Dominic Frisby Election anthem Codswallop, an eloquent ode to Nigel Farage and Reform - Tom Winnifrith

The cost of smoking by country - there are some great smuggling arbs here

A pack of 20 costs 25.43 Euro in Australia. Who on earth can afford to smoke down under. Given that a packet of 20 is only 2.11 Euro in Indonesia I can see a great arb if you have no qualms about breaking the law. I bet there is a roaring trade in "under the counter" fags in Oz. The table below is fascinating.

Dodgy UK GDP growth…but we know what the Bank of England will do on Thursday

It continues to be interesting times for all financial market investors. You may have seen that the UK’s April GDP numbers were down, driven by reductions in the services, manufacturing and construction areas i.e. a bit of almost everything. All good fun then! Still, I read that general economic progress was apparently “partially offset by growth in car sales, which recovered from a significantly weaker than usual March”. How exciting (and how might that continue over the rest of this year?). And I bet you cannot guess what the Bank of England might do - for the fifth time in about six months - on Thursday.

The NHS, the cash strapped envy of the world, is hiring again - Tom Winnifrith

The dot-com boom, ESG and me!

I don’t suppose that anyone reading this is one of the 30,000 people who are apparently going to Glasgow at the start of next month for COP26. Naturally, I will be following many of the comments and trying to work out some of the implications - over time - for the investment world. And that brings me back to the ESG world.

Two Bombshells this week from the Taxpayers’ Alliance which will enrage you

It is your money that is being pissed away by the State and with the tax burden at record highs the Taxpayers’ Alliance served up two examples of rank hypocrisy and incompetence that will leave you fuming.  First up is the greed and hypocrisy of TUC leaders and, yes you are paying to support this rotten system for these days most Union bosses represent workers in the public sector.  Next up is the shocking amount local councils have recklessly speculated on commercial property as they “knew better” than Mr. Market as prices tumbled. Of course they did.

Furlough scheme: Sunak admits the £1000 will waste taxpayer cash - Telegraph

FirstGroup and Cineworld are respectively grateful for subsidies & banking waivers ahoy

Another day, another bunch of COVID-19 related updates…and two names grab my attention. The first of these is FirstGroup (FGP), the bus/rail operator which I described six weeks ago as 'a survivor, especially with recent cost cutting and pension simplification rules...however the hope of competing activist approaches driving up value for shareholders has gone'. In that article I suggested a quid a share as a target for the operator of a bunch of key services including school bus and commuter-centric rail routes...

This is not fiscal stimulus with any future payback

For those who think that Money Trees do exist I have some bad news

Payments company Finablir planning to raise $200m on Main Market IPO