For my money, what’s left of it, the optic of last week has to be this one: hedge fund managers cheering Friday’s budget measures, while betting like fury on the pound getting smashed. Which it has.
We read that the hedgies and other formerly disgruntled Tory donors are anteing up with party donations in support of policies that should make them richer.
And shorting the pound in case the policies don’t work. Well, they are hedge funds.
This must be at least mildly awkward for Kwasi Kwarteng, already getting called Kami-Kwasi.
On the falls in the pound, the chancellor says he can’t discuss market movements.
Of course he can. He means, they are presently such an embarrassment, he’d rather not.
What was striking to me last week was the arch Tories distancing themselves from the budget and the wider philosophy behind it.
I asked one City Tory: what have your lot gone and done now? “They are no longer my lot,” came the reply.
The Sunday Times had an unnamed Tory MP saying of the budget, “everyone who isn’t mad hates it”.
Kwarteng insists his tax cuts are not a gamble, but surely knows that they are.
Let’s take them on that level.
It might work. It might provide enough of a temporary boom to see a recession is averted. At that point, maybe the pound recovers. And maybe the bond markets are no meaner to us than to everyone else.
They get away with it. Champers all round.
In that spirit, a nag called Seven for a Pound is in the 4.20pm at Newcastle this afternoon. The horse had to change its name from Ten For A Pound to reflect inflation. It has won twice in 29 outings. Worth a shot I hear.
