Mark Drasdo

Solicitor specialising in private client work, now in Witney, formerly Cumbria. Interested in all matters weather and climate related.

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

"Ok Fish, we have you surrounded...." #fish

[Env Agency NW @EnvAgencyNW]

Each week, our hydrology experts monitor river flows and groundwater to see how much water there is and plan accordingly. We have put robust and well tested plans in place during this period of dry weather, ensuring our demand for water is managed in the best possible way #TeamEA

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@PaulBlight6 Interesting. Tides are running high early & mid-week.

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@CutMyTaxUK Presumably she will also be expensing a new umbrella.

[Hedgehog Cabin @HedgehogCabin]

As we enter yet another week of drought conditions please, I beg you, put out water for the wildlife.
They have nothing.
No puddles.
No ponds.
No streams.
All have dried up.
Sometimes the birds are thought of and provided for.
But the nocturnal animals go unseen.
Unthought of.
No kind dishes.
Just the tantalising smell of water from a pond they may drown in, or a drain they may get trapped in.
Or a stagnant, dirty old birdbath they may get fatal fluke from.
Hedgehogs need to drink a lot of water to stay healthy. Please provide clean, fresh, safe, ground level water each evening for our precious nocturnal wildlife.
Tap water is best.
Pop a dish or two out tonight.
Dying of thirst is a terrible, painful way to die.
It should never happen to any animal, and certainly not in a country that has the safest tap water in the world.
The few minutes it takes you to fill a dish will make the difference between life and death.❤️

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@NoContextBrits I hope they carried out a wrist assessment.

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@daveainsworth63 DOOORREEENNNN!

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Labour risks being forced to seek emergency help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Britain lurches toward a debt crisis, leading economists are now warning.

Former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff says, in a new interview, that there is “more than 50:50 chance” of a major UK debt crisis before the end of this decade.

He is joined by Sir Charlie Bean, a former senior official at both the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, who says the need for an IMF bail-out is now a “material risk” for the British economy.

I not only firmly agree with Ken Rogoff and Sir Charlie Bean – but have been repeatedly issuing the very same warnings for a very long time.

Because the grave risk of a major fiscal meltdown has been apparent for at least the last two years – to anyone who combines serious knowledge of UK economics and politics and global debt markets with an open mind.

The UK's public finances were already fragile when Labour took office back in July 2024.

But this government's misguided, ideologically-driven statist policies have made a bad situation much worse, seriously increasing the danger of a deep fiscal crisis - which would cause a disastrous state funding shortfall and a very nasty inflation spike.

That would result in Downing Street being forced to follow the orders of unelected technocrats flown in from Washington and elsewhere.

It would be a very major national humiliation combined with a deep economic slump and an even more intense cost-of-living crisis – in which low-income households, as ever, would suffer the most.

Yet those of us that have shown the brains and courage to point out these inconvenient truths over recent months and years have long been dismissed and derided for our trouble - not only by ignorant politicians and approval-seeking journalists but also the overwhelming majority of "leading economists".

Ahead of the general election in mid-2024, with Labour on course to win, the conventional wisdom among the great sages of broadsheet journalism and the economics establishment was that "the adults would soon be back in charge" ... Labour would "get lucky with the economy" ... and "Britain would now enjoy an extended period of political and fiscal stability".

I thought that was total nonsense – not least as I was well aware Labour's plans irresponsibly to increase borrowing and spending would be met with deep scepticism by the global pensions funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors that lend governments serious money.

My weekly @Telegraph "Economic Agenda" column of 23rd June 2024, a fortnight ahead of the general election, was a total outlier. I recounted the disaster of 1976 – when Britain was forced to go "cap in hand" to the IMF for a bailout – and warned that "The Ghosts of the 1970s" would haunt Labour's (so-called) economic resurrection".

Six months later, after the October 2024 "Hallowen" budget in which Chancellor Rachel Reeves did indeed sharply hike borrowing and spending, I assessed the market reaction then doubled-down – warning more assertively in my column of 12th January 2025 that "The UK risks a return to 1976 unless Reeves changes course".

And then again on 20th July 2025, as Labour's policies raised the costs of doing business, translating into price pressures which pushed up government borrowing costs even more, I again cautioned that "Inflation risks are taking Britain to the debt-crisis cliff edge".

"It’s now screamingly obvious that Labour’s crude Keynesianism – “pump priming” the economy by upping state borrowing and spending – isn’t working," I wrote in that column last July.

"Worse than that, this Government’s actions are pushing Britain towards a budgetary crisis every bit as serious as that in 1976 – when the UK was forced to go “cap in hand” to the IMF for a bail-out".

It's been a lonely task issuing these warnings. I've been hounded in public debates, slagged off by senior civil servants and often dismissed by "leading economists" as "alarmist".

So what do these same "leading economists" now say to Rogoff (Harvard Professor, Former IMF Chief Economist) and Bean (LSE Professor and Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England)?

The "economics establishment" – with very few honourable exceptions, the brilliant @jagjit_chadha among them – has been and remains extremely reluctant to point out the deeply unsustainable nature of this government's addiction to ever more borrowing.

The systemic fiscal dangers of evermore "tax and spend" – and the prospect of a serious spike in gilt yields and related fiscal meltdown – are now so real and present as to be completely undeniable.

Yet the UK government is about to shift even further to the left, pushing up borrowing and spending even more under a new leader, in a bid to appease the massed ranks of economic illiterates among Labour's Parliamentary party and activist base – making those dangers even more acute.

Yet, still, the silence among "public intellectual" economists is deafening.

I'm glad the likes of Ken Rogoff and Charlie Bean are now issuing clear warnings. So where is the rest of the "economics establishment" - those who purport to understand fiscal management and financial markets, and often funded by taxpayers' money?

Britain is now clearly in the crosshairs of a very serious danger. The government's creditors are increasingly fickle and based overseas – with no regulatory or cultural obligations to lend money to the UK government.

Those holding UK gilts are increasingly "speculative" rather than "strategic" long-term investors – looking for quick returns, financing their government bond purchases with "leverage" (money borrowed from elsewhere), which will quickly be withdrawn when senitment decisively shifts, causing a plunge in gilt prices and a sharp additional surge in government borrowing costs, setting up a vicious circle.

The UK government is very heavily indebted – and the global investors we rely on to bankroll a huge slice of our state spending are alarmed that of the £132bn the government borrowed last year, no less than £110bn was spent on debt interest – as I wrote in a column on 17th May 2026, "As Labour lurches further left, the markets are calling time".

Global investors are alarmed the UK has consistently had the highest inflation in the G7 (which pushes up borrowing costs) and has easily the highest share of index-linked debt (which magnifies the burden of inflation on the state's balance sheet).

And they are deeply, deeply alarmed that when Labour came to power in mid-2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility was forecasting additional state borrowing of £323bn by 2029, the scheduled end of this Parliament.

But Labour’s runaway spending and growth-crushing tax rises mean that the same five-year borrowing forecast is now £583bn – 80pc higher. And still, the trade unions, MPs and Labour activists who will choose Starmer’s successor now want even more.

It is not too late to pull the UK back from the fiscal brink, to avoid the extremely painful and deep, lingering damage of being forced to go to the IMF and perhaps other multi-lateral creditors for a bailout.

It is not too late to avoid the inflation surge, the currency crash, the shocking blow to consumer and business confidence alongside the sky-high interest rates that will seriously whack our economy – or the perhaps even deeper damage of yet more of the British electorate losing faith in the ability of our establishment to manage the country in a manner that avoids imposing serious hardship on so many hard-working people simply trying to make their way.

But our political and media class needs to start acknowledging the economic and financial truth – that the UK government is borrowing and spending too much, taxation is now so high that it's hammering growth and employment, and that trying to finally get the economy moving by "moving further left", borrowing and spending even more, will result in a fiscal collapse.

Smart, experienced, high-profile economists need to start speaking out – as Rogoff and Bean just have – raising the alarm in a bid to force the broader establishment to face reality. Before it's too late.

If you've read this far, you clearly think this analysis is worthwhile and important. So please like and share.

And for more, read my "Economic Agenda" column in The Sunday Telegraph each week – and subscribe to "When The Facts Change: Economics and Politics in a fast-moving world, with Liam Halligan"

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@thebowlerhatman Has your ladder rung since leaving?

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@myGridGB Indeed, do we have a general picture as to what elements make up the bulk of power coming from overseas? Nuclear of course I presume in the case of France. Or is it very variable as with our own supply?

[THE GREEN PARTY EXPOSED @ExposedGreens]

🚨CRUELTY: Cllr Zoe Marlow STARVED her dog Laney to a skeleton.

Vets had no choice but to euthanize the suffering dog.

Convicted Oct 2025: community order, £120 fine +dog ban.

Yet she’s STILL a Manchester councillor in 2026 while Greens lecture on animal welfare.

Disgusting.

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@NoContextBrits This was a rash decision.

[Bill McGuire @ProfBillMcGuire]

I need another 34,632 followers to get back to where I was when I closed my X account earlier this year

Would be marvellous to be in touch with you all again 😄👍

@ProfBillMcGuire for all things climate, volcanoes and more

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Over the last week, the price of Brent crude has surged from $72 to $90 a barrel, a 25pc increase.

Since mid-December, as the geopolitical heat has risen, oil is up 53pc. And over recent days, the price of wholesale UK gas has doubled.

Britain, as a highly indebted, net energy importer, is vulnerable. And clear evidence of that vulnerability can already be seen.

Watch a recording of my latest "Ask Me Anything" session, responding to questions from my fast-growing subscriber base.

When The Facts Change - economics and politics in a fast-moving world, with Liam Halligan

https://t.co/S0AMkv4Q75

[Second Chance Dog Rescue @SCD_Rescue]

💝Luna is waiting in UK kennels for a home 💝

Our gorgeous girl Luna had a home offer pending a meet this weekend.

Sadly after the team spent ALOT of time on their homecheck, application, answering questions, doing further assessments at kennels for them along with a dedicated chat with further daily questions this morning they cancelled. 💔

This has left poor Luna stuck in kennels with no other offers 💔

Luna is a really sweet girl; she is nearly 10 months old and weighs just under 10kgs 🥹

She is great with other dogs and has a really sweet gentle temperament. She really deserves to be in a home now and I’m really hoping her people see her post today and she finds the most amazing home♥️

See her full details on our website:
https://t.co/bwwmNrYPZb

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@Number10cat “President…Putin, of Russia”���.ah, I had been wondering.

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@FaneProductions @David_Suchet 135th?

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@Petagna Presumably the Central heating.

[Lord Ashcroft @LordAshcroft]

For every retweet of this post, I will donate £1 to the @VC_and_GC_Assoc up to £50,000.
Time is running out following @I_W_M’s decision to close the Lord Ashcroft Gallery.
Visit while you still can, to honour the bravery of those who risked so much to protect our great nation.

[Ian Dunt @IanDunt]

All the worst people worried about the exodus to BlueSky. Help us upset them. Move over today. https://t.co/TYot1Abbwh

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@RuthRoperWylde Following you there now.

[Mark Drasdo @MarkDrasdo]

@RuthRoperWylde Yes, most going to Bluesky . I am unfollowing here and following there as people move.