Merryn Somerset Webb

And there's also a very interesting conversation to be had around that, whether that's to do with effectively the UK being on the edge of a recession or whether it's to do with AI.

I suspect the former, but I know a lot of other people think the other.

And the final thing that has happened recently out this week is there's some news that the UK budget deficit is slightly lower than you might have expected at a three year low.

And again, that sounds good, but it's worth remembering that we still do have a whopping great deficit and the debt is still building.

And that that fall in borrowing is presumably connected to the sharp rise in taxes, which may still have a laugher reaction over the next few years.

When you put up taxes initially, you normally get a revenue bounce.

But then people adjust their behavior and that revenue bounce mildly disappears.

Anyway, nonetheless, if you wanted to, you could have a go at dragging some sparkle out of these three things.

Yeah, I mean, this is, I was going to say people hate inflation, but one thing that's really, really difficult is general inflation combined with falling house prices.

That's very hard for a lot of Brits.

Tough gig.

Yes.

Yeah, so it is interesting.

We've got an interview coming out with Andy Haldane soon, who used to be the economist at Bank of England.

And one of the things that we talk about in that is something that we've talked about, I think, with Russell Napier and other people previously, which is about how household balance sheets are in really good shape.

The UK household sector was really deleveraged over the last decade.

And were they to feel confident, a lot of good economic stuff could happen in the UK, but they really, really don't.

Okay, so that's that bit of misery.

So much for optimism.

Thanks for that, John.