[House prices] Buyers have a choice; defer a purchase until November to get clarity on Brexit (but if there is a deal, then prices could start moving up again) or make cheeky low-ball offers and see if a vendor is desperate enough to accept. How do you know a seller is desperate? One way is to search the property’s listing history...[Mortgages] hold your horses. As recently as 2016 mortgages were offered at rates as low 0.99% – a significant saving over the 1.3% to 1.7% best buys available this week....[Savings] move them into a fixed-rate bond that guarantees the rate for the bond’s term.[Currency] If you think the pound will continue to tumble, then buying your holiday money now makes sense, even at today’s depressed levels....If you want to take a punt against sterling and make some money by trading, all you need is a credit card and an initial deposit of around £100-£200 to join online forex traders such as eToro, City Index and so on.[Pensions] If you are convinced that a Boris Johnson-led Brexit is going to be a calamity, that the economy will tank and UK corporate profits collapse, then you can choose to shift your pension into overseas shares.
Ethically woke Graud readers don't buy shares directly, but some of them might have 'old privatisation and demutualisation shares'. What should they do? 'investors are wary of banks, and that they will never again be growth stocks, and you should hold them instead for a steady supply of dividends.'
Bad luck if you do not have a few old shares or other savings: 'Realistically, most people can do very little about the threat of job losses, particularly if they are in low-skilled positions.' So let's move on from these losers.
Back to the normal Graun reader:
[On holiday in France, gendarmes] will want to see your UK driving licence, your international driving permit (IDP 1968), your insurance green card, the car’s log book (V5 document) and a GB sticker. Tourists flying into the EU and hiring a car will also need an IDP in several countries including Italy, France and the Netherlands. [But] The Post Office will sell you an IDP for £5.50
[Health] For those going on holiday, it is simply a case of buying travel insurance before you leave, and the government is advising just that.... [for Brits residing abroad] the UK government has said seeking bilateral agreements to maintain healthcare rights is a top priority....Medicine availability is what vexes people more seriously....Already there are reports of diabetics informally stockpiling their own supplies of insulin by giving themselves less on a daily basis...But the government says the fears are misplaced, as drug companies have already been told to build up an additional six weeks’ supply of medicines
[Prices] of some imports including meat, shoes and cars will go up. [Yes -- but what about English strawberries?] ...Among the consumer goods that will be hit are imports of beef, prices of which will go up by almost 7%, cheddar cheese, up by about £20 per 100kg, and imported fully finished cars, which would attract a 10.8% levy, or about £1,500 for an average new car....This suggests that if you have an eye on a new BMW or Mercedes, it might be worth bringing forward your purchase to before October... [For other goods]...the reality is that shops will absorb some of the increase or may substitute for domestically produced or alternative suppliers.
So -- what crisis? The average Graun readers can cope or even make a modest gain by shrewd and timely shopping
However, they might still suffer some cultural angst. The yoof activist L Spirit, the 'co-president of Our Future Our Choice' asserts that:
The fanatical commitment of the Conservative membership to leaving the EU on 31 October, “do or die”, bears no resemblance to the wishes of the vast majority of young people, eight in 10 of whom want to resolve this crisis through a people’s vote.
There is real injury in Johnson's remarks:
A recent Barnardo’s report found that more young people think Brexit is an immediate threat to their future than is climate change. When Johnson wrote of the Extinction Rebellion protests in April that he was “utterly fed up with being told by nice young people that their opinions are more important than my own”, few would expect him to think otherwise for our concerns about Brexit.
Spirit is convinced that Brexit 'in any form...will leave us poorer, our opportunities fewer and our domestic priorities irrelevant amid the long-term political chaos that would follow.'
So, as usual, she actually wants to Remain rather than to have another referendum, of course. Moreover:
And even if young people were in fact in favour of Brexit, they would still reject Johnson. This is a politician who, regardless of his personal beliefs, is happy to dabble in misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia as far as it appeals to those whose support he needs. This is a man who has described women wearing the burqa as “letterboxes”, claimed “voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts” and described gay men as “tank-topped bumboys” [The last link leads to a full list of 'outrageous Johnson quotes' in Newsweek]...His values are the antithesis of a forward-looking generation who want to see borders eradicated, [between only European countries?] not reimposed. It is why Stormzy got the crowd to sing “Fuck Boris” during his headline set at Glastonbury in June, and why T-shirts emblazoned with the same slogan have been selling in huge numbers since.[Nothing commercial about this -- it's pure altruism]
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