Former Bank of England chief economist warns of ‘more pain to come’ as rising mortgage costs and falling real wages – Business Live | Business

National Grid requires coal plants to heat if necessary

Jasper Jolly

of National grid He called on coal plants to heat up if necessary on Thursday amid the continued cold spell in the UK.

Two coal units in Drax, Yorkshire, and one in West Burton, Nottinghamshire, were asked to fire at midnight on Wednesday. The West Burton unit stopped at 5:13 a.m., but the Drax units continued to heat up, according to notifications sent to the industry.

National Grid has been active in balancing the UK’s energy supplies since the cold days.

This is the third time in the past week that the National Grid Electricity Supply Operator (ESO) has asked coal plants to heat up if necessary.

National Grid has been running its demand-side flexibility service for the first time outside of trial this month. The service pays households with smart meters for energy reductions, which help reduce peak demand, meaning there is less need to draw on more polluting energy sources when energy use increases in the evening. Some businesses are already paying to reduce energy use.

Former US President Donald Trump He is allowed to return Facebook And InstagramThe company behind social media platforms, Meta, said he would end the two-year ban on the bill. His Twitter The ban has already been lifted by the new owner of the company. Elon Musk.

The ban will end “in the coming weeks,” Meta said.

President of Metta World Affairs Nick Clegg (and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom), the review concluded that Trump no longer poses a significant threat to public safety. Clegg said the public “should be able to hear what their politicians have to say”.

Trump’s accounts were suspended in 2015. In January 2021, they urged their supporters on their social media accounts to infiltrate the US Capitol building and disrupt the confirmation process for the presidential election, after Joe Biden won the election.

In response to Meta’s decision, Trump said on his own social media company, Truth Social, on Wednesday that Facebook had “lost billions” after Facebook banned “the president I love.” He wrote: “Such a thing must never be retaliated against a president or anyone else!”

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, financial markets and the global economy.

Andy Haldane, former chief economist of the Bank of England, now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts and government adviser, predicted that real wages would fall again this year as higher mortgage costs continued. He also warned that the recent political turmoil was contributing to the UK’s poor economic performance. But with inflation at its peak, he said central banks could gradually raise rates and see “sparks of life in the economy”.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Haldane argued that the UK economy was less resilient to economic crises due to poor coordination between the public, private and charity sectors.

The devastating double whammy of first covid and the rising cost of living is causing huge amounts of financial stress for many businesses, many households and of course many charities.

We have spent a decade and a half adjusting for inflation in terms of wage increases. Last year we saw wage cuts and we will see the same thing happen again and this will cause great financial stress and indeed mental stress on many families, this is one result of lack of growth, or certainly we have seen anemic growth.

Asked whether political instability has contributed to the UK’s recent poor economic performance:

When you have ministerial merry-go-rounds, this increases the likelihood that actions will not be followed and programs that are not working. We are a little closer to sticking to that medium-term development plan in this country with any government and any minister.

Asked if the Bank of England regretted raising interest rates at the same time as high energy prices and inflation:

It’s painful and I fear more pain will come when those mortgage rates start hitting people’s bank accounts this year, rising from last year. I would prefer that the Bank and other central banks start their rate hikes a little earlier. That would help keep inflation down a bit and mean we wouldn’t have those rapid increases when the economy hits a slump. But in general, this global shock always causes a large amount of pain, including a large amount of pain.

I hope there is a good chance that central banks will be a little slower and not put too much of a brake on the recovery later this year after inflation has peaked. Some disruptions in the economy.

The Bank of Canada said yesterday that it would pause interest rates for the eighth time since raising them to 4.5%, and there is some hope that the US Federal Reserve may do the same.

The focus on the market today is US GDP data For the fourth quarter, economic growth is expected to slow down from 3.2% to 2.6% in the previous quarter.

Asian shares MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.9% for a fifth day, hitting a new seven-month high after falling back again. However, business was thin with Australia closed for a holiday and parts of Asia, including China, still celebrating the Lunar New Year. European markets It is expected to open higher than US GDP.

the agenda

• 9am GMT: Italian business and consumer confidence for January

• 11am GMT: UK CBI retail sales survey for Jan

• 1:30pm GMT: US Q4 GDP (estimate: 2.6%, previous: 3.2%)

• 1:30 PM GMT: US Durable Goods for Dec

• 1:30 pm GMT: US weekly jobless claims