Indholdsfortegnelse for 1229 i MoneyWeek

Albert Camus famously said in Caligula that “it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without”. That came to mind this week when I read a press release from John Colley, the CEO of Majestic Wine, about the likely impact of a new alcohol excise duty system due to be introduced in February 2025. The basic idea is that the higher the alcohol content, the higher the levy. At present all wines in the 11.5%-14.5% ABV range incur a single charge of £2.67. As of February next year, there will be a separate charge for every 0.1% of ABV in this range. In other words, there will be 30 different duty rates. A 14.5% bottle…

In an attempt to close a valuation gap with rivals in the energy industry, BP is reportedly preparing to drop an ambitious target to cut its oil and gas production by 2030, says Emma Powell in The Times. Under previous CEO Bernard Looney, BP pledged to reduce oil and gas output by 40% by 2030 and bolster spending on renewables. However, a sharp bounce in commodities prices has seen this scaled back to just a 25% cut in production compared with 2019 levels. Now, with Brent crude above $80 a barrel and pressure from activist investors to increase its oil and gas output, BP plans to drop the target completely. Technically, BP’s CEO Murray Auchincloss isn’t expected to reveal the full details of his strategy, including the removal of the…

Adobe’s third-quarter earnings showed success in converting artificial-intelligence (AI) offerings into paying customers, says Barron’s . Profits and sales eclipsed expectations in the three months to 30 August 2024, but the shares still fell 13% after the announcement owing to the US software firm’s lower-than-expected revenue guidance for the fourth quarter. But this presents a “buying opportunity” for the stock. Despite competition from Canva and OpenAI, Adobe has a strong business, growing profit margins, new AI capabilities, and usually provides conservative guidance. Adobe’s stock looks undervalued given its “AI-fuelled growth potential.”…

“In pursuit of their juvenile, half-witted anti-colonialism,” Labour has “betrayed our strategic interests, delighted our enemies, weakened our alliance” with the US, let down the Chagossian people and set a “terrifying precedent” for the British populations of Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, says Daniel Hannan in The Telegraph. Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands (which foreign secretary David Lammy ceded to Mauritius last week “without bothering to inform MPs”, notes The Times), is “the Malta of the Indian Ocean, occupying a perfect strategic position” within reach of “four of the seven global chokepoints that funnel maritime traffic”. The Anglo-American base built after 1968 has “proved its military value again and again”. Under the treaty of transfer, the UK will pay Mauritius rent for a 99-year lease, but 99…

Kamala Harris continues to lead in the polls in the race to be US president, with most pundits projecting that she will win in both the national vote and most importantly the electoral college, which will ultimately determine the outcome. Punters seem to disagree, and give Donald Trump a slight edge in the battle to capture the White House. With £79.6m matched on Betfair, he remains the favourite to win at 1.95 (51.3%), with Harris at 2.1 (47.6%). As I’ve said before, I think Harris has a much better chance of winning, thanks to her disciplined, focused campaign, bigger war chest, and people’s worries about the implications of a second Trump term. Still, there’s always a chance of another Trump upset, even if the odds are much smaller than the…

It’s often claimed that China’s leaders take a long view, unlike the short-term thinking that prevails in Western economies. Looking at the markets, we might doubt how well that’s working. Late last month, the government abruptly unveiled a series of schemes aimed at supporting consumption and housing, bailing out indebted local governments and banks, and boosting stocks. The CSI 300 index rallied 32% in two weeks, then fell 7% – the biggest one-day drop since 2020 – when some details didn’t meet expectations. Pessimists may see this as part of a pattern that’s been evident in China over the last years: exceedingly rapid pivots that keep wrong-footing markets and leave them struggling for long-term direction. Take, for example, the sudden reopening from zero-Covid policies in early 2023, after giving every…

Trump’s $315bn reverie Francis Wilkinson Bloomberg Donald Trump’s plan to “rid the nation” of an estimated 11 to 14 million undocumented immigrants would cost a minimum of $315bn and “subtract more than 4%” from GDP, according to an American Immigration Council (AIC) report last week. Yet the prospect of “dragnets and concentration camps” (or “vast holding facilities” as Trump apparatchik Stephen Miller puts it) “excites” both the Trump leadership and base, who seem “undaunted” by the costs, says Francis Wilkinson. In addition to the direct costs of deportation and the hit to GDP, their financial contributions would be lost. According to the AIC, these households paid $76.1bn in taxes in 2022 and contributed a total of $28.3bn to medicare and social security, programmes they help fund but from which they…

capx.co In theory, the state is best placed to invest for the long term, says Tim Worstall. It is “immortal” and can “afford to take the long view”. It should make sense to delegate the difficult, long-term investment decisions to the politicians we elect. “Which is, sadly, exactly where the problems start.” States may be immortal or nearly so, but the mortals we elect to office will have one eye on keeping their job – in other words, the “long term” view shrinks to the time between elections and the decisions taken are likely to pander to voters. “Contrary to popular belief, the institutions with the longest planning horizons in our society are corporations.” Shell, BP, mineral mining companies, those building power stations and so on – all regularly make…

The closed-ended nature of investment trusts makes them perfectly suited to holding alternative assets, such as infrastructure, real estate or private-equity investments. These assets are not usually available to private investors, but they are via the investment-trust structure. This allows smaller investors to diversify their portfolios into different asset classes with an initial investment of just a few hundred pounds (compared with the hundreds of millions usually required to invest directly). With their fixed pool of capital, investment trusts are also perfectly suited to holding portfolios of liquid investments following alternative strategies. Unlike open-ended funds, which have to buy and sell investments to match daily cash flows, trusts always have a fixed pool of capital, giving managers flexibility to pursue differentiated strategies that might take time to pay off. Several…

If financial markets were efficient, then shares would not trade below their intrinsic worth and value investing would not exist. Similarly, if human beings were rational, then they would not smoke cigarettes. We have known for decades that markets are not as efficient as economists’ theories pretend, while there is a link between smoking and serious health problems. Yet undervalued shares and tobacco companies do exist. Shares in British American Tobacco (LSE: BATS) are trading on a seven times next year’s forecast earnings and offer a dividend yield of just over 9%; the company aims to buy back £700m of shares in 2024, rising to £900m in 2025. These numbers suggest that BATS has all the features of a traditional “value stock”. Aside from appealing to value investors, tobacco companies…

● If you have a stash of Nectar points you may want to act fast and turn them into Avios. You have until Monday 14 October to get a bonus of up to 25%. The standard conversion rate is 400 Nectar points to 250 Avios. But if you do a one-off transfer before Monday you’ll get a 15% bonus. You could increase it even further with an auto-conversion transfer, whereby you link your British Airways Executive Club and Nectar accounts and shift all your points to Avios. In that case you will receive a 25% bonus. That implies 312 Avios for every 400 Nectar points. “[You] are giving up £2 of free shopping to earn 312 Avios, so you are ‘paying’ 0.64p per Avios. It’s an excellent return,” says Rob…

● More than seven in ten pension savers admit they have no idea what charges they are paying on their plan. A survey conducted by the online investment platform Wealthify found that 71% of couldn’t say what fees their provider charges, including some who didn’t realise they were paying any charges at all. The survey was conducted as part of Wealthify’s launch of a new fee structure for its self-invested personal pension (Sipp), the latest in the increasingly competitive Sipps market. ● Do you still have details of all the pension schemes you’ve paid into? Research from Standard Life warns that almost a fifth of people have lost track of at least one pot of pensions cash – an increasing risk in an era where most people start a new…

If “unorthodoxy could be blended and bottled”, Bob Duggan would have another multi-billion-dollar product on his hands, says Lisa Krieger on MSN. The serial entrepreneur’s latest bet was on an experimental cancer drug that “wowed researchers” at this year’s World Conference on Lung Cancer, sending the stock of his small biotech Summit Therapeutics surging by 700% and Duggan’s net worth to about $14bn. He has previously transformed two struggling biotech firms into thriving enterprises, as well as helping to build better ethernet-node processors, a surgical robot… and even chocolate-chip cookies. Duggan (pictured), now 80, was born in 1944 and grew up as the third of five children in a lower middle-class household in San Jose, California, says Investopedia. After dropping out of two university courses, he began his business career…

The fun may be over for Berlin’s “unbridled hedonism, techno, and intense” party scene, says Chris Bryant on Bloomberg. Two of the German capital’s most famous clubs, Watergate and Wilde Renate, are closing owing to rising costs. The city’s nightlife, which is recognised by Unesco and contributes €1.5bn annually to the economy, flourished after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when there were lots of abandoned spaces and rents were cheap. London’s clubs were more “polished” and “money-centric,” while Berlin’s “concrete jungle” was “poor but sexy”. Now it faces clubsterben (club death) from gentrification, higher rents, wages and energy costs, fewer visitors and cheaper airlines shunning the city. Habits have also changed: people consume more music online and at festivals and outdoor raves. Maintaining Berlin’s nightlife through closer…

The pound suffered its worst daily drop in almost a year last Thursday after the Bank of England’s governor Andrew Bailey told The Guardian he could be a “bit more aggressive” about cutting interest rates. The pound slid from $1.34 to $1.31 over several sessions. Investors have been betting that sticky inflation will force the UK to keep interest rates higher than other major economies, but now they aren’t so sure. Lower UK rates make sterling assets less attractive to global investors. Despite the wobble, 2024 has been an excellent year for sterling, says Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street Journal. In the years following the Brexit referendum, the pound became so infamous for its volatility that traders joked that the currency code “GBP” stood for “Great British Peso”. But…

The global stockmarket increasingly just means the American one. Booming technology valuations and a strong dollar have pushed US shares up to 64% of the MSCI All Country World index, a broad index of world stock markets. Emerging Markets (EMs) comprise just 10%, with Japan a mere 5%. US equity dominance means that investors who buy global trackers are increasingly exposed to Wall Street. In 1899 the British market was the world’s biggest, but the UK’s share has since fallen from 25%, then to 4%, says Hermione Taylor in the Investors’ Chronicle. Goldman Sachs says that fast growth will see the EM share of global equities double by 2075, but that will still leave the US in the lead.…

Rio Tinto, which has been “on the hunt” for lithium deals, is now in talks to buy Arcadium Lithium, which could make the mining multinational one of the world’s top producers of the key ingredient for electric-vehicle batteries, say Leslie Hook and William Sandlund in the Financial Times. Arcadium produces lithium in Argentina, Australia and Canada, with customers including carmakers Tesla, Toyota and General Motors. But one of Arcadium’s shareholders, Blackwattle Investment Partners, an Australian asset manager, said it was concerned that Rio’s move was an “opportunistic” bid to take advantage of low lithium prices. Arcadium’s share price had slid 60% this year before Monday’s news. Rio’s swoop for the battery-metal producer underlines how large miners have been cautiously returning to “takeovers and landmark investments”, says Bloomberg’s Paul-Alain Hunt. Experts…

StandardAero’s shares opened 20% above their initial public offering (IPO) price on their debut on the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the US aircraft maintenance services group at $10.38bn, says Reuters. The firm raised $1.44bn in the third-largest US listing of the year. US private-equity group Carlyle, which sold some of its stake, remains the majority shareholder after the IPO. The decision to go public was driven by investors’ demand for exposure to the aerospace aftermarket, which provides inspections, maintenance, repairs, and overhauls for jet engines, says Carlyle’s Douglas Brandely. Demand for new aeroplanes has slowed and carriers are relying on older models.…

The windfall taxes just keep on coming. In France, new prime minister Michel Barnier has decided that the only way to start closing France’s vast budget deficit, which was getting close to 7% of GDP, even with no special emergency to deal with, is to impose a “temporary” extra tax on the country’s largest 300 companies, along with a levy on the richest households. In effect, France’s corporate tax rate, at least for major businesses, will go up to an estimated 33%, far higher than the rest of Europe. Across the border, Italy already had extra taxes on the banks, but its PM, Giorgia Meloni, last week argued that the country would have to impose extra levies to try and close its budget deficit, with the defence industry, making money…

Many investors use the price/earnings (p/e) ratio as a measure of whether a share is cheap or not. There’s a good reason for that – it’s one of the simplest valuation measures out there. You simply take the share price, and divide by the earnings (profits) per share. So a company with a share price of 50p and earnings per share (EPS) of 5p would have a p/e ratio of ten. A p/e ratio which is based on forecast earnings is often referred to as a forward p/e ratio, while one based on past earnings is sometimes described as a trailing p/e. P/e ratios are also sometimes referred to as “multiples”, as in: “Acme Widgets is trading on a multiple of ten times its earnings”. In effect, a p/e of…

“Having the child be the breadwinner… changes the dynamic of a family… How do you discipline that breadwinner? They’d try to ground me, but I was an egotistical child star, and I thought I was on top of the world. I’d be like: ‘But I pay the bills,’ and what do you say to that?” US celebrity Demi Lovato (pictured), quoted in The Hollywood Reporter “How very interesting. Which bank?” The reply Hugh Grant’s mother received when she told a dinner party companion that she had two sons, one an investment banker, the other a film star. Quoted in The Knowledge “I personally think it’s distasteful to talk about money. I really am giving all the credit to the people who buy the products. They’re the ones that made this dream…

economist.com Kindness is in vogue, says The Economist. Business books telling bosses to be nice proliferate. Firms are publicly embracing the values of compassion. This marks a welcome change in the culture from when we were told “nice guys finish last”. And there is evidence that nice bosses improve trust within workplaces, “among other beneficial things”, which in turn can boost performance. But “you can have too much of anything, even kindness”. Agreeableness is not the only trait that matters in a boss. Agreeable but neurotic people may be less able to deal with stressful situations. Niceness is not obviously a trait you’d want in industries demanding ruthless negotiation or deal-making. Nicer bosses may be too slow to make necessary changes to lay off workers and improve competition. Some employees…

Glenview Capital Management has denied reports that it is advocating a break-up of US healthcare giant CVS Health, says Forbes. The activist investor said it has had private conversations with CVS’s executives, and noted that the company is “operating well below its potential and has fallen short in its investment and actuarial approach in recent years, creating economic losses and volatility that pressures its people, its customers, and its shareholders”. This comes after CVS, which runs retail pharmacies and provides health schemes, confirmed plans to cut 2,900 jobs to save $2bn in costs and invest in technology. CVS makes up about $700m of the $2.5bn US hedge fund, and Glenview owns 1% of CVS’s outstanding shares.…

Vapour: tobacco-less products that heat a nicotine e-liquid to produce an inhalable aerosol. BATS’ leading brand is Vuse, originally developed by Reynolds. Key markets are the US, UK, France, Germany and Canada, accounting for three quarters of total industry vapour revenue. Vapour comprises 40% of BATS’ smokeless revenue, but the company saw a 9% decline in unit sales in the first half. Heated products (HP): an electronic handheld device that contains a battery-powered heating chamber and a tobacco/infusion compartment inserted into the device. BATS’ brands are glo and veo. The top markets by volume are Japan and South Korea, and European countries like Italy and Greece, but growth has reversed. HP makes up 20% of BATS’ smokeless revenue but it has seen a 1% organic decline, which slipped further to…

The number of people paying tax on their savings has doubled. Data from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) shows that more than two million savers will receive a bill for their savings interest in the 2024-2025 tax year, up from 1.2 million in the 2022-2023 tax year. We all have a Personal Savings Allowance (PSA), which means we can earn up to £1,000 of interest without paying tax. There are two key reasons why so many of us are suddenly exceeding the PSA. The first is down to rising interest rates. When we were earning 1% on savings a basic-rate taxpayer would have needed £100,000 in their account before they would trouble the taxman. Now just over £20,000 earning 5% could land you with a bill. Frozen thresholds The second…

Are thousands of savers heading for disaster in retirement? New data from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the City regulator, reveals that savers withdrew more than £52bn from their retirement savings in the 2023-2024 tax year, a 20% increase on the previous year’s figure. The total number of pension plans accessed for the first time also rose 20%, to almost 885,500. It’s not surprising that so many over-55s felt compelled to dip into their pension savings last year, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. But the worry is that many people will have left themselves with a pension pot that is now too small to see them comfortably through retirement. That fear is heightened by FCA data showing only a third of savers took financial advice on their withdrawals.…

Investors need reminding that North America extends beyond the US. Canada, often overlooked but certainly not a laggard, is projected to be the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in 2025 and stands as a beacon of stability on the global stage in an era of uncertainty. This strength is rooted in its historic banking system, which has not missed a single dividend for 200 years – a feat unmatched by its counterparts in the US or the UK. Ultimately, the most critical factor in long-term investment performance is the price paid for assets. From this perspective, Canadian stocks present a compelling opportunity, with the country’s exchange trading at its deepest discount to the US market in history. The market’s performance has already begun to broaden: the Canadian S&P/TSX Composite Equal…

I took a single frangipani flower and held it between the tips of my fingers, against my forehead. The Balinese Hindu priest – a slight, old man with a wide smile – turned back to face the altar and he began to mutter the next in a series of prayers. He rang a little bell, which he held in his hand, punctuating the end of one blessing with a crescendo of pealing. He then picked up a small bottle of alcohol and squirted it at a small shrine on the floor – an offering to the demons, because as it was explained to me, without the bad there can be no good. The priest discarded his spent frangipani over his shoulder – my cue to tuck the one I held…

A “boy-who-cried-wolf mindset” has set in on energy markets, says Matt Egan for CNN. Traders, caught out by previous false alarms, have become increasingly “numb to the cascade of crises” afflicting the world – a growing war in the Middle East is thus not causing the oil market panic you might expect. “Pre-shale revolution, this type of situation would have sent prices well above $100” a barrel, says Helima Croft of RBC Capital Markets. Still, as Bob McNally of Rapidan Energy Group puts it, “the story of the village boy who cried wolf did not end well – for the village or the boy”. While markets aren’t yet panicking, they are feeling nervous following comments from Joe Biden that Israel discussed striking Iranian oil facilities in retaliation for last week’s…

“[In] 1943 American warplanes repeatedly bombed Schweinfurt... The Bavarian town... produced half of the Third Reich’s supply of ball bearings... To Allied planners [ball bearings] had the trappings of a strategic commodity. Knock away Germany’s ability to make them... and its military-industrial complex would come crashing down... Yet... German factories kept cranking out Messerschmitts and machine guns at just the same pace... Very few goods, if any, are truly strategic... substitutes nearly always exist... Make a commodity scarce or dear enough... and the mix of inputs needed to produce output start shifting... This explains why sanctions against Russia... were never going to [succeed. The Kremlin] has dodged [them] partly by substituting goods it could no longer source. It also found new trading buddies – not least China – to replace…

Shares in American drug giant Pfizer rose by 3% this week after it emerged that US activist investor Starboard Value has built a stake of $1bn and has contacted former executives about “turning around the struggling pharmaceuticals giant”, says Alex Ralph in The Times. Pfizer became a household name in the UK during Covid thanks to its partnership with BioNTech, which rapidly produced a vaccine, resulting in record revenue of more than $100bn in 2022. However, this fillip has ebbed and Pfizer has struggled to replace “dwindling” sales of major blockbusters with new drugs. It has also faced “cut-price competition” for older best-selling drugs. Pfizer’s shares have suffered a fall of more than 50% from their peak in December 2021, says Bloomberg. Attempts to jump into the obesity market have…

Five to buy BAE Systems The Telegraph BAE Systems’ half-year sales and operating profit both rose 13% thanks to strong demand, prompting a full-year profit upgrade. BAE stands to benefit from Nato members’ increasing defence spending and projected interest-rate cuts, with the bottom line expected to grow 11% annually over the next two years. Despite a high price/earnings (p/e) ratio, BAE’s “solid” financial position, strong cash flow and improved outlook merit a “purchase on a long-term view”. 1,300p M&C Saatchi The Times M&C Saatchi’s shares have stabilised from their Covid-era lows. The renowned advertising firm, whose clients include the Premier League and MacDonald’s, is in the midst of a turnaround following a failed takeover bid two years ago. New finance director Simon Fuller and CEO Zaid Al-Qassab are cutting costs,…

In an “escalating tit-for-tat trade row”, China has imposed tariffs on EU brandy imports in retaliation for Brussels putting extra levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), says Lisa O’Carroll in The Guardian. As well as charges of up to 39% on brandy, China is “considering duties on imported petrol cars from Europe”. The move comes after EU member states voted in favour of taxing Chinese EVs. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that, while China can still sell into the EU, it will be barred from “using state subsidies and other support to undercut local manufacturing”. Talks are ongoing, but EU insiders fear that Chinese president Xi Jinping is “loath to climb down” – his plans for economic growth are based on exports of green technology. The Chinese…

“I am depressed and going a little crazy, still love her and want to win her back,” a man in the US state of Washington typed into ChatGPT, turning to the chatbot to help save his failing marriage by drafting a letter and poem for his wife. His request was recorded as part of the WildChat dataset, documenting a million chatbot interactions, says Lila Shroff in The Atlantic. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as chatbots, prompts users to share personal details more openly than web searches, as people increasingly feel more comfortable confiding in AI. Machines don’t judge. On the other hand, chat logs could be used as evidence in criminal cases, the data could be used for targeted advertising and some AI firms have experienced leaks or unauthorised access…

● Playtech “has long been a reliable source of governance goofs”, but it’s hit the jackpot this time, says Alistair Osborne in The Times. The gambling group has agreed to sell its Italian consumer betting arm Snaitech for €2.3bn to Flutter Entertainment. The deal will return up to €1.8bn to investors, but has also prompted some “out-of-the-blue ‘transaction incentive arrangements’” that will hand €100m to CEO Mor Weizer (pictured) and other executives, plus €34m to the departing Snaitech crew. On top of that, a “transformation plan” would give Weizer and other executives around 10% of future cash returns. Yes, the decision to buy Snaitech in 2018 has paid off, but company bosses do not deserve “vast bonuses just for selling their best assets”, while the 10% cut would be “an…

“As long as Xi Jinping is running China, I have no interest in it,” says Stanley Druckenmiller, the former hedge-fund manager who had one of the best long-term records in the industry before closing his fund to external investors in 2010. It would require a change of leadership and a shift in communist policies to change that, he told attendees at an conference last week, according to Barron’s. However, Argentina now represents a “great investment opportunity”, says Druckenmiller. The unconventional libertarian politician Javier Millei, who was elected as president last year, is a “brilliant leader”. He is also bullish about the prospects for Japan. In the US, markets need to reduce their expectations about the pace at which the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates and the extent of…

iea.org.uk A recent YouGov poll found that about 30% of Britons believe European systems provide better-quality healthcare than the NHS. This is a “sensational” finding given Britain’s “famously cultish devotion to the NHS”, says Kristian Niemietz. We are seeing a major shift in public opinion. The alternative is a social health insurance (SHI) model, in which the role of the state is to “ensure universal and equitable access to [healthcare] via a regulated health insurance market”. The experience of countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the former East Germany and the Netherlands, which have previously replaced NHS-like systems with SHI models, suggests a change is possible. Internal commissioning units in the NHS fulfil a role similar to that of health insurers in SHI systems. Simply convert those into health…

■ Baillie Gifford is to wind down its subscale Keystone Positive Change investment trust and give shareholders the option of making a cash exit or roll over assets into its £1.8bn open-ended Positive Change sister fund in the first quarter of 2025, says Citywire. Keystone proposed a merger of the funds in September as the shares have been languishing at a 14% discount to net asset value (NAV) despite efforts to bolster them. Chair Karen Brade said the board backs the Positive Change strategy of investing in private and less liquid public companies, but acknowledged the lack of shareholders’ support “to allow the strategy the time needed” and “therefore reluctantly agreed to propose the scheme”. Since Baillie Gifford took over the fund, Keystone’s net asset value (NAV) has declined nearly…

If you are not on a fixed-price energy deal it is time to shop around. On 1 October the energy-price cap went up by 10%, so the average dual-fuel household bill is now £1,717 a year. “Nobody should be on the price cap, but 85% of people are,” Martin Lewis from MoneySavingExpert told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He added that you are “ripping yourself off” if you stay on a default tariff. There are fixed-rate energy deals cheaper than the price cap that you can lock into for a year. You can use comparison sites to shop around for the best deal. “The current cheapest fix is from Outfox the Market and costs £1,555 for households with an average usage, which is £162 less than October’s price cap,” Elise…

Savers falling foul of the rules on lifetime individual savings accounts (Lisas) are now paying penalties of thousands of pounds. Data obtained from the government by fintech Plum shows that 74,000 savers had to pay such penalties in the 2022-2023 tax year, the last year for which data is available. More than a quarter of those savers paid at least £1,000, with the biggest losers hit with penalties of £11,000. Lisas were introduced to support young savers putting money by to purchase their first home, or for retirement. They feature a 25% bonus contribution from the government in addition to any interest or investment return generated. However, savers who take money out of a Lisa for purposes other than home-buying or retirement have to repay the bonus, plus the interest…

2022 La Chevalière, Patrick Jasmin, Collines Rhodaniennes, Northern Rhône, France £19.95, yapp.co.uk tel. 01747 860 423 The Yapp Brothers autumn tasting is always a cracker, and this year’s was no exception. From a cheeky little 2023 Muscadet Sur Lie Jean-François Baron (£13.50), which brought all the joie de vivre of this underrated style of zesty white wine, to a riveting 2022 Forest Hill Riesling Mount Barker (£21.50), which showed in just one sip how electrifying and crystalline first-class Western Australian riesling can be, it was a boisterous lineup packed with gems. It was exciting to find that 2023 Sancerre Les Charmes André Vatan (£21.95) is available in magnum format (£48), so this takes care of all flashy dinner parties for the foreseeable future. In terms of mind-blowing white wine experiences,…

Kingmaker Secrets, Lies and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers Graham Brady Ithaka, £25 The Conservative Party likes to think of itself as the “natural party of government”, but in less than a quarter of a century, it has had no fewer than eight leaders (William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak) and is about to elect number nine. This has given a lot of power to the “Men in Grey Suits” of the 1922 Committee – the body that represents Tory bankbenchers and administers the process for deciding whether a leader stays or goes and, if the latter, plays a crucial role in electing the successor. Kingmaker is the memoir of Graham Brady, who chaired the committee over…