Welcome to the latest episode of the Just Williams, with Valerie Wade taking charge and putting colleagues John Newsome and James Newsome, through their paces on all matters of global finance, and investment strategy.

Indeed macro-economics was the push-off point this time around, as the discussion centred around the challenges facing many of the traditional western democracies with debt-levels rising, inflation levels proving to be stubbornly high and tangible and consistent growth difficult to achieve.

It was also a first chance to reflect on last week's Budget Statement, and what it would mean for your financial planning in the future.

Nothing livens up a Tuesday morning like a new episode of the Just Williams podcast, even more so when it marks the return of regular John Newsome, after a much deserved late-summer break.

He joins Duncan Williams and David Scott as they ponder the disturbances in France, and do a deep dive on whether fundamental structure issues within the euro-zone are finally starting to destabilise the financial unity project.

There is also an update on global energy issues, and the monetary the UK is wasting on electricity that we seem unable to direct to consumers.

Welcome to this news episode of the Just Williams podcast, which falls in the middle of the Party Conference seasons and was indeed recorded on the day the Prime Minister took to the stage in Liverpool.

Duncan Williams is on hand to guide you through some of the likely implications of that speech as well as some of the policy initiatives already announced, and he is joined by David Scott and James Newsome who are on hand to offer analysis and opinion.

Of course none of this operates in a vacuum, and much of it links back to many of the themes that we have been discussing for a while; the record levels of government date across most of the western democracies, failure to keep a lid on inflation, the shock to the global oil supply caused by the conflict in the Middle East and the uncertainty around the Tech and AI bubble.