Election results

I realise this is hot on the heels of the last missive (it’s a short one!) but whatever your politics, I offer my hearty congratulations to Sir Keir Starmer on his success yesterday. The outcome is very decisive and we wish him and all of his soon-to-be-assembled team all the very best in managing our Country and its future, for all of our sakes. We wish him and them well.

Additionally, I commiserate with all of those who have lost their seats – it is not only a loss of support by the electorate but a job has finished instantly and whilst redundancy payments may smooth the blow, the system for them and all of their staff in their constituencies (and also Parliament) comes to a juddering halt as a result of one day’s activity by the Public and regardless of the amount of work which may have been expended on the Election – let alone whether they were a great MP and crew or an atrocious one – the vote is brutal. I wish them all well in securing new occupations – as much as I wish the new teams the best in soon starting on the constituency workload (which will be colossal) and a big bag of cases will be inherited on day one and before the staff appointments are even made…

Locally, all success to the new Liberal Democrat MP, Mr Ian Roome! He is a very nice and gregarious chap and has had much local government experience so I wish him all the very best in his post. I trust too that it will take him little time to arrange his accommodation and new arrangements to start fulfilling his role in Westminster. I remember in 2010 just after that Election we were alighting from the train at Tiverton Parkway at around 8pm on a wet, windy and dark November night seeing the lonely figure of Sir Nick Harvey MP, who would then have the hour trip before arriving home to his Family and children already tucked-up in bed and then the return journey very early Monday morning or late Sunday night. He did that for 23 years and afterwards, it was, it seems, a rather thankless task as he disappeared into the shadows as the next MP took-over.

I wish Ian all the very best in rearranging his life to an excruciatingly busy schedule and vast workload – just as the losing MP (like her or not but that emotions cannot dispute the facts around how hard she worked), Ms Selaine Saxby, who devoted her life to fulfil the role since she was elected in 2019. I wish her and her really hard-working team all the very best for their futures and to start, something of a rest too!

Markets

I have been amazed at how sanguine the UK market has been and also Sterling – phenomenal. I realise markets hate ‘uncertainty’ more than ‘bad certainty’ (if that is what change is interpreted as being, ever) but it’s still a surprise. Yes, ‘things’ continue as ‘normal’ regardless of the change and till policy moves begin to have an impact of course.

Today, house builders’ shares are up and entertainingly, the construction/infrastructure firm Kier Group is up amongst the most, of all larger shares. Well, it is spelt differently!

There will be some losers too (very few so far) – what will happen to water and electricity companies? Do their and the energy companies’ share prices already reflect worst fears from tax and regulatory expectations? How will private individuals adjust their investing behaviours, according to what they anticipate in the next Budget may be new tax regimes on capital gains, pensions, qualifying business assets (including AIM shares) and ISAs? We shall have to wait and see. However, the UK market is ‘starting’ under Labour from a very undervalued state, so that’s a great positive and yes, the economy is recovering and sentiment with it, so a very favourable backdrop for the Labour Chancellor – and hopefully the Conservatives had to deal with enough global catastrophes to last us all several decades – though that may be a naïve hope!

Unrelated to the Election but Bitcoin suffered its biggest overnight loss for a long time. I do not believe they are related… We shall have to see how that evolves but you will know our negative views on this as not being an ‘asset’ in the first place anyway.

Enjoy a restful weekend with no canvassing, political broadcasts and leafleting!

My best wishes

Philip J Milton DipFS CFPCM Chartered MCSI FPFS FCIB

Chartered Wealth Manager

Fellow Of The Personal Finance Society, Fellow Of The Chartered Institute Of Bankers

 

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