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My view is that an independent central bank is the lesser of two evils. The alternative is having the Bank of England under direct government control as we did before 1997. The idea of an independent central bank is that they respond to economic conditions and government policy rather than influence them. The USA has had an independent central bank for over a century, the European Central Bank was established alongside the Euro. In China, on the other hand, the bank is directly controlled by government. Before Gordon Brown made the Bank of England independent the government directly set interest rates. The downside of this was that governments would tend to cut interest rates before elections regardless of the economic situation. So in the couple of years before the 1987 election for example, Thatcher's government kept cutting interest rates despite the economy growing. This ultimately created a property bubble followed by a crash which contributed to the recession of the late 80s/early 90s. Governments can also manipulate currency through central banks. So if you want to increase exports you need a weak currency. You can achieve this by increasing interest rates. This is what China has done in recent years. There are weaknesses in having an independent central bank. They can be slow to respond to changes in the economic situation. I think they were too slow to recognise post-Covid inflation for example, so didn't raise rates quickly enough. There's also a question about how effective changes to interest rates actually are in an era when most people with mortgages have them on fixed term rather than variable rates. So, am I going to reign my spending in very much and therefore help keep inflation down if my mortgage payments don't change at all? The inflation of recent years has has much more to do with rising energy and commodity prices, over which the UK has little control, than anything else.

We don't discuss the UK's similarities with Japan enough. Island nation, ageing population, colonial legacy, big government debt, economically dominated by the capital city. The big demographic difference between the UK is their population is in decline due to a very low birth rate and comparatively low net migration while the UK has offset its ageing population and low birth rate with high levels of inward migration.

There are quite a few I've not been to yet - have got The Lion Tavern, Denbigh Castle and Baltic Fleet on my to-do list. Of those I have visited my favourites are: The Roscoe Head The Belvedere The Grapes (small one near the bombed out church, not the one in town) The Vines (used to be rubbish, recently refurbished and they've done a great job - right next to Lime Street) The Ship & Mitre

The Phil has the greatest pub toilets in the world. They are a work of art. Almost feel bad for urinating in them.

It's a competitive field but I actually think Coady is the worst of our centre backs. It doesn't matter who's there if the midfield is as porous as ours has been this season. Soumare is good on the ball, rarely misplaces a pass and progresses well up the pitch. However he is unfortunately a passenger when we don't have the ball (which is often). Winks similar but takes fewer risks. Ndidi walks back into the team once he's fit but the in the meantime we've got to try something different. Skipp has been really poor so far but perhaps as part of a 3 with Soumare and Winks he might be ok. I'd have a back 4 of Justin, Okoli, Vestergaard and Kristiansen for now. Then Buonanotte Vardy/Daka and Bilal up top.

I live within walking distance from Old Trafford and not only am I not going, I won't even watch on TV.

All good choices. Marble Arch is great. Britons Protection has potential to be great but is poorly ran. Pev, Angel and the Castle are all decent. Port Street Tavern is worth a trip, they have a huge selection of beers. Just feel for the size of the city it's not got as many truly great pubs in the centre as it should do. I can think of 25-30 genuinely excellent city centre pubs in Liverpool, but in Manchester it's maybe 7 or 8.

Which pubs did you go to? I live in Manchester and often think we don't have many great pubs in the city centre compared to Liverpool and Sheffield which are smaller cities. Interested to hear a visitor's perspective though.

Fun fact: the UK measures trade flows slightly differently to the US, so according to UK data we have a trade surplus with the US but according to their data we have a deficit. Maybe if we just sit still and stay quiet for the next 4 years they won’t notice.

Don't get me wrong, it's worth a visit. The views from the top of are amazing. Just quite an odd place. When I went there were loads of market stalls selling fascist and Nazi paraphernalia. 'Mussolini wine' and the like. This is 20 years ago though, it's probably changed a lot.

Bologna is amazing. San Marino is quite a strange place. Interesting though.

As others have said, Ghent is lovely. Bruges is half an hour on the train so you can easily do both. Antwerp isn’t as pretty but I really enjoyed it. Great food scene and lots of good bars. Really interesting history and just a cool place to walk around and chat with the locals.

Unemployment is marginally above the last quarter but there's not a huge difference. ONS labour market statistics usually get revised after a few months so I wouldn't pay too much attention to small changes quarter to quarter. It's too early to determine any long-term trends resulting from this government's policy actions. GDP growth is about the same as it was a year ago, i.e. not great. But hard to see how you can blame a government that's been in 6 months for that, rather than one that was in power for 14 years before that. The 'tax burden' is not an economic indicator. There is no relationship between how high tax is a percentage of GDP and the performance of a national economy. If there was then Norway (very high tax-GDP ratio) would be poor and Equitorial Guinea (very low tax-GDP ratio) would be rich.

Genuine question - which indicators?

Enjoyed Ruud referring to ‘The Premiership’ in his press conference, like the true Barclaysman he is.

I think her claims about sustainable aviation are very dubious and won't age well. Heathrow might be justifiable for other reasons, I don't know - I don't live in London or anywhere near it so no skin in the game. But if we were going to do it we should have just gone ahead after the first decision was made in 2009 rather than the hokey-cokey we've had since. Same with HS2.

Not having a go at you personally because I think this is a very common British viewpoint, but maybe if we'd invested in infrastructure 10-15 years ago when interest rates were rock bottom, the economy would have been in a better place. Instead the Coalition government cut numerous energy and transport programmes. There's a famous clip of Nick Clegg from about 2011 justifying the cancellation of some nuclear energy schemes because the benefits wouldn't be seen for "another 10 years". Those nuclear generators would have come online just before Russia invaded Ukraine and gas prices went through the roof. Just because infrastructure takes time doesn't mean we shouldn't build it.

Our temperate climate could make Northern Europe a very attractive proposition - for capital, labour and finance - over the next 50 years. That will create political challenges as well as opportunities of course.

Haha, thanks. My first degree was history but I spent three years mostly inebriated, so trying to make up for lost time by reading all the books I should have back then.

If you take a longer view of history we might one day look back on the Cold War era as an anomaly in relations between the US and Europe. From the mid 1800s until WW1 the American story was one of territorial expansion and, eventually economic domination. The US expanded southwards, westwards and into the Pacific. At the same time they expressed opposition to European colonialism in the Western hemisphere, which prompted the European powers to embark on imperialist expansion into Africa and Asia. They were dragged into WW1 late and during the 1920s US politics was torn between increased isolationism and propping up ailing European economies. The Wall Street Crash essentially made their choice for them and they withdrew until Pearl Harbour. 1945-1991 Europe was considered a key battleground in the Cold War against the Soviets, with a huge amount of economic and military resources poured into the region. Over the last 30 years or so we've seen the gradual decline in US interest in Europe and over the last decade an economic bifurcation as the US economy steams ahead while Europe (including the UK) stutters. Put in this context Trump appears not as an aberration but as a continuation of an earlier US approach to international relations, combining elements of early 20th century isolationism with the territorial ambitions (e.g. Greenland) of the 19th century.

Vanguard LifeStrategy funds are easy to use and reasonably priced. You choose a fund that suits the level of risk you want to take. The higher the level of risk you're willing to take on, the higher the percentage of stocks vs bonds. So the LifeStrategy 100% equity is generally considered the highest level of risk as it's 100% stocks, while the LifeStrategy 20% equity fund is the lowest risk as its' 80% bonds. Vanguard have increased their platform fee recently so it's worth checking if other platforms offer LifeStrategy funds. I know Hargreaves Lansdown do as the LifeStrategy 100% equity fund makes up a good chunk of my portfolio. Another option would be the roboinvestors like MoneyBox, Wealthify etc. However I've not used any of them for investing so unsure what the service is like.

I enjoyed Ian from the Fosse Way's exasperated rant on the latest WYS. Nice to hear a bit of emotion on what can often be a very dry podcast. Very little point in having Stowell on if he's just going to be a company man.

Good point. In fairness to Ruud with the injury situation his options have been limited.

All reminds me of the period before Pearson came back for his second spell. Players with big reputations on big contracts not performing. Cliques in the dressing room. Increasingly frustrated supporters. Question is whether Ruud can be the man to do a proper reset like Nige did in 2012-13, and whether Top/Rudkin/Whelan will allow him to.

Dawid Malan was quite a useful player to hold together a T20 innings. Not the quickest starter but he could steady the ship when a couple of wickets fell. Brook could be that player but he still lacks a bit of experience to know when to slow things down and when to ramp back up again. The rest of the top order all seem to want to hit a six every ball.