Still, even if he does lose it’s not like he’s got a cohesive opposition ready to take him down: The Labour party conference continues to throw up controversy – yesterday it was a ‘show of hands’ to see who wanted the party to take a ‘Remain’ stance. The count showed (apparently very narrowly) that there wasn’t a majority in favour of a remain pitch and as such they’ll Remain neutral in their stance – planning to renegotiate a deal with the EU within three months of coming to power and then take that to the public to decide – which all sounds pretty fair and the safer option when trying not to alienate Leave constituencies – which might have worked if there wasn’t a Brexit party in play – but it has probably played more into the hands of the LibDems who are the only other party with a very clear position on the issue.
Boris has told the EU that they now need to be flexible in reaching a deal. Meeting at the side lines of the UN assembly in New York, the conversation was well summed up by Mr Tusk who tweeted “No breakthrough. No breakdown. No time to lose”. We’re sure teams are working feverishly behind the scenes in Brussels whilst the leaders move onto wider global issues at the UN summit
Germany need to avoid No Deal – Poor manufacturing PMI numbers were worse than already pessimistic forecasts. It came in at 41.4 which is a ten year low (and well below the 44 forecast, which in itself was shocking). As Europe’s finished goods powerhouse, it’s about as bad as it can get for the bloc and this is without the disruption that a hard Brexit would bring. The Bundestag don’t look quite ready to start loosening the purse strings, despite everybody outside of Germany urging them to do so! There are plenty of countries that would love Germany to adapt fiscal policy that might increase Germany’s consumption and therefore boost exports to the country.
Nothing like a look across the Pond to feel better about things though… Trump’s latest scandal involves asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and might possibly have withheld Congressionally approved military aid money as a bit of leverage to get them to do so! The BBC has some more detail on it, but as we get into campaign season ahead of next years presidential election it looks like the starter gun has been fired on the smear campaigns!
Trump has also politely(ish) declined Emmanuel Macron’s help in mediating the Iran dispute. He’s said that they don’t need a mediator and Iran ‘know who to call’ ! Trump hasn’t got a meeting with president Rouhani scheduled whilst they’re both at the UN, but hasn’t ruled it out. Washington is keen to get a global coalition together to put more pressure on Iran following the Saudi oil attacks, for which they’re blaming Iran, but it doesn’t seem to be too forthcoming at the moment.
Luckily for attendees of said UN general assembly, POTUS will be addressing them later today. Last time round he managed to get them openly laughing at him when he talked about his administration achieving more than any other administration in history. This time round he’s not let slip what he’ll be saying, but hopefully he doesn’t go down the climate change route.
The New York Times has a good read on US monetary policy, something Trump has been telling the Fed they’ve got wrong for the last year – turns out he might have been right! now the Fed might start creating more reserves which in turn might lower rates further and also start to dilute the value of the Dollar, which remains incredibly strong. It’s too much to go into in a single paragraph, but well worth a read if you’ve got a few more minutes.
Have a great day
