The ongoing cost of living crisis and domestic politics have dominated the agenda this week in the UK.
The bunting from last weekend’s spectacular Platinum Jubilee Celebrations hadn’t even been packed away before the news was out that the Prime Minister would face a vote of no confidence on Monday. We discussed this in an article yesterday, so we won’t go into detail here. Needless to say, the fallout from this has been going on all week.
The biggest shock this week was in the form of fuel prices. On Wednesday, prices saw their biggest one-day hike since 2005. The price of fuel has been climbing and breaking new records every week, however this week it broke the new milestone of being £100 to fill up the average car in the UK. Analysts are suggesting that the average price of £2 a litre is now close (as for the first time we’ve now seen a UK forecourt charging this price, £2.02 in Twickenham.)
This week also saw news of new government plans to help extend home ownership. It came more in the form of allowing people to buy existing properties rather than building new homes.
Moving to currencies, despite some minor fluctuations, Sterling remains in a similar position against the Euro compared to this time last week. The picture is very similar when looking at the Sterling-Dollar pairing.
This week saw some big data be released from multiple different countries. In China, we saw CPI figures rise by 2.1%. In Australia we saw an Interest Rate rise, in Japan we saw GDP figures that were better than expected and in the EU we saw plans announced for an Interest Rate rise for the first time in over a decade.
Later on this afternoon we can expect to see CPI data out of the USA.
To finish on a lighter note, the popular TV show Neighbours, a staple of many a British home wrapped up its final scene after 37 years of filming. One of its most famous and surprising fans was none other than HM the Queen Mother!
