The old cliché “a week is a long time in politics” has had a whole new lease of life over the past seven days, leaving the business community in the north, north-east and the rest of the country wondering what the political world can throw at it next.
Sadly, not the much hoped-for decrease in uncertainty and increase in stability, it would seem. The coming week is shaping up to be even longer than the last, with the clock ticking towards the start of Brexit negotiations at the end of it for the country’s battle-weary leaders .
Scottish Chambers of Commerce chief executive Liz Cameron summed up the mood and sense of urgency when, as Mrs May’s car was still en route back from Buckingham Palace, she called for the swift formation a stable government that that will provide confidence to the business community.
But the first poll of businesses since the election has shown a “dramatic drop in confidence,” according to the Institute of Directors (IoD) who carried it out.
“It’s hard to overstate what a dramatic impact the current political uncertainty is having on business leaders and the consequences could – if not addressed immediately – be disastrous for the UK economy,” the institute’s director general Stephen Martin has warned.
There is likely to be little cheer from monthly inflation figures for May, due on Tuesday, and forecast to still be at a near four-year high, outstripping wage growth. On Thursday the Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold at 0.25%.
In the corporate world, analysts are predicting Tesco to report continuing growth, helped by rising shop price inflation, when it announces its first quarter results on Friday.
