Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Spectators podcast. I'm Kate Andrews, the

Spectators Economics Editor, and for the next half hour, I'll be walking you through our financial

year and review. I'm joined by Martin Vanderware, the Spectator's business editor and Paul

Aberlee, Chief Executive of the Charles Stanley Group. And this podcast is kindly sponsored by

Charles Stanley. So thanks both of you

so much for joining me. Let's start with some good news, shall we? It seems that the British economy

and indeed the world's economy have been bouncing back from COVID-19. There have been serious

teething pains, labor shortages, a few empty shelves. But really, it's a sign that the economies

have been kick-started yet again, right, Paul? Yes But really, it's a sign that the economies have been

kick-started yet again, right, Paul? Yes, indeed. This is certainly looking much healthier,

but of course, we're not out of the woods by any means with the latest measures that you're

seeing rolled out around the world. And it's a nuanced impact on investors, because on the one hand,

clearly, as an investor investor you want a strong global

economy on the other hand when COVID is an issue the central bank and fiscal response is actually

very friendly for markets so ironically as an investor you might do better in a weakened economy with

loose fiscal monetary policy than in one that has to stand on its own feet.

And we may be in a weaker economy for some time, Martin, because here in the UK, plan B is coming

into action. Some people are calling it lockdown by stealth, especially for businesses and city

centres that are so reliant on those office workers who have now been told to work from home,

larger venues that have to implement vaccine passports, we'll see a hit to their profits from that

as well. It's not as obvious, too, that loose monetary policy is necessarily our future.

No, and I think it's now clear that the recovery is going to rapidly slow. So what we've

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