Testing times for Trump

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Hello and welcome to the working week.

There is a theme to this month’s political news cycle: men who used to be in power being grilled about past misdemeanours.

We start with Donald Trump. The former president will not bow to Republican party pressure to get him to attend the presidential primary debates. But the US judiciary has a bit more leverage. The former president will therefore return to the Manhattan courthouse on Monday for advocate testimony in the civil fraud trial where he and his family businesses are accused of inflating their net worth in order to ensure loans on favourable terms and reap other economic benefits.

Rishi Sunak is still the UK’s prime minister — though not for long, according to Inside Politics newsletter writer Stephen Bush. But he used to be the country’s chancellor, and it is his decisions in this role during the Covid-19 pandemic, notably the Eat Out to Help Out campaign, that will be of interest when he goes up before the UK Covid inquiry on Monday.

Sunak then faces another agonising 24 hours as he tries to ensure a parliamentary vote for his “emergency” legislation to save his Rwanda migration policy. The proposed law has so many critics on the right and left of his Conservative party — nevermind those on the opposition benches — that its passage through parliament is bound to be painful and there is a real risk that Tuesday’s vote could be lost. Catch up with this explainer.

Then there is former British premier, the freshly ennobled Lord David Cameron, who has been summoned in his new role as foreign secretary to give evidence to a European Scrutiny Committee hearing titled “The UK’s new relationship with the EU”. As the man whose premiership was destroyed by the EU referendum vote, one hopes he has some ideas on the subject.

Someone hoping not to be yesterday’s man, and in with a decent chance of fulfilling this wish is Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. He is seeking to be named for a third term in office when three days of voting concludes on Tuesday.

Will we get a meaningful declaration from COP28? We’ll find out this week as the 12-day conference draws to a close and the final horse-trading over climate reduction targets and the way to get there reach a peak. Premium subscribers can still sign up here for Moral Money newsletter updates throughout the remaining days.

The headline acts for the economic data run this week are those three monetary policy musketeers — the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England — each making their last interest rate call of 2023. All are expected to stick with their current levels.

Earnings season is drawing to a close, but there are plenty of set-piece corporate events this week. A San Francisco court will hold a hearing on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s bid to force Elon Musk to testify in the regulator’s investigation into his $44bn takeover of social media platform X.

Back in London, executives from the privatised utility Thames Water face a grilling by MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on Tuesday following revelations in the FT that a £500mn “new equity funding” was in fact a loan by the company’s owners. Full details of other events happening this week below.

One more thing . . . 

Sunday will be the 50th birthday of British runner Paula Radcliffe. Regular readers will know my views on marathon running — one and done, thanks very much, to raise money for a tiny local charity in London’s East End where I am a chair of governors. But maybe I’m just selfish.

What is your priority this week? Email me at jonathan.moules@ft.com or, if you are reading this from your inbox, hit reply.

Key economic and company reports

Here is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.

Monday

• UK: CBI economic forecast and Make/BDO manufacturing outlook survey. Also, Rightmove December House Price Index

• Results: Begbies Traynor HY, Oracle Q2

Tuesday

• Guest Lecture by François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank of France, in Frankfurt

• Cathryn Ross and Alastair Cochran, interim co-chief executives of Thames Water will be grilled by MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee over £500mn presented as “new equity funding”. The committee will also question Ofwat chief David Black and the regulator’s chair Iain Coucher

• Germany: ZEW Economic Sentiment Survey

• UK: December labour market figures

• US: December consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate figures

• Results: Chemring FY, Colruyt Group HY plus EGM, Johnson Controls International Q4

Wednesday

• OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report

• Brazil: Monetary Policy Committee meeting decision announcement

• EU: monthly industrial production figures

• UK: monthly (October) GDP assess

• US: Federal Open Market Committee rate-setting announcement

• Results: Adobe Q4, Inditex Q3, OVS Q3, Volution trading update and AGM

Thursday

• A San Francisco court will hold a hearing on the SEC’s bid to force Elon Musk to testify in the regulator’s probe into his $44bn takeover of Twitter, now known as X

• IEA Oil Market Report

• EU: European Central Bank rate-setting announcement

• UK: Bank of England monetary policy committee announcement. Also, RICS residential market house price survey

• US: monthly retail sales figures

• Results: Bunzl trading statement, Capita trading update, Costco Wholesale Q1, Currys HY, Nordson Q4, Serco FY

Friday

• Bank of England deputy governor for markets and banking David Ramsden speaks at the Deloitte Academy on the bank’s resolution regime

• EU, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US: S&P Global/Cips December purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for manufacturing and services

• UK: November insolvency figures and GfK Consumer Confidence Survey

• Results: Darden Restaurants Q2, H&M Q4 sales update

World events

Finally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week.

Monday

• Poland: Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is due to seek a vote of confidence for his government’s programme, which he is unlikely to procure as his Law and Justice party lost its majority in the October election. If he fails, the parliament may ask Civic Coalition leader Donald Tusk to form a government

• UK: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to give evidence to the British Covid inquiry, explaining his decisions as the country’s chancellor during the pandemic

• US: Donald Trump is due to testify for a second time in the New York civil fraud trial where he and his family businesses are accused of inflating their net worth in order to ensure loans on favourable terms and reap other economic benefits

Tuesday

• Egypt: polls close in the presidential election. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is running for a third term in the contest, brought forward from 2024 as the country grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades

• UAE: Final day of the COP28 climate change summit in Dubai

• UK: a crucial vote in the House of Commons on emergency legislation required to get the government’s Rwanda asylum scheme up and running. Also, the European Scrutiny Committee will grill foreign secretary Lord David Cameron in an evidence session about the UK’s relationship with the EU

• US: former Venezuelan military intelligence director Hugo Carvajal to appear in court ahead of a forthcoming trial on drug-trafficking charges

Wednesday

Thursday

• EU: European Council meeting of EU heads of state and government, chaired by the EC President Charles Michel

• US: Michael Cohen, the former lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, will ask the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals to revive his lawsuit accusing the former president and others of abruptly returning him to prison in retaliation for writing a tell-all memoir

Friday

• Last day of Hanukkah, Jewish Festival of Lights

• US: Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi appears in the US district court in Washington for a status conference, charged with destruction of an aircraft resulting in death, and destruction of a vehicle used in foreign commerce by means of an explosive, also resulting in death, related to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie

Saturday

• Bangladesh: Victory Day, marking the end of the 1971 war of independence

• Kazakhstan: Independence Day. Public holiday on Monday

• South Africa: Day of Reconciliation

• US: 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party

Sunday

• Chile: results come in for the referendum that would substitute its current market-friendly Constitution dating back to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship

• Serbia: snap parliamentary and local elections held