Robert Gibson

Educated at Newcastle Royal Grammar School, studied law at Newcastle University. I'm head of employment and business law. Senior Partner @SamPLaw

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@stephenpollard Virtue signalling deflection. Involve yourself with this rather than tackle big ticket items which really matter.

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

“The fasten seat belts sign is on”.

This is a message I received early this morning from one of the UK’s most experienced, savvy and respected financial traders. Someone I have come to know and trust for the last 25 years.

10-year bond yields are now almost 4.5pc - up some 50 basis points over the last month.

30-year yields this morning went above 6pc - a 28-year high.

Yet the UK’s political and media class continues to focus on party posturing and folksy rhetoric, ignoring the slow-motion disaster that has been happening on the UK’s sovereign bond markets for at least the last 18 months - a disaster that will inevitably, unless we drastically change course, turn into a fully blown market meltdown.

At that point, the UK government won’t be able to borrow enough money to finance our already spiralling debt interest bill.

Britain’s financial management will be taken over by overseas technocrats - that will be the condition of additional borrowing, to maintain the basic functions of the state, as happened in Greece and Italy back in the early 2010s and here in Britain 50 years ago this year (when we were forced in 1976 to apply to the IMF for a bailout).

The austerity then imposed on Britain would make 2010-2019 feel like a picnic - far, far worse than it would be if we took serious action now to control our public finances.

Lower-income households would suffer most - and there would be serious damage done to the UK’s already rapidly-fraying social fabric ….

I have been warning about these looking fiscal dangers publicly, in my newspaper columns and elsewhere, since at least early 2024.

Doing so hasn’t been easy or fun. I have been dismissed and derided by numerous economists, “economists”, officials and policymakers - as well as lots of journalists.

I absolutely don’t want a disastrous 1976-style outcome - which is why I’ve taken the blows and issued the warnings.

The state is too big. Public spending is out of control. Our fiscal rules are a convenient nonsense - designed to kick the can of financial reality into the future. We need to get real … and take bold action to tame the growth of spending, push back a now totally over-bearing state and snap the British economy out of today’s high-tax-high-borrowing-low-growth doom loop - the result of myopic, counter-productive policy-making by successive governments for the last decade and more …

Other prominent economists who agree with me - ie who are financially-literate, can read a yield curve, have a passing interest in economic history and who understand the dangers of some 80pc of UK government borrowing going on debt interest as it currently is - need to chuck “career risk” in the bin, and start saying publicly what so many of them have, for quite a while now, only had the bottle to say to me in private …

Remember: “The fasten seat belts sign is on”

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@AllisonPearson Let’s talk about after the next election rather than before it seems to be the message. Easier to do that if you might not get there.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@mcdermottkc_ All conveniently after the next election & in 3+ years. What about now & the next 2 years. Performative pie in the sky

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@afneil West Bank run by Fatah. Gaza run by Hamas. Each hates & kills the other. At a bare minimum with Israel it would need to be a 3 state solution. And it’s been consistently rejected by Palestinians anyway.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@afneil Just imagine if Reform & the Tories could reach an accord. They’d walk it.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@JuliaHB1 Those remarks will haunt him & his government most of all because he must believe it. The first duty of any government anywhere is national security without which there is nothing else.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@cabinetofficeuk @IanMurrayMP Word salad. Nothing more.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@mcdermottkc_ It was always going to be a problem. They don’t need both DOH & NHS England. Maybe they could re purpose them into patient facing roles even if they had to red circle salaries. Cheaper in the long run.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@JuliaHB1 Most will be recalled for breach of licence, as has happened historically. So you don’t fix overcrowding. Many will reoffend & innocent people will have their lives ruined by it. This is so typical of the chaos politicians cause & why they are loathed by the public.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

Liam Halligan is a well respected financial journalist whose views seem pretty sensible to me.

[Duncan Bannatyne @DuncanBannatyne]

This man should be PM now. He knows what he is talking about & he says it out loud.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@AllisonPearson PCC should resign but I doubt he will & they’re almost impossible to force out having been elected albeit usually by a 15%turnout.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@mcdermottkc_ Spartan for business BA?

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@bbc5live Can we have our money back please. You know the severance payment you trousered.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@afneil Ideology. They don’t understand business & care even less about it.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@afneil Yup

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

Just been through the EU EES system at Schiphol. Ghastly. 2 made it 2 didn’t. Bureaucratic nonsense. You have to allow 1hr minimum just for that bollocks.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@bbcnickrobinson How is any of this following due & proper process?

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@afneil The dawn of a new era in government integrity as promised. It’s always the cover up that gets them. Next PMQs is gonna be spicy.

[Robert Gibson @SamPLaw_HR]

@afneil Wasn’t the key election promise growth?Didn’t realise they meant growth in taxes, government spending & borrowing.