On this day last year, for the first time on record, temperatures in the UK exceeded 40°C
🌡️ 40.3°C was recorded at Coningsby
A marked contrast compared to today, with a forecast max temp of 19°C at Coningsby, whilst southern England could see 25°C
A heatwave will persist across north-west Africa this week and into next week for some. Temperatures will be into the high 40s over the next few days.
The heat may intensify this weekend and into the start of next week in Tunisia with temperatures potentially reaching 50C.
Some still writing things like 'people still splurging amid mortgage crisis' as an argument that things aren't so bad. Yet of course that's happening - we have a split society.
From a consumer perspective the mortgage crisis disproportionately falls on relatively few shoulders.
Roughly 1/3 of the population has mortgage, a third rent, and a third owns their house outright.
Of the third with a mortgage, many are still on long-term fixes. This means the bank of England's deliberate policy to increase the cost of borrowing in order to squeeze disposable incomes, and take money out of the economy, is only really very directly hitting likely under 20% of the population. So their incomes need to be really squeezed in order for it to work.
Of course there's also a squeeze on renters where costs are rocketing, some of it an indirect and painful knock on from the mortgage rate hikes, but also from the other big inflations in energy and food prices.
That's one part of our polarized society. The other includes those who own outright, some of whom will have gained from the £150 billion pounds of extra savings that built up during the pandemic. And while there's some hit there due to energy and other inflation, it will be offset by benefitting from interest rates going up, as savers get more income.
So the idea that the mortgage squeeze means pan society everybody stops spending is nonsense. What we're actually doing is trying to fix the whole economy by making a disproportionate squeeze on a relatively limited number of people.
Of course interest rate rises impact business too. Yet that's not my bag.
It's very hard to know how to react to a 0.5% increase in rates at this time. Clearly we must tackle inflation, but this one trick method is causing huge pain to many on variable & coming off fixed rate mortgages
We need to at least ensure the gain is passed on to savers.
Our friends at @NewsHawksLive tell me that they have a Massive Exclusive coming soon!
30 farms were plundered in Harare!
Land worth US$3.1 billion was looted by powerful political elites and their surrogates between 2005 to 2019!
Who are these people?
Read @NewsHawksLive
1. I have just seen Zimbabwe’s political prisoner, lawyer & opposition MP, @JobSikhala1 at Chikurubi prison.
Job has been in prison for 300 days without bail, an act of crude political persecution!
He wishes you all well, and he thanks you for the solidarity you have given him.
🟡Where is the Minister of Art when artists are harassed by the police because looting dunderheads are offended by music?
Does she condone the violation of artistic freedom? Or is she complicit in it?
We are sick of dunderheads sleeping on the job!
We need new leaders.🇿🇼
A government that is confident in its conduct and policies doesn't operate like this. This is shameful! You can't be so insecure as a Gvt to the point of fighting even musicians! Why fuel anger and frustration among people? This lacks both sophistication and thinking. #WinkyD
This is yesterday at Zimbabwe’s biggest international airport.
Passengers using smart phone lights as they maneuver their way to the plane gates.
Now tell me, how incompetent does one have to be to fail to have an automatic change over when there is load shedding at an airport?
The 2022 Person of the Year Award goes to political prisoner @JobSikhala1 and the group @PacheduZW
Job showed us what courage & commitment look like as he stood up for the deceased Moreblessing Ali.
Pachedu was able to definitively show us how rigging is done.
Congratulations👏🏿
I have just seen Zimbabwe’s political prisoner and opposition MP @JobSikhala1 who has been in jail for more than 6 months without conviction.
He asked me to tell you that regardless of how long it takes to come out, he will not abandon the struggle for freedom thru the backdoor.
As a longtime Meghan Markle supporter, I’d like to thank the Royal Family for absolutely proving everything that Meghan Markle has said was true this week.