OMGI's Buxton: Govt needs to address demographic divide or risks 'sleepwalking into electoral disaster'

'Capitalism is not working'

Richard Buxton, chief executive of Old Mutual Global Investors and manager of its £2.3bn UK Alpha fund, has said the biggest risk for the UK economy for 2018 is politics and the fact markets are not pricing in a potential change in leadership.

The manager said the "main disaster of this year" was Prime Minister Teresa May's decision to call a snap election and then losing it. He said: "Markets are not remotely pricing in how high the probability is for a Corbyn, socialist government to come into power during the course of the next few years or even months." For him, the "big reveal" from the snap election, which took place in June and resulted in a hung parliament after the Conservative party lost its majority, was the massive demographic divide which the UK now faces stronger than ever. Quick-fire interview with OMGI's ...