to British energy independence is via domestic renewables, and greater integration into European power markets.

UK electricity generation has fallen 25% from its peak in 2004. Per capita electricity consumption is a third the level of the United States. The UK has the most costly electricity in the world. Half the gas we consume comes from the Norwegian side of the North Sea basin. The residual imported LNG has 4x the carbon footprint of supplying our own. And most depressingly of all the result is a deteriorating UK Balance of Payments, a weaker pound, and a bigger hit to the cost of living. And still the useful idiots want to further constrain UK energy production through high taxes, banning new licences, and gold-plating new energy infrastructure. Their luxury beliefs are behind the awful household disposable income growth of recent years. 🤡.

@alexmassie Excellent article. I was on the BBC Sunday Politics show with John Swinney just ahead of the 2024 General Election. We talked about how the Westminster parties weren't facing up to the IFS flagged 'black hole'... ironic he doesn't feel the same way now...

The Scottish government is running out of money. This is the only issue that really counts in the Holyrood election campaign. No wonder nobody wants to talk about it. thetimes.com/article/31e767…

@TimHarford I think it's an interesting argument, but perhaps worth considering that 1950-2000 really was a statistical anomaly, for the 250 years before 1950 growth was around 1% pa.

My vote for the most prescient book of the century so far... as.ft.com/r/c6183d98-6a8…

@SamCoatesSky If there was a sell-off there was a pretty quick rebound too. Although I agree that Burnham is not bond market friendly!

Someone on a trading floor just messaged “The Burnham angle to the Gwynne story was very interesting for markets as we saw a sudden sell off in GBP and gilts. Nothing huge in real terms but it certainly confirmed how the market would react to Burnham potentially having a pathway into Parliament and then putting in a leadership challenge. “The underlying political risk view for markets is that as bad as Starmer and Reeves may be, there's potentially something worse waiting in the wings, of which Burnham is but one.”

@Frencheconomics Completely agree Simon! Well said

This is a daft post from Labour, and follows on from similar claims from Conservatives pre-election. UK monetary policy has become increasingly coterminous to international monetary policy - as you would expect given highly integrated product & capital markets. Absolutely fine to celebrate the impact on household debt servicing costs (& the recent Budget avoided repeating the inflationary mistakes of Budget 2024), but to claim political credit for 150bp of rate cuts is either wilfully ignorant or plain ignorant.

@MerrynSW The think tank @enlighten_scot Commission for School Reform has SO much research on why this move by England would be a terrible idea.

Terrible idea!

@PJTheEconomist @BenZaranko And might also be inflationary. And huge unintended consequences they won’t have had time to properly examine and mitigate

Entirely agree with @BenZaranko Such an approach would be replete with economic risks, and would hardly be politically easy.

@SamCoatesSky £5b headroom won't be enough for markets. FGS, this is the third time in a row of an insufficient buffer! why don't they learn. ALSO the 'smorgarsbord' of taxes WILL have lots of unintended consequences and could well lead to embedded inflation.

Here's the thinking in the Treasury Over the last fortnight the forecasts have improved. They learnt early last week that some elements of the forecasts are better than expected - on wage levels and tax receipts. This partially offsets the productivity downgrade. Now the "black hole" left by policy u-turns and forecasts (including productivity downgrade ) is "closer to £20bn". But this EXCLUDES the need for more headroom (£5bn? there's no guidance) It will still be a tax raising budget - salary sacrifice schemes, thresholds, taxing electric vehicles. But not income tax as per reporting last night The 2 up 2 down income tax, national insurance switch would have raised £6bn but they are arguing now the black hole isn't bigger, this isn't needed. No final decisions have been made - that'll be the back end of next week

@Matt_Pinner Ishbel

Can someone suggest a super old-fashioned girl name Not Hazel.

@kevverage Did you see my appearance on the panel alongside with Dave Doogan on BBC Debate Night?

@_Anna_Macdonald tells us a lot about the way SNP MPs do their jobs

SNP MP here, baffled by the idea that the Secretary of State is on top of his brief and well prepared 🤦🏻‍♂️

@SamCoatesSky You’re missing the undershoot we are seeing in government tax receipts. Have you looked at Roger Guy’s work (economist at Cavebdish)? Also a £5-10b headroom is way too low (been part of the whole issue of last year)… used to be £20b plus

Budget 2026: what am I missing. What could be wrong here:

@iamdieforyouuu Pannacotta

You have to name him the last thing you ate