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Impact of misinformation on markets, businesses and consumers

ended 01. December 2025

In a letter to Nikhil Rathi, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has called for "a full investigation by the FCA into possible market abuse by all those who would have had access to confidential information including at HM Treasury, and 10 Downing Street".

In his letter, Stride says that gilt markets were volatile throughout November, noting that, following the Chancellor's pre-Budget speech on 4th November, there was an interest rate decision and that “investors, businesses and ordinary families will have taken decisions based on briefings from HM Treasury and public statements by ministers which we now know to have been misleading".

Keen to get your views for a story on how investors, businesses and consumers (mortgage borrowers, savers, prospective buyers, etc) could have been impacted financially throughout November as a result of market movements — and their own actions — that were being influenced by potential misinformation.

For example, businesses may not have hired (and people not been given jobs), prospective buyers may have put property purchases on hold, borrowers may have locked into products that they might not have otherwise). Deadline is 09:30.

10 responses from the Newspage community

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Ken James
Director at Contractor Mortgage Services
People may feel they have been misled and many will be out of pocket. For countless ordinary families who made financial decisions throughout November, the consequences were immediate and costly. Permanent jobs and seasonal hires may not have been offered because businesses believed the economy was heading into turbulence that the OBR data now shows was overstated. Meanwhile, many mortgage borrowers rushed to fix deals in early in November, spooked by warnings of a looming fiscal crisis and afraid rates would spike again. But against this backdrop of uncertainty gilt yields fell, swaps stabilised and mortgage pricing has since edged down. Investors weren’t spared either. November’s gilt volatility, amplified by ministerial warnings, pushed some to de-risk or move into cash. Others dumped bonds early, only to see markets recover as the true fiscal position became clearer. In short November was a shambles.
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Katy Eatenton
Mortgage & Protection Specialist at Eatenton Finance
Property transactions have been paused, mortgages that perhaps could have been cheaper have been taken out, and people may have made financial decisions based on fiction rather than fact. All the smoke and mirrors, if it proves to be true, will be unforgivable.
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David Morel
CEO at Tiger Recruitment
The budget fiasco was another headache businesses could have done without. The Mickey Mouse saga we have seen over the past month has eroded trust, put the brakes on hiring and incentivised businesses to divert their operations and their focus abroad where there is cheaper labour and more certain opportunities. The UK is in a cycle of budgetary doom for the foreseeable future unless changes are made rapidly.
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Sam Alsop-Hall
Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder at Clive Henry Group
Britain has just been hit by a confidence crisis engineered from the top. Markets respond to signals, not guesses, and if those signals were based on distorted numbers, investors and families were making decisions in good faith on a false foundation. Gilt volatility alone forces anyone managing cash, pensions or portfolios to move defensively. That costs real money. Savers may have fixed into products they didn’t need. Mortgage borrowers may have locked into higher rates because they were told the fiscal outlook was worse than it was. We saw the labour market stall instantly. Treasury briefings about “no fiscal headroom” made businesses pause hiring, freeze roles and delay expansion. People who should have been offered jobs simply were not. If the country actually had a surplus, the consequences aren’t abstract. They impact people's finances, careers and major life choices.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
From a budget that the markets loved, and what the country needed, it seems crazy that the chancellor is now under pressure for painting a bleak picture. The facts are the numbers are awful. When you look at annual growth forecasts of around 1.5%, the public of 20 years ago would laugh or cry. The UK is in a mess, and bemoaning about how much extra or little headroom there was is tinkering around the edges. Reeves needs to answer the bigger questions, or lose her job. How do we stimulate growth? No investigation will find that Reeves did anything wrong, because the vista of the Uk is that of an elderly man in a youthful world. Stride, and particularly Badenoch, need to call for less resignations or else we’ll believe sneezing at an inopportune moment could be an event to resign over.
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Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
Millions of borrowers and businesses made decisions in November based on potentially misleading information. Fixed mortgage rates may have edged down slightly during November but they may have edged down further if the full facts were known. Those locking into mortgages in early to mid-November may have accepted higher rates than they could have got. Santander found 65% of customers chose 2-year fixes versus 27% choosing 5-year terms in Q4 2024, suggesting many anticipated rate improvements—a decision influenced by Treasury messaging confusion. This likely created a "wait and see" mentality among buyers and affected business owners, who froze hiring, postponed investments, and cancelled expansion plans expecting severe fiscal tightening. The UK has the highest 10-year gilt yield in the G7, with 30-year yields at levels rarely seen since 1998.
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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
It might feel like background noise in Westminster, where half the time it looks like a posh Lord of the Flies reboot with overgrown school children shouting over each other to win the game. Out here in the real world, that “noise” turns into actual decisions. When you are running a small business, hitting pause on hiring is not a clever strategy, it is you thinking “I cannot take the risk right now". Holding back on salary reviews is not you being heartless, it is you trying to keep the doors open. Delaying new kit means staff stuck with slow, wheezing laptops that make everyone hate Mondays even more than usual. To the well padded crowd diligently claiming their expenses, that might not sound like much. For small businesses, those calls in November could easily be the difference between “we can grow next year” and “I am not sure we will still be here.” While Westminster plays politics, the rest of us are doing the maths on payroll, not performance in the chamber.
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Justin Moy
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
The impact of misinformation and deceit by this government has adversely affected the Swap markets and Gilt prices for the past few months, as the country braced itself for a tough budget. The multiple leaks of tax rises, black holes and austerity measures slowed the economy to a standstill, with homebuyers missing out on the opportunity to buy whilst they waited for news, as well as borrowers who were stuck on more expensive deals. The financial services industry is built on trust and honesty, which are the two pillars of advice given to consumers. These are two words not on this government's agenda, unfortunately.
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Patricia McGirr
Founder at Repossession Rescue Network
The Government have gone from fixing our country to fixing the figures in a move that will have had real-world consequences. At a time when we need focus and clarity, we’ve got misdirection, mistrust and mismanagement. Regardless of any FCA investigation or political point-scoring, Sir Keir's party have provided the bullets and the gun with which to shoot themselves in the foot. It would be comical if it weren’t so crass.
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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
As wages continue to increase, the desire to automate accelerates. Bosses look across rooms wondering which tasks, and worse - who - needs to go and be replaced by digital transformation. The Chancellor’s approach, which has ramped up the anger about the cost of labour via taxation and maintained the general economic gloom, has made the comparison between the cost of a person versus a software subscription starker. You can’t hide the stark labour cost in recommendations to change, and this has made the economic case for automating much stronger. This is the real-world consequence of political spin: a corrosive doubt that pushes businesses away from human labour and drives families into precarious financial positions.