Innehållsförteckning för Issue 973 från MoneyWeek

“What if would-be airline passengers start taking the train instead?” At our Edinburgh show earlier this year, Ruffer’s Alex Chartres told us that global geopolitics had become a black swan machine. Unexpected things just keep happening. Imagine telling someone, even five years ago, that globalisation was not unstoppable. That the US would be led by apolitician who would challenge the symbiotic relationship between the US and China and start a trade war –one with every chance of turning into a long cold war. Imagine telling anyone ten years ago that the UK would be in the middle of an election, the winner of which could be an old-fashioned socialist ideologue with a history of promising asset appropriation (see pages 8 and 12). Imagine telling the same person that in 2019…

Oshkosh is “poised to give investors a lift”, says Leslie P. Norton in Barron’s. The group’s offerings include construction equipment such as scissor lifts and other aerial platforms – these comprise around 50% of sales –military utility and combat vehicles, and fire engines. Oshkosh’s platforms and lifts are very popular in China now that the government is clamping down on traditional bamboo scaffolding and insisting on better workplace-safety practices. Sales of military vehicles have risen in America and European countries are showing an interest too. Oshkosh boasts a 23% return on equity, compared to 16% for the S&P 500 as a whole. The stock is on just 11 times forward earnings.…

This week Disney launched its new streaming service, Disney+, “with all the hoopla of a Magic Kingdom parade”, says Lex in the Financial Times. And its claim that this “is not only a new era for the company but a statement about the future of entertainment” is a rare case of the reality matching “the showman’s hyperbole”. This is because Disney’s “vast back catalogue” makes it the “most credible challenger” to Netflix in the “great streaming wars” breaking out across the “media universe”. The move has already boosted the company’s share price. Of course, Disney isn’t the only company “wagering billions” that consumers will pay it a monthly fee to stream TV and films over the internet, say Amol Sharma and Joe Flint in The Wall Street Journal. Apple has…

There were not many things Gordon Brown got right in his 13 years in government. But one thing he can claim credit for is the entrepreneurs’ rate of capital-gains tax (CGT). Introduced in 2008, it allowed anyone who sold a business they had started themselves to only pay 10% in capital gains tax on the proceeds compared with 20% on any other capital gains. It was one of the most generous tax breaks offered in the world. In many other countries, the state would take 30% to 40% of anything made by company founders. In France, the rate briefly went up to 75%, which made it hard to understand why anyone would bother. But the entrepreneurs’ tax break is starting to come under attack. The Institute for Fiscal Studies think…

How the US gave up on free markets David Leonhardt The New York Times In the 1990s, going online or making a phone call was much more expensive in France than in the US, says David Leonhardt. These days, a package comprising broadband, cable and two mobile phones costs twice as much in America. So what’s changed? As Thomas Philippon points out in his book The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets, America has become an oligopoly. “In one industry after another… a few companies have grown so large that they have the power to keep prices high.” Most Americans have a choice between only two internet companies, while four airlines account for 80% of the domestic market. European big companies, however, have become “only slightly larger”…

The Woodford affair and the plunging share price of the Patient Capital Trust have been stark reminders that private companies can be highly risky and very illiquid. But recent results from Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT), the global equities investment trust run by Baillie Gifford, reminds us that investing in private businesses can be lucrative if done in the right vehicle and with a sensible long-term strategy. Over the six months to 30 September, SMT suffered from underwhelming returns, with the net asset value (NAV) rising by just 3.2% compared with an increase of just under 10% for the FTSE All World index. But since 30 September, the fund’s NAV is up 2.8% versus 0.5% for the benchmark. Finding the right private firms Two of the biggest positive contributors…

Do you know what your company’s intangible assets are and how to protect them? If not, you could be in for a shock. Government figures show that businesses invest around £140bn a year in tangible assets such as equipment and stock; they then take steps to stop such assets being stolen and are likely to insure them. But while investment in intangible assets such as intellectual property is at a similar level – £135bn a year according to official estimates – businesses are much less likely to put protection in place. “Trademark protection covers images and slogans” Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) think intellectual property isn’t something they need to worry about – that only high-tech firms constantly coming up with new inventions need protection. In reality, however, your…

On 2 February, 1987, Newsweek’s cover offered unwelcome news to Americans: “Your next boss may be Japanese”. This seemed likely at the time: Japan’s GDP made up 18% of global GDP; five of the world’s ten largest commercial banks were Japanese; and pretty much every big commercial property development in the world had a Japanese name on it. As all great bubbles do, Japan’s had started out sane. In the postwar period, Japan had very low levels of debt and infrastructure – and was strongly encouraged by the US to go for export growth (America was keen to see Japan proving the superiority of capitalism). Lending kicked off and fast translated into industrial-powerhouse-style GDP growth. Confidence grew. Over-ambition arrived. Then came the Plaza Accord in 1985 – when the US,…

This has been a very good fortnight for both my long and short tips. Four out of my six long tips went up, with Bellway going from 3,236p to 3,253p, Bausch Health Companies increasing from $23.75 to $26.21 and Volkswagen advancing from €176 to €181. International Consolidated Airlines Group ticked up from 520p to 541p. The only two to fall were JD Sports, which declined from 772p to 751p, and Safestore, which fell from 698p to 697p. Overall, my long tips are making a combined profit of £5,078, up on £4,436 a fortnight ago. While you might expect my short tips to have gone against me, given the advance of the S&P 500, four out of the six depreciated. Bitcoin went down from $9,400 to $8,723 and Uber from $33…

Halfords (LSE: HFD) is a car-parts and bicycle retailer. It has issued four profit warnings since chief executive Graham Stapleton arrived in January last year promising to turn the company around. It is pinning its hopes on repositioning itself away from sales and focusing on repairs, which is having some effect. But it is still making heavy weather of it and just last week was forced to cut its dividend after it reported a 2.9% fall in half-yearly sales. The share price has been in decline for the last four years, and has fallen by almost 50% in the last 12 months.…

It is often said that the La Livinière sub-region of Minervois is the finest of all. I certainly detect an energy and vibrancy to these wines that sets them apart. Of course, along with the more expressive fruit characters you often find that these wines are more structured, tannic and longer-lived. I live my wine life by the mantra that “balance is born” and so I expect the finest red wines in the world to have well-integrated tannins from the off, and they should be in perfect equilibrium with the fruit, oak, alcohol and minerality. It is a myth that tannins alone fade as a wine ages – every element of the wine ages with these tannins so you rarely find that raucously tannic, young wines ever truly even out.…

Two Nobel Prizes in economics went up for auction with Christie’s in New York at the end of October. They were awarded to John Forbes Nash Jr. and Reinhard Selten in 1994 for their contributions to game theory, which in economics can loosely be described as the science of bargaining. Nash first came up with the kernel of what would become the “Nash equilibrium” against the backdrop of the Cold War. American military strategists had begun to apply game theory to everything from intelligence missions to bombing patterns. Nash provided a mathematical framework to modify game theory so that it better reflected reality – in particular, by introducing the concepts of cooperative and noncooperative games. Essentially, these model scenarios in which there either is or is not agreement between players.…

“Any swine with more cunning than conscience” can pretend to be a financial adviser on the internet, says Libby Purves in The Times. But it seems we’ve still not learned to distrust them. Nearly two-thirds of people would trust a complete stranger who had contacted them to offer pensions advice, reveals a survey of 45-65 year olds by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator. That trust could prove costly. The average amount lost to fraudsters in 2018 was £82,000. And being highly educated is no defence. People with a university degree are 40% more likely to accept a “free pensions review” – a common scam tactic – from a company they’ve never heard of before. And with interest rates firmly at rock bottom, the “scams look ever more…

America’s housing market “keeps humming along”, says Paul La Monica for CNN Business. Builders’ sentiment in October reached its highest level since February 2018, according to the National Association of Home Builders. With the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates, cheaper mortgages are likely to prompt more young renters to buy. America is still far from a repeat of the mid-2000s boom that gave the world the sub-prime crisis. The data paints a picture of only “modest strength”, says Laura Kusisto for The Wall Street Journal. The average national home price rose 3.2% in the year to the end of August. Growth has been strongest in affordable markets such as Phoenix, Arizona. Prices in richly valued west-coast cities are stagnating. American homeowners have their “property-developer president” to thank for the buoyant…

Trying to gauge the state of the Chinese economy is often like peering through smog; official statistics are widely deemed unreliable. But smog itself, or rather the absence of it, backs up other recent signs that growth has come off the boil, as Nathaniel Taplin points out in The Wall Street Journal. Air pollution correlates best with the “housing-driven heavy industry sector”. Pollution levels in five major cities climbed along with the “last two big run-ups” in house prices in early 2017 and late 2018. Pollution levels are “now trending sharply lower again”. The PMI survey tracking construction is down sharply year-on-year, and overall house price growth has eased to an annual pace of 8%, compared with 11% in mid-2019.…

Française des Jeux (FDJ), France’s state-owned lottery operator, is about to embark on an initial public offering (IPO) in Paris. FDJ’s shares will be priced between €16.50 and €19.90, valuing the company between €3.15bn and €3.8bn. It is selling a 52% stake, which will fetch between €1.23 and €1.73bn for the government. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said the state, which currently holds 72% of FDJ, will retain a 20% stake, allowing it to influence governance and strategic choices. “The privatisation of companies such as... FDJ is integral to President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise funds for innovation projects and boost the overall economy,” says Reuters.…

Boeing’s shares jumped by 5%, their best one-day performance in over five months, early this week after the company announced that it expects the “troubled” 737 Max jet to return to service as early as January, says Peter Wells in the Financial Times. They could even resume deliveries of the jet to customers in December. The jet has been grounded since March owing to its role in two fatal air crashes, one in October 2018 and another in March 2019, with a combined number of 346 fatalities. Even after the latest news, Boeing shares are still down 16% from their pre-crash peak. Not so fast, says Bloomberg’s Brooke Sutherland. Boeing “feels confident” there won’t be “further snags” in the quest for regulatory approval. However, getting the plane back in the…

A leaked early draft of the official review into the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link has suggested that the government should proceed despite the potential for further cost increases, says the FT. The project, already “beset by delays, contract scandals and concerns over poor management”, is about £30bn over budget, and the report admits that the projected economic benefit from building the line has fallen from £2.30 per £1 spent in 2017 to £1.30. Let’s scrap it, says Philip Booth in The Daily Telegraph. Even if you ignore the “undisputed drain on taxpayer resources”, much of the supposed benefit to the north of England is based on an analysis filled with “schoolboy errors”. The estimate of “spill-over benefits”, for example, is “questionable” at best, given that the claimed benefits…

Everyone seems to be talking about sustainable investing right now. In last week’s issue, John Stepek looked at the difficulties of finding out exactly what’s in your “ethical” fund. But putting aside questions of morality for a moment – is investing with an eye on social impact a good idea financially? Do environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) funds deliver higher returns than their mainstream counterparts? What does the evidence suggest? The first question to ask is this: is there any reason why high-sustainability companies should produce higher returns than low-sustainability firms? The answer appears to be “yes”. A study published in 2014 looked at data from 190 of the largest US companies between 1993 and 2010. It found that high-sustainability firms tended to conduct more long-term planning, and also…

• Caitlyn Jenner is reported to be the highest-paid contestant in this year’s series of the ITV game show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, which begins this weekend. Former decathlete Jenner (pictured), who won gold in the 1976 Olympics, will be paid £500,000 to spend up to three weeks in the Australian jungle, reports the Daily Express. Former footballer and pundit Ian Wright will get £400,000. Other celebrities taking part include TV presenter Kate Garraway, comedian Andrew Maxwell and DJ Roman Kemp. The average pay for contestants is between £10,000 and £80,000. • Standard Chartered has cut £384,000 from the pay of its top two executives, Bill Winters and Andy Halford,says the FT. Winters, the CEO, has had his pension allowance halved from £474,000 to £237,000, while…

“I remember telling my mates that I was doing a film based on a Disney theme-park ride. They… said, ‘Well, that’s your career over then!’” Keira Knightley (pictured) on being cast in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, which became a big hit, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” Warren Buffett, quoted in The Sunday Times “It’s funny – I’ve met other composers who have hits, and they all have the eccentricity that wealth has allowed them to have. You know, Andrew Lloyd Webber famously has art falling off his walls, and he has a couple of theatres – I’m never going to…

Japanese beer producer Kirin has seen its plans to diversify into cosmetics and food challenged by one of its largest shareholders, say Leo Lewis and Kana Inagaki in the Financial Times. Kirin says it is keen to acquire “businesses bridging pharma and food and beverages”, but UK-based Independent Franchise Partners (FP), which owns 2% of the group and has held the stock for six years, has become ”increasingly dismayed by Kirin’s conviction that it can deliver strong growth by branching out into... areas that have nothing to do with beer”. Other investors also want Kirin to stick to its core activity instead of trying to be “an unwieldy conglomerate”: the shares have fallen by a quarter since Kirin announced its shopping spree.…

• What does your firm do? We buy properties to hold in our portfolio and to develop and convert. We have a lettings arm, which has 850 units under management, and a property training and business company, which helps people learn about property investing strategies, business, public speaking, social media and podcasting. • What has been your greatest achievement? So far, it might be becoming the UK’s largest property training company. In addition, we have raised significant amounts of money for charity – more than seven figures. I have broken two public-speaking world records (one with a 46-hour speech) and we won business of the year 2016. • What has been your biggest challenge? Our biggest challenge is and always has been growth: how do you ensure you grow, reach…

Before World War II, Japan had a fairly shareholder-friendly stockmarket. Large parts of listed companies were controlled by zaibatsu (wealthy family groups), but individual shareholders were active and well treated. That changed with World War II. Dividend payments were suspended in favour of reinvesting to support the war effort. Bank lending – as opposed to equity issuance – became the main source of company financing and the relationships between Japan’s big banks and companies deepened. After the war, the Allies dissolved the zaibatsu system. However, at the same time the high levels of loans taken out by companies during the war began to bite. Unable to repay loans, firms arranged debt-for-equity swaps. Suddenly the big banks were also big shareholders: the percentage of listed companies owned by financial institutions went…

The UK housing market has slowed sharply over the past few years. Depending on which index you use, national house prices are either increasing at a low year-on-year rate, or they are flat. This means that once you take inflation into account, they are starting to fall. The situation is even worse in the capital, where prices are starting to go down in nominal terms. Still, just because the housing market has come off the boil, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make money from building houses: one of my most profitable tips so far has been Bellway. However, it’s not the only homebuilder worth looking at. Taylor Wimpey (LSE: TW) has delivered some very strong results, with sales nearly doubling from £2.3bn in 2013 to £4.08bn in 2018. It…

Henderson High Income Trust, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, has been described as the “Ronseal” of investment trusts, as it delivers exactly what the name suggests. It does so by predominantly investing in UK companies but also by owning bonds, with gearing boosting the trust’s overall income-paying ability. This means that the equity portfolio doesn’t have to be skewed towards the highest-yielding areas of the market, where value traps and dividend cuts are more prevalent. It can include high-quality companies with a lower yield but more sustainable dividend growth potential. The trust’s investment process seeks to identify top-quality companies whose strong fundamentals have been temporarily overlooked. Here are three examples. Whitbread is a winner “Reckitt owns strong global brands such as Nurofen, Strepsils sand Gaviscon” Although trading…

John James Audubon was 35 years old when, in 1820, he embarked on his life’s work – a catalogue of every species of bird alive in the US. He was bankrupt and fresh out of debtors’ prison. But from an early age, Audubon had developed a fascination with birds, along with a steely determination to see his project through. He would need that perseverance. The publication of what would become The Birds of America was put back time and again as the French-American naturalist (Audubon became a naturalised US citizen in 1812) stumbled upon new subjects for his study. The printing and preparation of the plates took place between 1827 and 1838. Sadly, Audubon’s book would become an invaluable record of species that have since gone extinct, such as the…

“A noiseless course, not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness.” This is what Thomas Jefferson proposed to the US in 1802. Two hundred and sixteen winters have come and gone since that sage advice was offered. As we approach the next one, it might be time to wonder: what went wrong? “The gold-backed dollar had lost not a penny in the previous century” Almost immediately after taking office as America’s president in 1801, Jefferson himself began to make noises, sending amilitary force to Tripoli and securing what was credited with being the first victorious battle of the new nation. Since then, the US has moved on to greater and greater battles, more glorious victories. And the happiness…

“The pendulum is swinging back”, says Michael Mackenzie in the Financial Times. Investors have spent much of this year worrying that the US-China trade war would trigger a “hard landing” for the global economy. Yet though a trade resolution remains murky (see box below), markets have suddenly decided that it is time to be bullish. America’s S&P 500 has now made five straight weeks of gains, its joint-longest winning streak for two years, notes Stan Choe for The Associated Press. The FTSE All-World index has gained more than 4% in the past month. The flight from safety Perhaps more significantly, investors have also been baling out of safe-haven assets. The ten-year US treasury yield is now up to 1.94% from a low of 1.50% just last month. The yields on…

“Data covering… trucks [and] chemical tankers… indicate real problems in the industrial economy. Manufacturers seem to have little faith consumers will keep buying at the rates they are. And, given how much consumer spending is debt-financed, they’re probably right to be cautious. Strong retail spending is not necessarily positive. Consider this… from a report from November 2007. ‘The Friday after Thanksgiving is known for heavy spending in retail stores, but it’s clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the internet to make their holiday purchases... Online spending on Black Friday has historically represented an early indicator of... [the] rest of the season... That the 22% growth rate versus last year is outpacing the overall growth rate for the first three weeks of the season [is] a sign of positive momentum.’…

• It is the role of US funds “to say what other investors in European business think privately”, says Lex in the Financial Times. So the calls by private equity group Cerberus for Deutsche Bank chairman Paul Achleitner to be replaced should be taken seriously. He has presided over Germany’s national banking champion during a period of “calamitous decline”, with the share price halving. The bank’s problem is that Deutsche has an “oversized investment bank” and a German retail bank “weakened by falling interest rates and state-sponsored competition”. The board must find someone “that foreign and domestic investors can both get behind”. • With Nissan’s net income falling by over 70%, operating margins contracting and cash flow negative, new CEO Makoto Uchida has inherited a “pile-up”, says Pete Sweeney on…

With the election campaign well under way, it’s a good time to look at some of the best bets on the Labour Party. Ladbrokes is offering odds on the outcome of a “Vote Match” between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. At the moment it is offering 1/6 (85.6%) on Labour getting more votes, and 7/2 (22.2%) on the Lib Dems. With the Lib Dems stuck at 15% in the polls, and with the millstone of their time in coalition with the Tories still hanging around their neck, I’d say that you should bet on Labour to win this particular contest. In terms of vote shares, I think that Labour’s absolute bottom is 25% of the vote, so I’d bet on Labour to get 25%-30% at 11/4 (26.7%), 30%-35% at 11/4…

The wealth gap in the US is “a huge problem,” says Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of investment bank JPMorgan Chase. Dimon, who made $31m last year and has been singled out for criticism by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, told Lesley Stahl in an interview for CBS News: “The wealthy have been getting wealthier... middle class incomes have been kind of flat for maybe 15 years or so and that’s not particularly good in America.” One big issue, he argues, is that “we haven’t done a good job growing our economy. That would’ve fixed a lot of that problem.” That said, he’s not as concerned about recession as some are. “The consumer, which is 70% of the US economy, is quite strong. Confidence is very high. Their balance sheets are in…

Leaders of some academy trusts, which run state-funded schools in England, are being paid “fat cat” salaries higher than the prime minister’s, reports The Sunday Times. Topping the list is Sir Dan Moynihan of the Harris Federation, which runs 43 schools, mainly in south London. Including pension, he is paid between £490,000 and £500,000. Julian Drinkall is paid £290,000 as chief executive of the Academies Enterprise Trust, which runs 57 schools around the country and has been “singled out repeatedly as underperforming”. Third is Sir Kevin Satchwell, who runs just one school, Telford City Technology College, and is paid £270,000. The Department for Education rules that the maximum pay for a headteacher in a school maintained by a local authority in inner London is £121,749. Academy schools can set their…

■ Neil Woodford’s protege and successor at Invesco, Mark Barnett (pictured), may be in danger of following in his footsteps in more ways than one. Barnett’s Invesco Income and High Income funds, which he took over from Woodford in 2014, have been downgraded by Morningstar, says Citywire Wealth Manager’s Daniel Grote. The investment research group downgraded the funds’ ratings from bronze to neutral, “flagging concerns over the £8.9bn funds’ heavy weighting to smaller companies”. Small and micro-cap companies make up over 30% of the portfolios, raising concerns about funding withdrawals if investors rush to sell. ■ UK funds have suffered an outflow of £4.6bn in the third quarter amid Brexit uncertainty and the fallout from the Neil Woodford debacle, says Leke Oso Alabi in the Financial Times. Data from the…

With the Bank of England’s base rate still stuck at 0.75% it is extremely hard to find a decent return on cash savings. So when you see an advert for a cash individual savings account (Isa) paying “fixed returns of up to 9%”, your head is likely to be turned. But it’s ascam. An investigation by The Times has found numerous websites advertising fake cash Isas “from those promising seemingly impossible double-digit returns to others pledging investment opportunities in the ‘alternative market’”, says the paper’s Ali Hussain. Many of the firms behind these Isas falsely claim they are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which means up to £85,000 of your cash will be returned to you if the provider…

MoneyWeek has long recommended Baillie Gifford’s Japan investment trusts (I am a non-executive director of one of them) as a way in to the market. But if it’s the income end of the Topix you are keen on, look to their newish Japan Income Growth Fund, which was launched specifically to take advantage of Japan’s changing corporate governance. It’s been a long time coming, says manager Karen See, but progress is now “promising”. In 2004, 8% of the top 1,200 firms in Japan had an explicit dividend target. In 2016, 43% did. The fund yields 2.2% and while it does have growth exposure (2.7% in Softbank) it holds some older names too (2.7% in Toyota). For purer value exposure try AVI Japan Opportunities Trust (LSE: AJOT), which launched last October.…

Next month we face a general election. While experts disagree about which party will be best for the economy, the evidence of the last three decades of elections suggests that, whatever the result, markets will breathe a sigh of relief when it is over. From 1983 onwards, the FTSE All-Share rose on the day after polling day on eight out of nine occasions. While these post-election bounces tend to be small, the stockmarket surged 6% the day after the 1992 vote. However, it’s important to point out that all those post-election increases in the FTSE All Share took place when the winning party either ended up with an overall majority, or it was clear who was going to be in charge (as in 2017). In 2010, when there was uncertainty…

Petropavlovsk (LSE: POG) is a gold miner with operations in Russia’s far east. It was founded by Peter Hambro and listed in London in 2002. The share price peaked at over 560p in 2006 but since then the company has lost virtually all its value after a tumultuous few years. The gold price fell and the company’s debt ballooned, leaving it saddled with the nickname “POG the dog”. In 2017 Hambro was ousted from the board. In the last year, however, things have started to look up amid a rise in the gold price. The shares have gained 65% in a year.…

Owen Philipps was born in Warminster in 1863 and was apprenticed to a Newcastle shipping firm at the age of 17. In 1888 he set up his own shipping firm with his elder brother John. Three years later the brothers started acquiring shares in the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSPC). Owen went on to be appointed chairman and, over the next 25 years, RMSPC would become the parent of a sprawling group of shipping-related companies that would control around 13% of all large British ships, as well as shipbuilder Harland and Wolff. In 1923 Philipps was  granted a peerage, becoming Lord Kylsant. What was the scam? RMSPC made a lot of money during World War I, mainly from transporting troops. This money was hidden away in the reserves, which…

• Journalist Charles Moore recently wrote that Olivia Colman (pictured) was unsuited to play the Queen in The Crown because she had “a distinctly left-wing face”, says Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror. How? Does she have Arthur Scargill’s sideburns? Lenin’s forehead? Dennis Healey’s eyebrows? No, according to Moore, “it is something to do with looking slightly resentful. The Queen has no such face.” He has a point. Colman’s features “are so warm you struggle to detect the stoic coldness needed by an accident of birth to believe the national anthem should be all about keeping their cushy existence going”. Colman looks like she’d give her last quid to a rough sleeper. “The Queen looks like she’d take £369m off the taxpayer to do up her palace.” • “Give me…