Monday 22 June 2026

Good morning, happy Monday. New week, let’s get it.

[1] Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has picked up online beef with Donald Trump. This is a rare instance of a European leader publicly striking back at Trump. Even better is the fact that Meloni is a woman, which does not matter, but certainly does to Donald.

In the past, European leaders have taken a soft approach to the theatrics and ridiculousness of their American counterpart. Donald Trump hit on Meloni last year, saying “You don’t mind being called beautiful, right? You are.”

Over the past few days, Meloni said that Trump panders to enemies while turning his back on friends and provoked him by telling him to look at his own polling numbers (polling numbers are to Trump what Instagram followers are to girls willing to wear revealing outfits and promote their pilates-and-matcha-based-lifestyles).

The EU has been slowly building up the courage to stop pandering to the man from Washington, including by refusing to allow jets to land and refuel on EU soil during the US attack on Iran. Meloni’s public rebuke of Trump shows a) that the EU leaders are losing faith in the importance of keeping the US administration appeased and b) that their voter base at home does not appreciate their consistent pandering to the American administration.

DNF approves, go get ‘em Giorgia.

[2] DNF promised two weeks ago to start reporting more on the situation in the UK. We failed to deliver on that promise (can you blame us? Trump hosted a UFC event at the White House and is actively bombing another country, come now).

Nevertheless, we will start making good on that promise this week. A strong point of departure for a quick and dirty catch up on the UK political and economic scene is Brexit. It has been a decade since the UK voted to leave the European Union (the referendum took place on June 23, 2016). The vote was very close, with the “Leave” campaign winning 51.9% of the vote. The exit was historic (the UK was and still is the first and only country to have left the EU) and served as the catalyst for the end of David Cameron’s role as PM (he resigned on June 24, 2016).

Theresa May then stepped in, only to leave in 2019 after failing three times to pass her negotiated withdrawal through parliament. Desperate to find someone crazy enough to pull off such a stunt, the UK gave Boris Johnson the nod. Boris managed to get the negotiations through parliament, but forgot to formulate a plan for what to do next.

“We didn’t have a plan for what to do next, because we didn’t think it was our job to have a plan” said he.

The UK has struggled with an uncertain environment since, which weighed particularly heavily on investment. While we will never know the counterfactual, the UK’s economic performance has been weak in the last decade. Eurostat data show the total volume of imports to the euro zone has risen by 5.7%, while the volume of imports from Britain has dropped by 48.1%.

Another major reason to leave the EU was the issue of immigration. So far, it is impossible to say that leaving the EU helped. If there is one variable that certainly did change, it’s the currency. Traders clipped the sterling 10% against the dollar on the night the results came in, and in nominal terms the GBP has not recovered much above that level. Technically, such devaluation of a currency should improve trade by making exports more competitive - it has not. Financial markets did not like Brexit much either, with the UK index lagging the rest of the world by 30.7% in the 10 years leading up to Brexit. In the subsequent decade, it’s trailed by 49.5%.

Finally, Brexit did not improve the weather in the UK at all. Grey skies and light rain continue to be the order of the day.

[3] Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is desperately fighting for his political survival. A series of missteps have sent Keir down the same path of many of his recent predecessors with a challenger to his 10 Downing Street mansion coming from within his own Labour Party (we generally use US spelling, but considering the Labour party is a UK political party, we will include the “u”, do u understand?). Almost a quarter of his Labour MPs have called for him to leave and recent local elections were disastrous.

The Labour Party is facing external competition as well, including from the Reform Party run by Nigel Farage (Farage is a career politician and founded the Brexit party in 2018, which was renamed the Reform party after the Brits realized that leaving the EU was an awful decision, much like when Facebook rebranded to Meta after the Myanmar scandal in 2021. DNF believes Trump might follow the same strategy, running for office again in 2028 under Ronald Thump).

We digress.

Labour is calling on Starmer to leave, but he has indicated that he will fight. Removing a Labour leader is no easy feat, especially when they hold the power of the PM’s office - it has never happened in the party’s 126-year history.

Traditionally, Labour’s biggest rival is the Conservatives. Conservatives are very good at cycling through leaders, notably Theresa May, Boris Johnson (the UK Donald Trump) and Liz Truss (Lizzy lasted exactly 49 days as PM before declaring “I have failed” and resigning, DNF has had bags of potatoes which lasted longer). The previous Labour leader who willingly stepped away was Tony Blair in 2007.

Starmer’s two years in office have been a stunning disaster. He holds the lowest satisfaction ratings of any PM for half a century. His tax hikes that undercut his pro-business image and spending cuts are largely to blame. Starmer also appointed Peter Mandelson to be ambassador to the US, promptly firing the septuagenarian after Bloomberg revealed that he was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein. Adding to Starmer’s troubles is the fact that Reform and the Greens are capturing votes, fracturing the base.

UK PM’s Net Satisfaction Rating

Source: Bloomberg

Take a moment to look at Truss’ graph, if you can find it.

[4] The US and Iran have begun talks on a permanent peace deal. Since our previous report on Friday, peace talks were arranged and cancelled in Switzerland, then rearranged. Furthermore, the Strait of Hormuz was opened, closed and re-opened. Pity the captains of the oil tankers stuck in the west of the Strait, who have probably burned through an entire fuel tank starting and stopping their engines.

Luckily, they carry oil.

Yesterday, Vance arrived in Switzerland. The US administration has indicated that a peace deal should be brokered within 60 days, which is unlikely, especially when considering the previous Iran nuclear deal took two years. Mediating between the US and Iran are officials from Qatar and Pakistan. Vance noted that “I can only be there for a day or two” - DNF believes he has further talk shows to attend back in the US. He recently went on Whoopi Goldberg’s “The View” where he sat down and defended Trump’s comments on inflation. Vance stated that the co-host of The View, 83 year old Joy Behar, is “way tougher than the Iranians” which proves that he has spent almost no time thinking about or negotiating with Iran.

[5] With all the drama in the Middle East, readers will be forgiven for forgetting that Ukraine and Russia are still exchanging blows. Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces targeted military logistics, oil facilities and air defenses in Russia and Crimea over the weekend. Four people were killed in the drone attack.

[6] Thank you to a long-time DNF subscriber for sending in the following story. We encourage you to do the same!

A 68 year old man was killed after being hit in the head with a metal boule following what appears to have been a very tense game of pétanque (the game where you throw the little wooden ball and then try to throw the big metal ball close to it played in sandpits at wine farms).

An argument broke out between rival teams in the French Atlantic resort of Mimizan. A group of gentlemen that usually play on the beach approached another group of gentlemen that play in town. The beach-team was looking for shade on a particularly hot summer’s day. The attacker, an 81-year old man, repeatedly struck the victim in the head with the metal boule, causing his death, after an argument broke out.

A local resident told AFP news “There is a mega rivalry between the beach pétanque players and those in the town, but I didn’t think it was at that level”. Clearly, it was. DNF finds the story tragic, but also slightly amusing that an 81 year old Frenchman was so upset with the location of his recreational boules game that he would kill another man for it. Apparently, the game finished in a draw.

[7] The Bokke are back baby. Over the weekend, the A-team (which is technically the B-team) beat Zimbabwe 40-0 and the A-team (the actual A-team) beat the Barbarians 80-31. Edwill van der Merwe scored a hat-trick and was denied a fourth by the TMO. Not to be outdone by another winger in a scrumcap, Cheslin Kolbe started slotting kicks off the tee.

Faf is back, Fassi saw yellow after seeing red and nearly decapitating TJ Perenara and Riley Norton, fresh out of Paul Roos Gymnasium, scored and played 80 minutes on his debut for the Green and Gold. Jasper Wiese is a national treasure and DNF wouldn’t attempt to tackle André Esterhuizen at full speed for 250 subscribers.

Donner, dit is lekker!

[8] This week, South Africa is releasing Leading Indicators for April on Tuesday and yearly and monthly PPI on Thursday. The leading indicator index is a composite index based on 10 economic indicators that is designed to predict the future direction of the economy (which is impossible). The report has low impact, because most of the indicators used in the calculation are released previously. Higher reading are bullish, lower readings are bearish.

PPI stands for Producer Price Index and measures inflation from the perspective of the producer or manufacturer (CPI measures inflation from the perspective of the consumer). CPI tracks what you pay for groceries and clothes while PPI tracks the prices at the point of production, the factory or farm before wholesalers, distributors and retailers tack on their own profit margins. Also a low impact economic indicator.

No major earnings are expected, but the local market will be waiting for next week Monday’s Prosus (PRX) and Naspers (NPN) results. The mega-caps have the capacity to turn market sentiment given their scale and the limited size of the JSE - DNF will report on the earnings next week.

[9] If you live in South Africa (DNF has subscribers in India, Hong Kong, USA, UK and the Netherlands, which is amazing, but the bulk of you are Saffas), you have the privilege of living in a democracy, a privilege less than half of the global population enjoys (in fact, if you account for liberal democracies, which are countries with well-protected civil liberties and the rule of law, the number falls to 12%).

DNF strongly believes that it is your duty to go and vote to exercise this privilege. South Africa is holding local government elections on 4 November, 2026.

Registration closed yesterday, but you can check where you are currently registered by visiting this link. You can also download the IEC app or reach the contact center on 0800 11 8000 or by sending your ID number to 32810.

[10] Wyndham Clark won the US Open at Shinnecock Hills by one stroke. The American started the day six shots clear of second place and seven shots ahead of second place finisher Sam Burns.

After a poor first nine, Clark had cut his lead down to one. He managed to hang on, taking home his second wyn, having won the tournament in 2023 at the LA Country Club. His 25-foot birdie putt on the par 5 16th was special, especially after hitting his drive into thick fescue. He then three-putted the 17th (one of us, one of us) but kept his cool on 18 to take home another major.

The world of golf now turns to Royal Birkdale in Merseyside, where The Open Championship will be held from July 16 to July 19.

Have a good Monday everyone!

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