Tony Redondo

You’re Losing Money on Every International Transfer You Make. We show you exactly what your international payments are really costing you and how to fix it.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: America turns 250, Britain turns restless after two years of Labour in charge https://t.co/5hpnmZ6u4T via @LinkedIn

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: Who Will Be the Next UK Prime Minister and What Will It Mean for the Pound? https://t.co/aiVw0isMYx via @LinkedIn

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

THE FIVE TESTS

For weeks I've argued that this party, and this country, needs a proper debate about where we go next. Not a reshuffle. Not a few degrees of course correction. The big, difficult, honest choices we've spent thirty years avoiding.

A few people have asked me what that debate should actually be about. Fair enough. I spent 24 years in the Marines and two in government, and I resigned because I couldn't win the argument I believed in from the inside. So let me make it here, plainly.

This isn't a manifesto, but a set of five tests. Anyone asking to lead our country should be able to look down this list and say yes to all five.

1️⃣ ⁠The Frontline Test
Do we give the people on the frontline the kit they need to do the job, and stand by them when the job is done?

I joined the Marines at 18. I've buried friends. So I do take this one personally.

I sat in government and watched us write a defence plan for a world that no longer exists, discussed in rooms I was kept out of. A 100k drone is now sinking warships that cost a billion. That is the reality of the wars being fought right now.

Passing this means 3% of GDP as the floor, not the ceiling. Buying for the next war, not the last. And fixing the Legacy Act so blokes in their seventies aren't back in the dock for what they were cleared of decades ago.

2️⃣ The Next-Generation Test
Are we handing the next generation a better deal than the one we inherited, or a worse one?

I'm a lad from a tough part of Aberdeen. My mum raised five of us through some bleak years. The only reason I got out was because I was given an opportunity. That cannot be said for young people today.

Nearly a million young people, around one in eight, are now outside work, education or training. That isn't their failure. It's ours.

Fixing this means a NEETs and youth unemployment target with a date, the youth guarantee delivered not just announced. Restoring the link between work and a decent life for the under 30s, on housing, wages and opportunity. Skills and apprenticeship numbers that beat the last government, not just match it.

Talent is everywhere in this country. Opportunity isn't. Fix that and you fix half of everything else...

3️⃣ ⁠The Trillion-Pound Test
Is the plan to add a trillion pounds to what Britain earns, or to manage the decline more politely?

Here's the lesson I learned from Ukraine and in government, and it never changes. We invent things. Other countries build them. Other countries decide. We're brilliant at the first mile and absent for the next ninety nine.

So set a target and be judged on it. A trillion pounds added to our GDP within a decade. Yes, it's ambitious. We should be ambitious!

Getting there means backing the high tech inventors just as much as the high street traders. Your local coffee shop shouldn't be paying more tax per cappuccino than Starbucks does. So why on earth do they?

It means an industrial strategy worth the name. Things to make and things to sell, in Barrow, in Derby, in every region. Our industrial base is national security, so we should fund it like it.

And it means building the chips and the compute here, not inventing the breakthrough and watching someone else scale it. Data is the new gunpowder.

4️⃣ The 10% Test
Can we make the country work 10% better, instead of only ever asking for 10% more?

I saw this from the inside. We patch the symptom this year, but the bill grows next year, and we end up paying for failure at the most expensive end of every system.

A 10% improvement in outcomes across a handful of our biggest problems, ill health, reoffending, wasted potential, would free up somewhere between £40 and £60 billion a year. We're already paying those costs. We just pay them too late, when they're at their worst.

Passing this means investing early instead of paying far more later, and having the honesty to admit that not every pound we spend today delivers an immediate return.

5️⃣ ⁠The Lights-On Test
Does our energy policy keep the lights on, the bills down and factories open, or do we keep chasing a target and hope the rest sorts itself out?

For years we've treated net zero as the only goal, and everything else, your bill, our industry, whether the grid even stays up, as a problem for later. That’s the wrong way around.

Make energy security the goal. Power that people, businesses, and industry can afford, and a grid that stays on when someone tries to switch it off. Do that and net zero follows. Chase the target on its own, and you end up with neither.

Passing this means a serious baseload, nuclear and the North Sea, built in time to matter. Strong countries have cheap, secure energy. Weak countries don't.

None of this is complicated. It's the oldest deal there is. You serve the country, the country stands by you. In uniform, in a hospital, in a classroom, on a building site. Right now that deal is broken, and everyone keeping our country going can feel it.

That broken deal is the real reason for the frustration out there. It's why trust has drained out of politics. And it's why our party that won a landslide is, halfway through the term, already arguing about who leads it.

But changing the person at the top fixes nothing if we don't fix the deal underneath. Swap one leader for another and leave the deal broken, and we'll be right back here in eighteen months, asking the same question all over again.

So I'm not interested in who gets what job. I'm interested in whether we've got the courage to pass these tests.

We've been promised a debate. This is my opening offer to it. And if that debate ever becomes a contest, it should be fought on this ground, not on personalities.

I know where I stand.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

The Laffer Curve illustrates the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. It shows that revenue is zero at a 0% tax rate (no tax collected) and also zero at 100% (no incentive to work or earn). Between these extremes lies an optimal rate that maximises revenue.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Tony Redondo, said the markets were giving Andy Burnham, the expected new Prime Minister and replacement for Keir Starmer, the benefit of the doubt.

'Buy your holiday money now' as Pound hits 10-month high against Euro | Travel News | Travel | https://t.co/Ijs7JPK6EX

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

The Pound has sunk to its lowest level against the US Dollar since November 2025, a seven-month low.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

"UK gilt yields face upward pressure, with the 2, 10, and 30-year carrying a considerable risk premium over economic peers. "

FTSE 100 'rebounds' after Keir Starmer quits as PM - but gilts face 'upward pressure' | Personal Finance | Finance | https://t.co/Ijs7JPK6EX

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: Why Our Obsession with Certainty Hinders Us in Times of Turmoil https://t.co/i5UHOgSFEJ via @LinkedIn

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Tax hikes and uncertainty make life in Britain less appealing to the wealthy | This is Money

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Ahead of today's Bank of England interest rate decision at midday and the Makerfield by-election result, expected in the early hours of Friday, the Pound has sunk this morning to a three-week low against the Euro.

[Andrew Montford @aDissentient]

Letter in the Times...

[Professor John Hearn @jbhearn]

Here is the explanation

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

It's a busy week for economic data. Politically, all eyes are on Makerfield. For clients with near-term currency requirements, the question is straightforward: take the current stable rates or take a view and hope the week's data and by-election result move in your favour.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

https://t.co/kbJG7Lyfai

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Tony Redondo, founder at Newquay-based Cosmos Currency Exchange, said the changes “make sense in theory” but add another regulatory burden to struggling companies.

Small firms must report accounts to Companies House from 2028 - FTAdviser

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: The Leaked Words Haunting Labour’s Grim 2026 Economic Outlook https://t.co/EBwqR5gXyW via @LinkedIn

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Tony Redondo, founder of Cosmos Currency Exchange, said: ‘This neatly encapsulates the economic illiteracy of this government. They are not in the least concerned with wealth creation.’

https://t.co/poA05EeYr2

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

The Pound has risen to a seven-week high against the Canadian Dollar. The most immediate threat to the Pound is political. The Makerfield by-election will take place on 18 June. Markets traditionally dislike political uncertainty above all else.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

“This neatly encapsulates the economic illiteracy of this government. They are not in the least concerned with wealth creation. The Tories deserved a good kicking at the last election, but the country does not deserve this shambolic excuse for a government.

[Tony Redondo @TonyRedondo5]

Check out the latest article in my newsletter: Brexit at Ten: Why Labour's EU Dilemma Could Define the Next Election https://t.co/AFqrf69tBZ via @LinkedIn