Philip James Independent Financial Advice

31/05/2026

I read this as a beautiful, signed hardback - a Christmas present, but, hey-ho, it’s not that long ago. Lucy Steeds’ debut novel is set in Provence in 1920, in the house of reclusive, monstrous and fictional post-impressionist artist Edouard Tartuffe. He lives with his niece, Ettie, sees no one, goes nowhere and paints all day. A young, English journalist, Joseph, arrives, apparently invited by Tartuffe (but as it turns out, by Ettie). He is at first blanked by the artist, then used as a model, and so begins a summer in the Provençal sun in which their respective stories unravel and intertwine. The traumatic aftermath of the First World War has touched both Ettie and Joseph. Ettie is desperate to escape the expectations and repression from which women of the time are starting to emerge. The way she achieves this is one of the twists of the tale, signposted in its opening, when an older Ettie looks at a painting in the National Gallery and remembers a fire. Tartuffe is a cliché of grumpy, obsessive painter and the passionate romance of the younger pair seems almost inevitable. But you can feel the heat, tragedy and yearning and if you’ve ever been to the beautiful area in which it is set, you’ll be transported back, not always happily, in both place and time.

31/05/2026

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/birthdays-gardens-may-becomes-june-philip-hanley-a49ee

28/05/2026

Have you watched “Dirty Business” on Channel 4? It tells the story of over 30 years of profiteering by the owners of our privatised water companies and back-covering by those who should have been regulating. And nothing’s changed as this week several areas have been without water due to burst, antique mains and ‘increased demand in hot weather’, who knew? Everyone should watch this, and it should make everyone with investments think carefully about what their money does and what it supports. You can’t invest in, or avoid investing in a Thames, Southern or most other Waters as they’ve all been bought, sold and bought again by overseas banks and sovereign wealth funds. But if you choose a ‘Positive Impact’ portfolio, you can be pretty sure that your investments will not just avoid the nasties, but seek out the goodies. Ethical, sustainable investments never went away, we’ve always tried to champion them; and news of a ‘comeback’ of any kind has to be welcome.

26/05/2026

When interest rates were nothing and transfer values from final salary pensions were eye-watering, unregulated scammers persuaded some to move to dodgy, get-rich-quick investments schemes. Much of the blame was apportioned to pension schemes, keen to offload liabilities without checking where the cash was going.

Those big transfer values are no longer a thing, but it seems that stable doors are now being slammed when horses have not just bolted but gone out to grass and long-retired. To transfer even the smallest scheme on the recommendation of a regulated adviser to a huge UK insured pension fund, clients are being asked to complete several-page questionnaires and talk to anti-scam script-reading Money Helpers. Shifting the responsibility to the client and away from those who should be regulating.

99% of us, particularly the independent us, just want to do a good job for our clients. And, sadly, no amount of extra form-filling will stop the persuasive bad guys from tricking those they’ll trick. Just get out there and catch them, please...

26/05/2026

If you die with anything left in a pension pot, it will be liable to IHT from next April. How exactly that will happen is slowly emerging through bureaucratic mists, as those responsible realise what a nightmare it’s likely to be. Main point to note, it will be up to executors to ‘track down all of a deceased person’s pensions and contact each pension scheme or provider’.

Now a big part of what we do is to help those approaching retirement (as that’s usually the first time they worry about it) to sort out the many odds and sods of pensions they may have accumulated over the years. Our team do this every day, days which can turn into weeks and months when dealing with some companies.

And so we and our ilk will be advising that you get those old plans together in one place, with a living, breathing pension provider, sooner rather than later in future; as you never know...

20/05/2026

We advisers are the first to moan about ‘too much regulation’. But there is a difference between the tick-box, back-covering that benefits noone, in particular the end users, our clients, and that which clearly limits the reckless stuff which does real harm.

Our current rulers, keen/desperate a boom of some kind, want economic growth to be the ‘number one mission’ and regulators to be ‘less risk averse’.

Those of us with long-ish memories or an eye for history will remember the chocks-away deregulation of the 1980s, the ‘Big Bang’ which gave the banks carte-blanche and made zillionaires of many a banker.

The part Ms Reeves probably likes to remember is the big tax-take it gave Gordon Brown some 10 years later, rather than the crash to which it all led in 2008.

Things are different now, they say. I’m not so sure. Be careful what you wish for.

20/05/2026

When to retire? A big part of our job is helping with ‘can I afford to’ and it’s great to be able say ‘yes you can’. If you’re not ready for it in mind as well as money, the reality can be sad or even shattering as your work can be your identity, purpose, community. ‘I retired on Wednesday, on Thursday the ‘phone didn’t ring, I had no emails, I was completely lost’, said one client a year later. We’ve all seen those who join every committee in the village; they thought they’d never want to go to another meeting then realise how much they missed them. Retirement may not be your idea, of course, looking at you, Mr. Starmer, but whether or not, plan what you’ll do, who you’ll do it with, why and where you’ll do it. Just buying the camper van won’t do it. And this, you may have guessed, is a message to self as much as my Boomer audience…

20/05/2026

17/05/2026

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fading-camp-fresh-stripes-social-updates-rbp8e

The photo heading last week’s Starmer-garden-allegory was not, as many kindly thought, of my actual garden. Our lawn stripes are not quite so perfect, but for balance what you see above is the real thing.