John Stepek

massively.

So it's a kind of short duration world and that's also reflected in the market's sense of visibility.

If you want to get highfalutin about it, otherwise you could just say, well actually nobody knows what's going to happen next, particularly whenever Trump or the Iranians can turn around and say something completely different from day to day.

So I just think the market's it's rational that the market's discounting ability has shrunk massively.

You can.

I mean, I'm...

I actually think the underlying strength of the UK economy is better than most people had thought.

And I've thought that for a while.

And I do think the biggest problem the UK has is the headwind from bad governance.

And it's been like that for a long time.

It's not just Labour's fault, but Labour have certainly kind of raised it to, you know, they're as bad as the previous lot, at least.

And so, you know, we've got, I mean, if you look at the PMIs came out today, so they're snapshots of activity and services and manufacturing industries, much, much better than expected.

And these are for April.

Now, part of that is probably, you know,

companies kind of stocking up ahead knowing that things are going pear-shaped in the middle east but the point is that none of these economic figures by themselves or and certainly not taken together point to an economy that is in like massive distress

But the sentiment indicators are just off the charts bad.

We saw an Ipsos consumer confidence reading yesterday that shows that people are gloomier than they were ahead of 2008 and in 1979 of all times.

So there's a bit of a weird disconnect which I think is probably driven by people hating inflation.

I think inflation is probably the big driver of most people's misery because everyone feels poorer and feels that they're being ripped off and doesn't see things getting any better.

But yeah, the underlying economy is not too bad.