Follow us at @BloombergUK and on Facebook, and wrap up your day with The Readout newsletter. Hello from London, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that King Charles III and Queen Camilla were crowned today in a display of pageantry that only the British could conjure up (full disclosure: your correspondent hails from the colonies.)
(Bloomberg) — Hello from London, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that King Charles III and Queen Camilla were crowned today in a display of pageantry that only the British could conjure up (full disclosure: your correspondent hails from the colonies.)
More than 2,000 guests, including about 100 heads of state but no Joe Biden, attended the first coronation in 70 years, ending Charles’ decades-long wait for the solid gold St. Edward’s Crown to be placed briefly on his head. Briefly, because the crown is too heavy to be worn for long.
The spectacle included military parades, the royal couple taking a spin in the golden state coach that’s been used at every coronation since 1831 and lots of shouts of “Long Live the King!” Weather permitting (and at the moment, it’s looking rather threatening), the spectacle will close with dozens of aircraft flying over Buckingham Palace — including the Red Arrows.
The 1.3-mile route that his carriage took from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey provided a snapshot of the various strands of the unique fortune Charles now sits atop but doesn’t personally own. If he did, as Benjamin Stupples and Ellie Harmsworth explain on the Bloomberg UK Politics podcast, he’d rank among the world’s 100 richest people.For Rishi Sunak, the pomp couldn’t come quickly enough. Still smarting from the drubbing the Tories took in local elections, the PM got to don his morning suit and play statesman, a dapper contrast to the image of a beleaguered politician he projected Friday as the extent of the Tories’ historic rout became clear. Sunak earlier hailed the coronation as a moment of “extraordinary national pride,” and noted how much he was looking forward to seeing Katy Perry perform at the special concert on Sunday night.
The post-Katy glow will probably fade quickly as Sunak picks up the pieces from a vote that offered the first broad evidence that Labour’s double-digit national polling lead is translating into results on the ground. The general election is due by January 2025.And if Sunak was tempted to fall back on tax cuts to try to lift the economy and rally the Tory faithful, his chancellor’s new economic adviser warned him to think again. Using tax cuts as a “quick fix” to boost growth wouldn’t work, and Sunak should offer more generous incentives to spur business investment, said Anna Valero, senior policy fellow at the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance.The UK market regulator is looking to reverse the post-Brexit flood of domestic companies choosing to list in the US. The exodus has contributed to the market cap of London-listed companies shrinking by more than $1 trillion from a peak of $4.3 trillion in 2007, contributing to Paris overtaking London as Europe’s largest stock market in 2022.
Revolut became the latest UK-based company to shirk a listing in London after its co-founders launched a blistering attack on why Britain is a bad place to run a business. The criticism probably won’t do much to help the finance company secure the UK banking license it applied for in 2021.
Better news for UK Plc from IAG — owner of British Airways. It posted a surprise profit in the first quarter on robust demand as the Covid pandemic subsided (it’s officially over now, by the way). And the coronation may also put more bums onto BA seats as tourists flood in for the coronation.
Tell that to the British taxpayers, who are funding the whole shebang to the tune of $100 million-plus and have been invited to swear allegiance to His Majesty. With that in mind, it’s worth reading Pankaj Mishra’s comments for Bloomberg Opinion. This coronation, he writes, should be Britain’s last.And with that, we’ll be back tomorrow with a look-ahead to a shortened work week.
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