When politicians start talking about bond yields it is a sure sign that trouble is afoot. By that measure, the new year has been troublesome indeed for the Labour government. Yields on 30-year gilts (British government bonds) have spiked to a near-three-decade high. Sterling has tumbled. Businesses are grumbling, too, about chunky tax rises and a higher minimum wage due to bite in April—as well as the lack of a convincing plan for boosting growth. The last time firms were this downbeat, surveys say, was after Liz Truss’s brief and disastrous premiership in 2022 (see chart 1).