Well, well, well! Mervyn King has changed his tune. The Bank of England Governor has been at pains this year to show how serious he is about inflation. Those of us who read the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) minutes felt we knew which side of the hawk-dove divide King was on.

The government wants us to drive less… But we have no choice…Give hauliers a tax break now… I find myself stuck in a traffic jam, in Ruislip.

It is easy to think about the credit crunch in terms of banks. The banks made these weird structured products, the banks are responsible for the borrowing rate, the banks falling market cap is dragging on the FTSE, etc.

It never rains, it pours. Hot on the heels of the Bradford and Bingley saga, we wake up today to the news that mortgage lending has hit a record low.

It’s the European Central Bank’s 10th birthday party. But not everyone is celebrating… It’s set to be a bubbly few hours in Frankfurt this Monday. The European Central Bank (ECB) is ten years old this weekend, and the bureaucrats at its German HQ have planned quite a party.

The credit crunch has hit the middle classes. That’s the apocalyptic news Britain woke up to this morning.

The long awaited first stab at UK gross domestic product (GDP) over Q1 2008 was released on Friday. Much has been written regarding the continuing crisis in the credit markets and the plight of the US economy, however, recent survey data indicates that whatever the problems in store for the UK over the next twelve months, so far activity appears to be holding up fairly well.