Nick Parsons

Simply Macro Strategy - founded by a 30+ year City veteran - provides bespoke research on investment issues; global, local, financial and political

[David Turver @7Kiwi]

If you want to be taken seriously look at data, not emotive pictures. Wildfires tracking lowest ever in Europe. UK emits 0.8% of global emissions, a rounding error. The economy is stagnating because of highest electricity prices. Get serious about proper analysis and growth.

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

Excellent summary of where Burnham's tax hikes will be....

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

When it comes to tax in the UK, a lot of people are deluding themselves, thinking the government will just go after the wealthy to pay for the ballooning commitments they’ve made.

The truth is, the real target is the middle class. And the reason is simple. The middle class is the only viable option for the kind of revenue the government wants.

Start with who’s off the table. A third of British adults pay no income tax at all. The bottom half of earners take home about a quarter of the income in this country and pay roughly a tenth of the tax. There’s no pot of gold buried down there, and every party has spent years promising to protect “working people.” Squeezing them is politically radioactive and would raise next to nothing anyway.

The rich are off the table too, whatever the Channel 4 documentaries say. The top 1% already pay 28% of all income tax. Their money is capital, dividends and gains, so they’re mobile, and they’ve already started leaving. One widely quoted forecast has Britain losing half a million millionaires by 2028. Push the rate on these people much higher and you collect less, not more. Threatening them polls brilliantly, but relying on them for a tax bonanza is pure fantasy.

Which leaves the middle class, and the middle class can’t run. Most are on PAYE, taxed at source before the money touches their account. They can’t turn a salary into a capital gain. They can’t declare residency in Monaco, because the job, the kids’ school and the mortgage are all here. Their wealth is a house they can’t hide under the mattress and a pension they can’t reach. Numerous, visible and immobile. The perfect target, and in some ways the only one.

And here’s how it’s already being done. They won’t raise your headline rate of income tax, because they promised not to. But the threshold freeze, the one that sounds like a non-event on Budget day, is quietly hammering you, and it’s now been extended to 2031.

Took out a student loan since 2012? You’ve been paying the graduate tax in all but name. Hold investments outside an ISA? You’ve watched CGT climb to 24%, and it’s likely to be equalised with income tax next. Sent your kids to private school? That’s the VAT charge. Saving into a cash ISA? That shelter just shrank from £20,000 to £12,000. And from 2027, your pension gets pulled into inheritance tax, so the pot you spent a career building can be taxed again on the way out.

There’s more coming. Mansion taxes, higher CGT, property levies, dividends. Most of the taxes we’re told will hit the ultra wealthy will actually land on the middle class. And in most cases they’re not sat on fortunes, they’re sat on assets they spent a working life building.

What’s worse, the burden grows with every Budget, because of the compounding commitments this government keeps making, and that nearly every other party has pledged too.

So who pays for the past, present and future spending of the UK government? The middle class. And there’s not a thing they can do about it. Debt-trapped, stuck in place, with nowhere to turn, and the government knows it.

If any of this resonated, you’re likely in the taxation crosshairs. I wish you luck.

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@TheGriftReport £400 per shift 😲😲

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@thetimes The first 3 paras of this are absolutely brilliant. The rest isn't bad either.... 😉

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

The first 3 paras of this are absolutely brilliant. The rest isn't bad either.... 😉

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

Keir Starmer was not present or involved — the lessons for Labour https://t.co/X3WfdYBfY1

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@FT This article is fundamentally flawed. If swap rates go up for exactly the same reason as gilt yields, then saying that the spread over swaps hasn't changed much is totally irrelevant...

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

Once again, I am delighted to appear on the Indian TV station ETNow to discuss market movements and developments across asset classes. I was arguing early this morning European time in favour of another down day for stocks and bonds as investors become increasingly nervous ahead of the expiry of President Trump's 5-day pause in hostilities in Iran.

With markets becoming increasingly correlated, it is hard to find hedges or safe-havens but I believe the repricing of short-dated government bonds offers some relative safety in these nervous times.

https://t.co/gxJjBZQDwg

@ETNOWlive

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@spectator At the risk of pedantry, prices most certainly did not rise by 3 per cent last month. They rose +0.4% which left the price level 3.0% higher than the same month a year ago.

As a Spectator subscriber, I really do expect better from you than falling into this common trap...

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

At the risk of becoming leader of the Ed Conway fan club, this is yet another great explainer/simplifier of the current economic and market situation...

@EdConwaySky

[Ed Conway @EdConwaySky]

📽️ WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
Another 24 hours on the Trump/Iran economic rollercoaster🎢
Here's our latest primer on the extraordinary economic events and the latest from the Persian Gulf👇

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

It was my very great pleasure to appear this evening on a panel discussion on the Indian TV station ETNow to discuss global markets and President Trump's announcement of a 5-day 'ceasefire'. My argument is that the markets forced this statement from Trump as there was significant cross-asset liquidation at the start of this last week of Q1 2026

https://t.co/vFV68Ff8oD

@ETNOWlive

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

This is a very long read but a fantastic analysis from a true and very well-respected industry expert…. https://t.co/IuybkdCNXG

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

I'm sure there are plenty of candidates in the Labour Cabinet but is it possible for any of them to be more ill-informed about their own brief than David Lammy?

[Concerned Citizen @BGatesIsaPyscho]

🚨🇬🇧🇨🇾 UK Deputy PM David Lammy this morning

“Cyprus is part of NATO”

“We work closely with our allies - because Cyprus is a NATO Country”

Just one problem - Cyprus is NOT a NATO Country 🤡

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@afneil And we now face the shameful embarrassment of French naval vessels being sent to protect a British airforce base in Cyprus

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

The usual excellent analysis from Ed Conway. There really isn’t anyone who comes close at the moment…

[Ed Conway @EdConwaySky]

🎥Today was supposed to be all about the latest UK govt economic forecasts... and then the wholesale gas price jumped at the fastest rate EVER.
Now Europe faces the spectre of another energy crisis...
Our latest data dive, day 2 on the economic consequences of the Iran War👇

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@EdConwaySky If only the UK had huge proven reserves of oil which we could use 🤔

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

Commentators like Fraser Nelson and others have taken recently to quoting the fall in net migration in very approving terms without acknowledging the rise in people leaving the UK. I have a Masters-educated daughter who now lives in the Caribbean and a son about to complete his Masters degree who sees no future in being in the UK...

And we're talking Law and Computer Studies, respectively, not some degree in cake-making and Emmerdale Farm at the University of North Norfolk...

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

Commentators like your colleague Fraser Nelson have taken recently to quoting the fall in net migration in very approving terms without acknowledging the rise in people leaving the UK. I have a Masters-educated daughter who now lives in the Caribbean and a son about to complete his Masters degree who sees no future in being in the UK...

And we're talking Law and Computer Studies, respectively, not some degree in cake-making and Emmerdale Farm at the University of North Norfolk...

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

Commentators like Fraser Nelson have taken recently to quoting the fall in net migration in very approving terms without acknowledging the rise in people leaving the UK. I have a Masters-educated daughter who now lives in the Caribbean and a son about to complete his Masters degree who sees no future in being in the UK...

And we're talking Law and Computer Studies, respectively, not some degree in cake-making and Emmerdale Farm at the University of North Norfolk...

@FraserNelson

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

The Office for Budget Responsibility has cut net migration forecasts but that is entirely due to growing numbers of British people leaving the country

It says net migration levels will be 60,000 a year lower than previously forecast. 'This is driven entirely by a more negative assumption for net migration by British nationals

It says that as a result by 2030 the adult population will be 200,000 lower than forecast in November

[Nick Parsons @NickParsonsSMS]

@SkyNews @BethRigby Makes a change from dealing with things that are beyond her understanding…