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It’s predictions season again. Along with sickly tepid mulled wine and soggy mince pies, a recurring feature of this time of year is investment bank analysts’ annual outlooks. These are all about marketing, not forecasting. Analysts tend to miss important events (the entire economics establishment failed to see the global financial crisis coming, remember) and often bunch together around a consensus that turns out to be way off: nobody ever got fired for being just one of many who got it wrong. “All intelligent investing is value investing, acquiring more than you are paying for” Something for everyone This year, interestingly, we seem to have avoided “soporific sameness”, as The Economist points out. Instead, the macroeconomic overviews are so different that there is something for everyone. Goldman Sachs thinks the…

“The Magnificent Seven stocks – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – are carrying the stockmarket this year... The average return for the Magnificent Seven this year is a gain of 105%... The average [return] of the remaining stocks in the S&P 500... in 2023 [is] just 4%... you should... become comfortable with returns being concentrated in a handful of stocks...... just 86 stocks accounted for half of all wealth creation in the US stockmarket going back to 1926... Nearly 60% of stocks failed to beat [cash]... over their lives... 55% of all stocks are losers over ten-year time frames, on average... The problem with trying to outperform through concentration is the probabilities are stacked against you.... Diversification... increases your return... by giving you more opportunity to own…

Shares in budget carrier EasyJet rose by almost 4% after it produced an annual profit, thanks to a jump in demand for travel, says Leke Oso Alabi in the Financial Times. With revenue up by 42% to £8.2bn in the 12 months of September, the company made a pre-tax profit of £455m, compared with a loss of £178m last year. EasyJet also confirmed that it would become one of the first big European airlines to announce the resumption of dividends. While warning that early winter results for its 2024 fiscal year would be affected by geopolitical events, it thinks bookings have “started to come back quite significantly”. Early data seems to support EasyJet’s conviction that “households will continue to prioritise travel in the new financial year”, though this could quickly…

Around 80% of Germany’s companies consider the public sector sluggish, says WirtschaftsWoche. And no wonder, given that it still uses faxes. It’s high time the state was digitised. Enter Bechtle, Germany’s biggest independent supplier of IT systems and services. Large firms and the public sector continue to invest in IT infrastructure, although small and medium-sized enterprises remain hesitant for now, given the shaky economic backdrop. In the first nine months of 2023, the group’s core IT infrastructure division, which comprises 70% of revenue, grew sales and pre-tax profits by a respective 6.3% and 6.6% to €4.3bn and €251m.…

Politics & economics The Office for National Statistics reports that net migration rose 672,000 in the year to June, and has also revised last year’s figures up by a “staggering 140,000” to 745,000, a record high, says Kate Andrews in The Spectator. Both the Tories and Labour are now committed to “reducing levels of legal migration”. The difficulty is identifying who shouldn’t be here. The 240,000 who have arrived on humanitarian visas in the past two years? Or the 519,000 students who arrived in that period and have contributed an estimated £40bn to the economy? The 161,000 legal refugees? What of the 335,000 work visas issued in the year to September, many to much-needed healthcare workers? Indeed, perhaps the most persuasive argument against net migration” has nothing to do…

The chancellor’s Autumn Statement may have given the Conservatives a small boost in the polls, but it seems to have done little to convince punters that prime minister Rishi Sunak will manage to pull off a John Major-style upset. With £2.01m matched on Betfair, Labour is favourite to win most seats at 1.16 (86.2%), with the Conservatives at 7.2 (13.8%) and the Liberal Democrats at 320 (0.31%). Punters on Smarkets are only slightly less emphatic about the chances of an outright Labour majority, which they put at 1.32 (75.7%), compared with a hung parliament at 5.2 (19.2%) and a Conservative majority at 12 (8.3%). I’ve previously tipped Labour to get the most seats and an overall majority, and recent events have only strengthened my conviction. It’s not just the huge…

Under the swashbuckling leadership of its founder Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis was one of the dazzling successes of the London stockmarket over the last decade, and proof, if you wished to look at it that way, that for all its current problems, the City was still good at financial innovation. A hugely successful former music industry executive, Mercuriadis teamed up with songwriter and performer Nile Rodgers – one of the leaders of Chic, and a collaborator with David Bowie and Madonna – to raise a fund that would acquire the rights to song catalogues. With an initial £300m, over the next few years it raised more than £1bn from investors, and used the money to buy the catalogues of Fleetwood Mac stars Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie, Blondie, 10cc, the Red…

Investors will often want to know how closely the returns from a fund or portfolio follow a benchmark index (such as the FTSE 100 or the S&P 500). In some cases, they want to make sure that an index fund is matching its benchmark. Alternatively, they may want to check that the manager of an actively managed fund is trying to run the fund in a way that can produce returns that are different from the benchmark, rather than following it too closely (known as index hugging or closet tracking). Tracking difference is one way to look at this. It refers to the difference between the return on the index and the return of the fund over a set period of time. So if an index rises 7% and the…

“My most extravagant purchase ever was a Rolls-Royce, during the height of Dynasty. I was driving a nice BMW and Roger Moore said: ‘Oh, you can’t drive a BMW.’ He had a Bentley, and I said: ‘I don’t like Bentleys, I prefer a Rolls.’ So I have this Rolls and called her Beryl, because I really love her. I still have her, she lives in LA.” Joan Collins (pictured), quoted in the Evening Standard “The main preoccupation of politicians is what taxes look like, not what they actually do.” Mark Littlewood, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, quoted in The Telegraph “The tax burden is rising? Yep. Primarily because of the bill from all the money spent on Covid. Spending which people demanded at the time.…

economist.com/1843 “Passive aggression is the surreptitious, indirect and often insidious means by which we express antagonism or noncompliance while ensuring the plausible deniability of any such intentions,” says Josh Cohen. Herman Melville’s character Bartleby, who responded to requests from his employer with: “I would prefer not to”, is a classic example. It can happen at home and in personal relationships, but is especially common in the office, where more direct expressions of frustration and resentment are considered unprofessional. “In the mass of your requests, it got forgotten.” “Your presentation was surprisingly good.” “I’m sorry you feel that way.” But passive aggression “is lurking in all of us”. When anger and aggression are outlawed, they seek an outlet by other means. It is best thought of as a form of self-assertion.…

■ The average discount to net asset value (NAV) across the investment-trust sector is 13.4%, says The Telegraph. That’s not far off the 17.7% seen during the financial crisis. So what should investors snap up now? In the equity growth subsector, consider Scottish Mortgage. Boasting “a distinctive and consistent approach”, Scottish Mortgage takes stakes in promising unlisted companies, such as battery maker Northvolt and TikTok’s owner ByteDance. It currently trades at a 13% discount to NAV, yet has often sold at a premium in the past. For exposure to US equities, Bill Ackman’s fund Pershing Square Holdings is worth a look. It trades at a 34% discount to NAV despite outperforming the US stockmarket over the past three and five years. On the equity-income front, the Aberforth Smaller Companies Trust…

● Data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that the percentage of new staff opting out of saving into their work pension scheme has soared by 56% since 2020, says Lily Russell-Jones in The Sunday Times. In January 2020 7.5% of new workers decided not to join their scheme. That figure had risen to 11.79% in July 2023. “People have decided to opt out... to make sure that they have financial stability now,” Myron Jobson from Interactive Investor told the paper. “But that could have dire consequences for their financial stability when they come to retire and that is a worry.” Opting out of pension contributions for three years at 22 could mean you end up with £36,000 less when you retire, according to Standard Life. ●…

● More than one in eight small businesses have missed deadlines for settling their tax bills, potentially leading to fines and penalties that could substantially increase their costs. A survey from Premium Credit suggests as many as 660,000 small businesses have missed the deadlines to pay corporation tax, VAT and other taxes in the past 12 months. Different penalties apply in each case, but range from £100-a-day fines for late payment of corporation tax to a 15% surcharge on VAT paid late. ● Planning to reward your staff this Christmas? If so, make sure you don’t land them – and the business – with an unwanted tax bill. Under HMRC’s rules, Christmas gifts to staff are taxable at normal income tax and national-insurance contribution rates if they exceed £50 per…

In 1974, the Ford Cortina was the UK’s most popular car and Leeds United topped the First Division. It was also the year in which the directors of the Murray Income Trust decided to increase the full-year dividend from just under to just over half a penny. This year Murray Income celebrated its 100th anniversary and its 50th consecutive annual dividend increase, paying a total dividend of 37.5p to its shareholders (representing a healthy compound annual growth rate throughout the period of 9.15%). The longevity of Murray Income’s dividend record can be explained by three factors. The structure of investment trusts, with revenue reserves, has helped to smooth income, and the strength of overseas currencies have helped with a dividend paid in sterling. But to my mind the overarching reason…

The duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall – two vast land and property portfolios that exist to raise private income for the monarch and heir respectively – have been receiving money from those who have died without heirs or wills in territories linked to the two royal estates. Both duchies have longed claimed that the bona vacantia funds are donated to charity. In truth, they are “secretly… used to finance the renovation of properties... owned by the King and rented out... for profit”, says The Guardian. The amount collected by the Duchy of Lancaster is, on average, £12,000 per estate, but up to £1.2m has been collected in the past. In other parts of the country, assets are claimed by the Treasury. “[He] would turn in his grave if he knew,”…

Do “investors have the recall capacity of goldfish”? asks Buttonwood in The Economist. In March, Swiss regulators wiped out $17bn of additional tier 1 (AT1) bonds in failed bank Credit Suisse. AT1 bonds were created after the financial crisis as a way to augment banks’ capital buffers, says Miriam Mukuru in The Wall Street Journal. The idea was that if a bank sustained steep losses, then AT1 investors would take the hit (via the bonds effectively being written off) rather than taxpayers. In return, AT1 bondholders received higher yields. While riskier than normal bonds, AT1 investors were still assumed to rank higher than shareholders, who are the first to be wiped out when a business goes bust. Yet the haphazard and legally complex rescue of Credit Suisse inverted that creditor…

It has been a year to remember for Japanese stocks, with the Topix index climbing by 27% and the Nikkei 225 index up 30%. A slide in the yen makes the gain appear less impressive in sterling terms, with the London-listed iShares’ MSCI Japan fund climbing 7% for the year-to-date, still easily beating the FTSE 100. The Nikkei index reached an all-time high above 38,900 points in late 1989. It has never regained that level over Japan’s ensuing “lost decades”, but since late 2012 it has been making steady progress thanks to corporate reforms. On 20 November, the Nikkei hit a new 33-year high at 33,853, the highest level since March 1990, but still more than 10% short of the 1989 peak.…

Shareholders in electronic-products giant Foxconn Technology may be relieved that billionaire founder Terry Gou has put his “pursuit of Taiwan’s most-powerful job” on hold, say Debby Wu and Betty Hou on Bloomberg – he has pulled out of a run at Taiwan’s presidency. Gou ‘s platform of “pursuing peace talks with China and acting as a key intermediary between Washington and Beijing” cut no ice with the electorate. His campaign became mired in allegations of offering cash for signatures. It also seems to have put the company in Beijing’s cross hairs, with the Chinese government launching a “surprise investigation” into the Apple supplier after Gou declared “he would not bow to Chinese threats”. Beijing was angered by what many critics saw as “a ploy to divide opposition votes and give…

Luxury shoemaker Golden Goose is contemplating an initial public offering (IPO) on the Milan stock exchange, says Bloomberg. The group’s signature $600 trainers, which “feature weather-beaten designs with a large star”, have become a fashion sensation, worn by celebrities including singers Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift. The firm is owned by private-equity group Permira, which acquired Golden Goose for €1.3bn in 2020 and had been considering a sale before exploring a flotation. Investment bankers have reportedly been pitching to the group wearing the trainers. They are touting potential valuations of between $3bn and $4bn.…

● Rightmove, the UK’s largest website for property sales and rental, has built “a fortress rivals have struggled to breach”, says Lex in the Financial Times. This week, it delivered a strong trading update, with average revenue per advertiser up by a tenth, year on year. Yet investors will have two main worries. First, its pool of estate-agent advertisers has stopped expanding: it will need to invest more into areas such as marketing for mortgage brokers and commercial real estate to keep growing. That may dent its “remarkable profitability” (an operating margin of almost 73%), as well as potentially reducing investor payouts. Second, it may face tougher competition: US property data group CoStar is buying rival OnTheMarket. After a steady decline in its valuation since 2020, Rightmove appeals to value…

Mid- and small-cap British stocks have been “incredibly weak” over the past couple of years, says Mark Slater, who has been running the £700m Slater Growth fund since 2005. While rising interest rates were a natural trigger for stocks to underperform, it’s surprising that the UK has been so badly affected by the shift in monetary policy, he tells Interactive Investor. Other parts of the market seemed much more at risk. “These companies, which you see in the United States on 50 or 100 times revenue, which don’t make any money and won’t make money for years – the idea that those would be destroyed price-wise wouldn’t be surprising,” he says. Yet US equities have continued to do well, while money has flowed out of UK assets. “The US has…

collabfund.com/blog Germany’s military machine was wiped out in World War I, says Morgan Housel, which is exactly why it became as strong as it did in the 1930s. When you wipe the slate clean, you can replace everything with the best available, rather than clinging onto the old till it’s worn out. This lesson applies more generally. “Zero-based budgeting”, for example, is the idea that each year’s budget should be created from scratch rather than using the previous year’s as a baseline. It’s an idea investors can benefit from, too. How many of us, if given a blank slate, would create an identical portfolio to the one we have now? Many of us would do something completely different, but we don’t because we’re burdened with our past decisions and, like…

Biosphere 2 is a research facility in the Arizona desert. It was designed as a closed environment to test whether humans could create self-sustaining colonies in outer space. It revealed some unexpected results. For example, trees in Biosphere 2’s 7.2 million cubic feet of sealed greenhouses grew unnaturally fast, but collapsed before maturity. Eventually, the scientists realised that, without the wind and the elements, the trees failed to develop the stress wood and deep-root systems that make them resilient in the wild. Unnatural environmental stability was breeding instability. Biosphere 2’s completion in 1991 also coincided with the end of the Cold War, which helped usher in a period of historically unprecedented peace, stability and prosperity for the world. A powerful confluence of mega trends created a three decade-plus era of…

From next April, individual savings accounts (Isas), the popular savings products, will undergo a number of changes. At present you can hold lots of different Isa accounts, but you can only pay into one of each type every financial year. So, you may have several cash Isas that you’ve opened over the years, but you can only deposit into one of them each year. From April you can deposit money into multiple Isas. “This will make things simpler,” says Helen Knapman at MoneySavingExpert. “Cash savers will be able to open multiple new cash Isas as new deals with higher interest rates become available, while investors will more easily be able to try out different stocks-and-shares Isa providers.” New rules from April will also allow you to make partial transfers between…

Small businesses hoping for extra support from last week’s Autumn Statement may have been disappointed. While the Chancellor unveiled several eye-catching initiatives, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be forgiven for feeling underwhelmed. Take “full expensing”, the Chancellor’s centre-piece announcement. It makes permanent a tax break that enables SMEs to claw back 25p of corporation tax for every £1 they invest in areas such as IT, machinery and equipment, by deducting the cost of these items from the profits they declare to HM Revenue & Customs. That sounds generous, but most small businesses won’t make use of full expensing. That’s because there is already an annual investment allowance that offers exactly the same benefits on investment of up to £1m a year – more than most SMEs are likely to…

Investing in healthcare providers makes sense. People are living longer and need more support. The elderly are an increasingly influential demographic group of voters in many countries, and they are demanding that more is spent on their health. How healthcare is provided can vary significantly. In the US, however, companies are at the forefront of delivery, with government support for the over-65s through a health benefits programme called Medicare, which funnels cash through to the private healthcare sector. High-flying stock Benefiting from this scheme is Humana (NYSE: HUM), a $62.9bn US health insurer and care provider with more than 17 million customers. Customers buy insurance directly or indirectly (via an employer or the state), and Humana uses its takings to fund treatments, hospital stays and medication from healthcare operators, or…

“Oh look, it’s another new McLaren that looks the same as the old one,” says Ollie Kew for Top Gear. “Move along, nothing to see here. Right? Wrong.” The new 750S replaces the 720S, which launched in 2017, and a third of the parts are new. “Depending on if your glass is half-full or half-empty, you’ll decide that’s either quite a lot of new bits for what was already a class-leading supercar, or not enough tweaking considering it still looks so similar.” But looks can be deceiving, says Steve Sutcliffe in Auto Express. The 750S is “the lightest and most powerful series production car McLaren has ever created”. It is, quite simply, a “very potent mid-engined V8 supercar with two turbos, a rear-drive chassis, an insanely fast-shifting seven-speed gearbox and…

“Painful fiscal choices seem to lie ahead,” says Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. Across high-income countries, the ratio of public debt to GDP hit 124% in 2020, matching the previous peak immediately after the Second World War. While those debt levels have since fallen back somewhat, they remain historically high. Data from the OECD club of rich countries shows that UK government debt reached 104% of GDP last year, slightly above average. Japan comes top with 254%. Italy (148%), the US (144%) and France (117%) are also more heavily indebted than Britain. By contrast, Australia (71%), Germany (65%), and the Netherlands (54%) enjoy stronger fiscal positions. Globally, state debt loads began to rise after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, says Roger Bootle in The Telegraph. Low interest rates forestalled early…

Shares in NatWest dipped last week after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the government would consider an offer to retail investors as part of a plan to sell off its stake in NatWest, says Helen Kirrane on This is Money. Fifteen years ago the government became the majority shareholder in RBS (now NatWest) when it put a total of £45.5bn “into the stricken lender”; it still owns 38.7%. While the proposed sale could be “the first time that retail investors could be given the opportunity to have a slice of ownership”, there is an “expectation that any sale price would need to undercut the market”. Hunt may believe that “it’s time to get Sid investing again” (after the famous advert) but it would be “disgraceful” if a desire to repeat the…

Five to buy Ashtead Shares Shares in this industrial and construction equipment rental business have wobbled after revenue disappointed in North America, its key market. A relatively quiet hurricane season and the Hollywood strikes have weighed on demand for Ashtead’s kit. But the market has overreacted to this transient disappointment, with the shares plunging to a one-year low. That creates an opportunity to buy into a “quality compounder” benefiting from the state’s infrastructure spending splurge and boasting an “exceptional” record of dividend growth. 4,715p AstraZeneca The Telegraph It is sometimes said that “elephants don’t gallop” – big companies struggle to deliver the explosive growth that smaller ones can achieve. Yet this pharmaceutical giant has broken into a gallop, with earnings per share rising at an annualised 18% or so over…

German chancellor Olaf Scholz promised this week that his government will “forge ahead” with investments that he believes are needed to “modernise the economy and maintain international competitiveness”, even after a Constitutional Court ruling seemed to “upend its budget planning”, say Kamil Kowalcze and Arne Delfs on Bloomberg. The judgement earlier this month seemed to limit the government’s room for manoeuvre drastically by making it harder to tap unused borrowing capacity granted during the pandemic, as well as forcing the government to “account for more off-budget new borrowing”. The government has had to push forward an emergency budget that continues to suspend the rules limiting net borrowing for a fourth consecutive year. All three governing parties were willing to suspend the “debt brake” this year, but this will be much…

Top-down investors who worry about how much the top seven tech stocks now dominate the US market (see last week’s article in this section) have two obvious choices. The first is to avoid US stocks altogether. That may make sense tactically – for example, if you think that the gap between European and US stocks will narrow in the near term. However, for a longer-term asset allocation, it’s a very big decision to hold nothing in a country that accounts for about a quarter of the global economy, has the best record on economic growth and innovation, and shows a long history of delivering superior returns. Realistically, not many global investors are going to do that. So the alternative is to use alternative weighting schemes – ie, setting the proportion…

We need to get real on carbon Jessica Green Foreign Affairs Decarbonising the economy at the speed required is a hugely complex task, but the simple step of phasing out all temporary carbon offsets would help, says Jessica Green. These comprise 99% of offsets and include forestry, solar and methane-capture projects. Since that stored carbon will be released within ten to 100 years, this isn’t a real solution. Quantifying a hypothetical absence of emissions is also open to “broad interpretation if not outright abuse”, and although some offsets are sold through regulated markets, more than half are sold through the unregulated voluntary market, oft-criticised for its “lack of project quality and reliability”. The offsets also provide “cover for big emitters” who use them to “green their portfolios”. Reform has proved…

theatlantic.com In the US, the unemployment rate is down to 3.9%, inflation is steady, and wages are back to pre-Covid levels, says Jerusalem Demsas. Yet surveys show that most Americans say their economic situation has gotten worse. What explains the gap between perceptions and reality? One explanation is that people are more sensitive to inflation than to unemployment. A Financial Times poll found that 60% of people think avoiding inflation is more important than keeping good-paying jobs, perhaps because inflation affects everyone and is outside of our control (whereas job losses affect an unfortunate few and new jobs may be within reach). Another reason may be that, during the pandemic, the federal government provided Americans with unprecedented levels of support – halting evictions, paying out thousands of dollars in support,…

When it comes to investing for income, a bird in the hand is not usually worth two in the bush. James Dow, co-manager of the 150-year-old Scottish American Investment Trust (LSE: SAIN) explains why. Baillie Gifford took over its management in 2004, when 70% of the portfolio was invested in the UK with a focus on dividend yield. “SAINTS then had a yield of 3.8% while its peer group of 22 equity-income trusts and funds had an average yield of 5%. Since then, a £10,000 investment in this peer group has generated income of £12,087 and capital growth of £6,267, while SAINTS has delivered £12,561 of income and £24,381 of capital growth.” SAINTS’ shares now yield a modest but still attractive 3%. “A focus on dividend growth, rather than yield,…

It is a mystery that some problems are better solved by decentralised systems where everyone does their own thing, and the best result that emerges from the unplanned interactions selected for in some way, than by a coordinated plan produced centrally. And yet it is a fact. If you want to design something as complex and well adapted as a human being, a decentralised system of improvisation, competition and natural selection will work better than a central committee. The same applies if you want to build a jumbo jet. This is not merely of academic interest – it was the defining political and economic question for much of the 20th century, and remains a live issue today. What social and political arrangement is best for enabling human flourishing and ensuring…

Know the difference between guidance and advice when it comes to finance, says Lily Russell-Jones in The Sunday Times. “These words might sound like one and the same thing, but... one is regulated, and one is not.” One is also a lot pricier than the other. “Most people simply don’t have enough money to qualify as a client of an independent financial adviser (IFA),” says Moira O’Neill in the Financial Times. “Usually you need at least £250,000, with some firms also catering for those with £100,000 or more.” By contrast, financial, or money, coaches offer guidance for around £60 to £150 an hour, with no minimum wealth requirement. They will help you come up with a financial plan and signpost where you can go for specific product advice, which they…

Small businesses in the process of planning their finances for 2024 should make it a priority to check what business rates they will need to pay next year. While last week’s Autumn Statement offered help to some companies, others will still see their bills rise. The important figure for smaller companies is £51,000. If your business occupies a property with a rateable value below this point, your business rates will normally be calculated using the small-business rates multiplier. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced that he intends to freeze this multiplier for the 2024-25 tax year. In consequence, small businesses will enjoy protection from large tax rises. Nevertheless, your rateable value may well have changed under the revaluations that came into effect last April. With transitional relief, offered to cushion the…

“If music retailer HMV wasn’t quite dead and buried at the start of 2019, it was certainly planning a funeral,” says Clara Murray on Raconteur. The struggling chain had just collapsed into administration for the second time in a decade and was failing to lure customers away from online streaming. Its “bread-and-butter products” – CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays – were all in terminal decline. Enter Canadian retailer Doug Putman (pictured), who snapped up the business and its assets for just £883,000. Barely four years later, that is starting to look like a good deal. HMV UK posted gross profits of £65.4m for 2022, boosted by a 66.8% surge in revenue from growing sales in the UK as the stores diverged into hosting live performances, and selling vinyl records and other…

£10.95, reduced to £9.95 each by the case of 12 bottles, leaandsandeman.co.uk For the last 30 or so years, I have played a wine-hunting game at this time of year. The challenge I set myself is to find the two best party wines for the forthcoming festive season. The rules are simple: the wines must be under a tenner, drinking perfectly, competent crowd-pleasers, but also complex enough to satiate the taste buds of genuinely discerning wine lovers. This year, my chosen white and red come from the same property, making it the first time this has happened. My white is a wondrous, certified organic macabeu grown in the historic Finca El Renegado vineyards in the oldest part of Bodegas Nodus estate. The vines are high-altitude, 800 metres above sea level,…

The Plot The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson Nadine Dorries HarperCollins, £25 Given Rishi Sunak’s recent decision to bring back former PM David Cameron as foreign secretary, you might think it would be impossible to write a more surreal political story. Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries manages it in The Plot. Like a bad TV movie, it begins when Dorries receives a tip-off, prompting her to begin an investigation into the “real” reasons for Boris Johnson’s removal as PM in 2022. This puts her on the trail of a supposed cabal of aides and MPs responsible for the political demise of Johnson and other Tory leaders. By the end of it, she is interviewing “Bambi” and “Thumper”, who regale her with tales of orgies and shadowy “big money” figures. This…