NEW REPORT: Hard Times Ahead... (90% 'Concerned' & Cutting Back On Spending In The UK)

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:02]Hard times ahead for the UK economy.

[00:00:06]We've just had a couple of reports that have been released today, two reports at exactly the same time. And um let's just say it's not overly positive. So we're going to go over those reports today.

[00:00:19]But um one of them I was very surprised by even myself uh regarding consumer confidence and cutbacks. So 90% now of people in the UK under these surveys are really really concerned. So those different categories and they said they're really concerned about the UK economy and 80% said they are now cutting back on their spending as in right now and some said in the next three months. On the flip side of this though, we did have some good news over the last few days with the UK elections.

[00:00:57]We finally saw Labor losing some seats and we saw some other parties gaining some seats. Some of you, I'm sure, very happy. Some of you are uh I saw the comments before not happy. I have got to say I'm fairly happy with the results.

[00:01:14]To me, getting rid of labor at the moment is is probably the biggest thing I think that will help the country. Just to get some fresh um fresh politicians in there. If you've watched me for a while, you know I'm not a huge fan of politicians, but even just getting some fresh people in there to try and help and move things along.

[00:01:41]People that actually understand economics and finance and and the jobs market and are going to put the people who the taxpayers and uh the people first I think is is a good thing. So let's have a look at the um report. So, we'll begin with the the first one, and this was uh just released today. Britain is set to lose 163,000 jobs in 2026 as the Iran war sparks an economic crisis. Now, I thought this was quite interesting. I looked at their forecast on the 163,000 jobs, which sounds bad, but actually that's only based on 0.4% of the working population. So that isn't really that much. I think that they are probably underdoing it unless they're not taking it into account the sort of I think probably what they're doing is they're being very very conservative.

[00:02:40]They don't want to show you what could actually happen. So they're starting with this very conservative forecast of these job losses. And I think they're going to ramp that up later and be a lot more honest. This is often what you see with some of these surveys because they don't want to go overboard, right?

[00:02:58]Because if they go overboard and then it it comes under, they'll be accused of being, you know, alarmist. So, they always sort of go under. But I think 0.4% is is a drop in the ocean compared to what we could actually see. And it's it's interesting because they're sort of finally catching up now with the whole Iran crisis and the the draining of the energy reserves. But I mean, those of you who watch the channel here and leave comments, I think we knew about this 8 weeks ago, what would actually happen and I think they're still way off what can really happen, you know? So, we talked, where were we back in gosh, what was that now? Was it February, March?

[00:03:46]I've lost I've lost track myself of all of the things that would happen as a result of the energy. And it's interesting when people leave comments saying, "Oh, I I thought I saw the funniest one on Friday. Someone said, "You said by the summer we're going to have an oil crisis." Well, you're wrong cuz it hasn't happened. And I'm like I even showed showed my friend. I said, "Look at this. This is some of the comments I have to put up with. They said by the summer, do they realize that we're in spring, but um this is what's happening. We're having this drain down now on on the energy reserves. And we're starting to see some quite drastic things. I do want to go go over these reports, but I wanted to show you real quick the solution that some of these think tanks are giving to the government. Have a look at this for uh geniuses.

[00:04:35]They're saying to cut the UK speed limits, speed limits to reduce Iran war impact on consumers. So again, another think tank. So they want to reduce all towns and cities to 20 mph and 60 mph on the motorways. And I was going through all of their calculations on all of this and I'm assuming that they have done these calculations correctly because where is it anyway? I I'm not sure where it is, but but they said that if you reduce the speed limit on a motorway from 70 mph to 60 mph, you'll save 10% or 12% on fuel. And I was like saying, hold on. So, I remember this in in school. If I drive 70 m in 1 hour, then I'm driven at 70 mph. But if I drive at 60 mph, I'm only going to get 60 miles in 1 hour. So, I'll be 10 miles short.

[00:05:36]So, I'm hoping that these geniuses have calculated that in because when you listen to their forecast is 10 to 12%.

[00:05:43]You're like, hold on, that's pretty much the distance. So, I don't know. I hope they know what they're talking about here. But either way, it it's kind of funny to me and and very interesting how we've been seeing all of this stuff now about reducing the speed limits and it's all part of the UN agenda 2030. If you've read that report, if you haven't, it's worth reading it. And that's been that's been in the the pipeline for a long long time, even before all the climate targets, even before all the other things, even before the UK infrastructure bills to improve the roads and the the smart motorways. And you know, there's like five or six of these. Then there was smart cities and the C40 cities. We could talk all day about all of these things, but now they're using, oh, hold on. This Iran conflict, ah, here we go. we need to reduce the speed limit. And um I just I I just find this I just think it's getting worse and worse and worse with all these draconian measures on us as people when if you actually look at the vote and there's a number of these 50% in fact over 50% of people who who actually said they didn't want these speed limits reduced in these different towns and cities where they've done the pilot schemes. And what did they actually achieve anyway? Not not a lot.

[00:07:08]That that's it. However, I will say one positive thing that was achieved on one of the studies I was reading in one town. They with the reduction in from 30 to 20 mph. They said that there was uh 10% less incidents i.e. people getting hit by cars and uh car crashes and you know all that sort of stuff. So I guess that is one positive. But does that really outweigh reducing speed limits nationwide to 20 mph in towns and cities when you've already got all this stuff going on anyway? I I I'm not so sure. I I'm I'm not for it. Put it that way. I think it should be 30 mph. And the whole thing with a motorway, you have you driven on a UK motorway recently? You can't get up to 60 mph in most cases anyway or 70 mph. You know, it's like non-stop road works. I feel like there's just been road works for 10 years straight. You're driving for miles and miles and you're just driving for miles and you say, "Gosh, 40, 50 mph and there's all these signs and you say, "Where's all the work going on?" And then at the end you might see a man in a high viz vest or my favorite is when you see one man digging a hole and about 10 men stood around like this or on their phones. They're watching. I mean, talk about productivity. It's a People say, "Why does it cost so much to build infrastructure?" Probably because you got 10 people watching. I know some of you are watching me going, "Neil, that's me. That's my job right there." But you you know what I'm talking about. I think you uh you understand what I'm saying here. So, what have they said about this then? They want to reduce it to 20 mph and this will combat soaring oil prices.

[00:08:56]This is from the Institute for Public Policy Research. They said this, the UK economy and public finances are expected to take a significant hit from the Iran conflict uh regardless of whether the government intervenes. So they said that we've got to do this ourself and they think 50% of people now are going to either stop driving or reduce the amount of driving they do. Okay, each to their own. I'm going to be doing exactly the same amount of driving. Lowering speed limits, they say, is a dual win.

[00:09:29]Lowering fuel demand while safer streets and safer motorways maybe support swapping short trips to walking and cycling. So, this whole think tank that they want people walking everywhere, they want people cycling everywhere. Well, that only works if you're talking about these C40, these 15minute cities. It doesn't work for rural areas. It doesn't work for for greater metro areas. So all this stuff they keep talking about people should cycle. What's a delivery driver going to do? Is he going to cycle with his you know those uh what they call paniers or whatever those bat bat satchels are called? No, of course not. You're not going to get anywhere. I mean this is uh crazy. They say um they also recommend working from home and car pooling where necessary to go into the office. The International Energy Agency has already advised its member countries to consider lowering uh speed limits. Um and they say I've got to show you this. They recommend COVID style measures here.

[00:10:35]Huh. COVID style emergency measures is what they are recommending. Ah, isn't that interesting? I'm sure I saw that as well just yesterday with this new wink wink virus that's uh doing the rounds at the perfect perfect time. Yes, there's never any coincidence with with all of this stuff. It's all um No, it's all uh yes. So, what have they said about all of these um job losses then? regions heavily uh the regions heavily relying on manufacturing and construction are particularly susceptible to sharp increases in energy prices and supply chain disruptions from the conflict.

[00:11:19]some of the lowest income regions are going to be hit the hardest especially if you are in a construction uh sector manufacturing they're warning there's going to be massive hits to the supply chain ladies and gents we I I said this 6 to 8 weeks ago so none of this is really a surprise it's just the media catching up consumers they say in the uh poorer regions don't really have rainy day savings which is correct and they're going to get hit the hardest, which is um always uh unfortunate and and tragic.

[00:11:54]It really is the way the way the this is about to happen. Retail and hospitality, they're also forecasting are going to get hit really really hard, which means that those people are going to get hit doubly hard because a lot of people in um those regions or in the the the lower income sector work in hospitality, they work in retail, they work in manufacturing and factory work, etc. So yeah, this is not um not looking overly positive. The Bank of England's just given an update on their forecast as well. They believe unemployment is going to go up to 5.6% this year. They don't want to give a forecast for next year. That's interesting cuz it's going to be probably worse. London's going to see 25,000 job cuts. They say Birmingham half that amount. Leadeds Glasgow. Uh they did say though some with some positive news. Cambridge they expect to see more jobs.

[00:12:53]Publicly funded sectors they say this is the positive news for you. Publicly funded sector jobs they say are going to grow. Uh social work, health administration. Do we really need more public administration?

[00:13:09]I think not. Get some AI. Get some Claude and Grock and whatever else you use going. Build some agents. You don't need all these public administrators.

[00:13:20]My goodness, why why they're hiring public administrators instead of AI experts? That that tells you uh about this government. They say lower income households are set to endure the steepest increases in the cost of living. Again, they're correct on this as food, fuel, and energy bills are going to explode. Now what they're not saying is that actually most of the the income from these se from these the lower income people goes onto the energy food etc that they're not really being clear on this. So why this is going to hit harder is because the energy cap is going to lift. I think it's July. I'll confirm that for you but I think it's July that it's going to lift. So you're going to see average energy bills, electricity and gas of around £2,000.

[00:14:09]So this is this is huge and I think you'll remember I did that um investigation on that before that that report on it and found that this is really due to the again the UN down to the European Union down to the UK you've got Milliband at the moment pushing this net zero um pledge and if you haven't caught up on all the net zero reports that have come out recently I think it's going to be pretty much dead very shortly. because a lot of the scientists that put their name behind these studies have actually taken their name off the studies. It's a huge amount and there's all these new studies that have come out which have been independent. So they haven't been funded by anyone that had a bias in it. So these new independent studies are very damning for the whole carbon aspect of it. And if you're new here, just just so you you're clear, I I don't buy into the whole carbon aspect of of of net zero and that, you know, by 2027 um it's irreversible 1.5 degree. I mean, it's 2026 now and what we we're seven or eight months away from this whole, oh, it's irreversible. And and what's happened? See, like many of you, I've gone through this cycle over and over again. ozone layers um irreparable. This the ice the ice caps were going to melt.

[00:15:34]Oh, sea levels. This I've been through a good few of these cycles. Some of you have probably been through 10 of these cycles. Whereas what we should be focusing on is the environment from a um a nonwoke angle, right? making sure that all these companies are not polluting our water, not polluting our environment, not pumping crap into the air. Uh I grew up next to one of these um waste kind of sites and I had asthma uh all the way up until I I basically left home. I left home very um early at um 17 years old. I joined the army and I had a real difficulty getting into the British army because I had asthma. I used a blue inhaler. Isn't it funny?

[00:16:18]Once I got away, the asthma cleared up, right? I mean, these are just examples.

[00:16:22]And you've seen all sorts of things.

[00:16:24]Now, what are they doing? They're they're putting all these chemicals in our foods. They're dumping stuff into the the air. They're they're doing all this all this stuff. So, so I'm not against the environment. I'm actually very pro- environment. I I support a lot of uh environmental charities, but not from the whole woke angle. I'm doing it from, you know, animals and welfare and um nature. That's what I stand behind.

[00:16:48]Not all this stuff that I've looked into it myself. It's a lot of it's a load of nonsense. All this money is just going into these um same places as always, right? And and let me know if you agree with me or disagree. I don't mind if you disagree. You know, I think that's what we should do. That's what this channel's about. It's about having healthy discussions on on all of these things.

[00:17:09]So, please please leave a comment. Not I'm unsubscribing cuz you hurt my feelings. Okay? you should probably wrong channel wrong channel for you. Uh I think here u the next one I wanted to mention was this one out of the Guardian that's just come out today as well. Uh UK households bracing for new cost of living crisis.

[00:17:34]Excuse me. Uh so this is out of Price Waterhouse Cooper. Their survey reports a fall in consumer confidence with people worried about the war. So, this is the um consumer confidence chart that I've pulled for you from trading economics and I just want to show that they're making it out as if this is the end of the world um in this report.

[00:17:55]However, if you look at where we are here, yes, this is really bad. It is.

[00:17:59]It's really bad. We're at -25 and that's as of last month's reading. But if you look at where we were in September of 2022, it was -49.

[00:18:11]And because the Bank of England created a lot of currency during this time and a lot of other measures, they actually held off this what could have been a really severe recession. So at this point, I'm not overly worried. What I'm more worried about, I mean, look, look during all the lockdown periods as well at 34 here, 34, 24, 31, 33. What I'm more concerned about right now is what they're not taken into account. You see, human beings are very uh they're very shortsighted, especially even I know a lot of economic forecasters a lot. And when I ever cuz sometimes you have these meetings, right? You have your Zoom calls and stuff like that. They think I'm the the bull, right? The the alarmist one, but the thing is they only look at what because they they're employed, right? So they've got a job.

[00:19:06]So they never give you worst case scenarios. They always try and sort of they find what it could be and then they go under a little bit to protect their job. I I don't need to do that. I don't need to protect the job. So people either watch me or they don't watch me.

[00:19:20]So I can just tell you what I think. And also they think very shortsighted. They never want to go more than say 6 to 9 months. Sometimes they'll go a year out.

[00:19:31]was I'm trying to always look two to three years out and looking well what could happen. It's like with this oil shock. I The reason I was ahead of the curve with it is because I said, "Well, what could happen here? What's the worst case and energy lockdowns are the worst case?" Now, I think politically it's very toxic at the moment. So, they don't want to call it that. So, what they're doing is they're saying, "Oh, look, this uh think tank, this uh economics body, the energy agency, the United Nations."

[00:20:02]So they're using all of these bigger umbrellas to say they're saying it, not us. Look, I'm I'm your prime minister.

[00:20:09]I'm not saying it. They've told me kind of thing. But the the end of the day, it's the same thing. Whether you call it an energy lockdown or whether you tell people that they can't drive or that, you know, they they put the prices up so much that it's expensive or they tell people to work from home, it's still an energy lockdown. Whether you're saying about these um 15-minute cities and people need to cycle and they need to walk to work, it it it's crazy. A lot of you I know watching cannot walk or cycle to work, right? It's it's madness because some of these people, they live in the middle of a city and they they can or they'll get the tube or they'll get some sort of public. In fact, most of them have drivers anyway. They'll have their own private drivers that take them to the office or they can work from home. But not everyone can do that. And this is what they don't understand. The average everyday person and I still make it a point all the time to speak to as many people as I can. And people come up to me in the street every day. It doesn't matter where I am, which which city or town. People come up to me and I'm glad that you do. So I I actually think for every one person that comes up to me, there's probably 10 people that don't.

[00:21:24]So, please do come and say hello because uh sometimes I see people like this and they'll go like this and then they'll go grab their phone and they'll go like this.

[00:21:40]So, it's like I'm laughing cuz I'm like are they looking at a picture on their phone and seeing is that him? Is that kind of funny? Oh, I wanted to go back to this article then.

[00:21:52]Key points. key points. Okay, so they're focusing on consumer confidence dipping over the last three months at the fastest rates since June. I actually think this is negative and I think we're going to see it more extreme, but I don't think it's anything to worry about just yet as they're talking about. Now, it's funny how they're putting this.

[00:22:13]This is basically what people can afford now really. Well, I was just looking at this basket actually. It's interesting image imagery. I really love imagery.

[00:22:21]Look at the wine. They've got all the wine and alcohol here on the sides. Oh, I shouldn't have said that keyword on on the streaming on YouTube here. They're going to ding me. But anyway, semi-kmmed. Please change that to full uh fat milk, ladies and gents. White bread. Change that to a a whole meal bread. And uh what else have we got?

[00:22:41]Yeah, whole whole wheat pasta. Change that. We got some soup there. Probably hind or something. Some do. And some meat. Yes. Uh cornflakes. Not bad. Not not bad at all, but is that the average person's shopping basket? Now, I'm not uh 100%. They also said this, this was interesting that I highlighted here.

[00:23:01]Young people are the ones that are still optimistic more than old people. And they didn't really sort of clarify or explain that. I have a theory on that cuz I like talking to a lot of young people all the time. And my theory is that whenever I'm speaking to them, they kind of feel like there's no there's no hope for them. The amount of times they've said to me yolo or these other terms and the first time I was like yo oh okay yeah yolo what does yolo mean? You only live once and um you know live live for today and all this sort of stuff. And it's because a lot of them genuinely feel that they haven't really got much hope. And the data actually backs that up. People graduating university right now or in the next couple of years, unless you've really skillfully picked what you're going to do, again, it's going to be very difficult for people to get jobs.

[00:23:59]What was it? Was it a 40% reduction this year in people and graduates getting jobs? And it was a reduction last year.

[00:24:07]It's getting harder and harder. I would say if you are a younger person watching or if you've got younger people um in your family trying to make that decision at the moment, you've really got to be selective on what course that you do. I wouldn't be you've and I would actually ask AI. I would say I'd ask them the question, what jobs are uh say I'm thinking of going to university. What courses should I absolutely not take right now? What should I what should I avoid because AI will take that job? I'd start with things like that. But, you know, you could look at other ones. What about an interior designer? Okay. Or or an architect. Are these jobs going to be wiped out? I don't think so. I think jobs like that because I saw this in a report that they're going to be wiped out as well. I actually disagree with that. I don't think they will be wiped out because you think about um my house.

[00:25:03]It was very very complex. If you don't know, I bought a um people call it a derelict castle. I don't think it was derelict, but it was um it maybe not liable at the time, but I've been working on that for 4 to 5 years. If you if you're not aware, I know some of you are aware, not some of you are not aware, but I think when I had that architect come, that couldn't have been done with AI. There was so much and there was so so many intricacies and um I had to learn all the stuff and they explained about castellations and all these other things and stonemasonry and um um it was a historic work and I had to get people and experts in and all sorts of other things because yeah I just I just fancied the challenge basically. I really just fancy the challenge to restore this beautiful um beautiful property. And it's still ongoing, by the way. I know some of you ask how's how's it going? It's ongoing.

[00:25:58]It's all the time. Every day, every day is something being worked on it. But you think, could AI do that? Maybe. I mean, I could grab my phone and I could walk around and I could like take pictures or I could pretend this is the architect or something. But is that going to I don't think I would personally. I think I'd still want a human, someone with like 20, 30, 40, 30 years experience just walking around me, sitting down, talking through everything. Design-wise, having a designer help with that, like the garden, doing the garden design, all these sort of things. I think I'd still I'd still want all of these things. So, you've just got to really be careful about it and what job you go into because there'll definitely be massive reductions and already the graduate jobs are are suffering. Um, the other thing I wanted to mention about this report, 90% that were surveyed by PWC said they're concerned right now about cost of living and 80% plan to cut back on their spending. They're already cutting back.

[00:27:04]The original survey had 12% of people saying that they're not going to drive or they're going to drive less and 24% said now that they are going to not drive or drive less. So yeah, this is um it's pretty wild I think what's actually going on with um the whole conflict. Uh I know that US the US is doing really well out of it because the oil and energy exports will make a lot of money but the rest of the world is really suffering right now. Europe um Asia particular Asia's worse um India Indian PM just did a if you didn't see that he he just did a big thing and um yeah work from home where possible try and cut energy I mean India's really suffering that the market just crashed.

[00:27:52]I I haven't looked if it's recovered yet, but the Indian market really crashed on that news. There's just there's a lot going on and it's um it's not over yet. It's going to be um yeah, there's a lot there's a lot coming, ladies and gents. That's all I'll say.

[00:28:05]Um that's it for today. Thank you for watching. Hope you enjoyed the kind of we're just chatting today more than uh more than usual, but I hope you um enjoyed the stream, got something from it. Apart from that, thanks for being a subscriber here. Take care. God bless.

[00:28:19]I'll see you on the next one.