It sort of feels like summer is drawing to a close; we are in that liminal (posh) place where things are sort of gearing back up but not really yet; at least down in the hotter parts of the country. Schools are back here, and that sound making its way across the border is a sigh of relief. So I’ll make this a short-ish Update and we’ll see how everything feels next week. 

You know that thing that did the rounds a wee while ago reminding everyone that actually life at this particular point in history is pretty sweet and that we should all stop catastrophising so much? I have no doubt it filled up your algorithms for twenty minutes or so. Well, we finally got to a place where we could publish the advised platform sector figures last week, and despite a Great Deal Of Moaning from the profession about all sorts of stuff, it turns out life isn’t that bad after all. 

I like platform sector stats because they are effectively your stats as advisers except consolidated; no, not all business flows onto a platform but most of it does, and over the decades platforms have got reasonably professional about their reporting in a way which the rest of the sector could usefully learn from.  

What the stats – as collated by the magnificent lang cat data team – show is that assets on platforms were up by over 9% on the previous quarter. If we assume that the vast majority of those assets are subject to your ongoing adviser charges, you should be pretty happy with your spreadsheets. If you’re not then you may have some questions to ask yourself.  

Outflows are still high; that’s life in the aluminium siding business. They’re way down from the Budget-related nonsense of 2025 though. Gross sales recorded their second best quarter ever – ever! – with Q1 2026 being the best. That’s quite a thing. £7bn of new money turned up.  

I know there’s a lot going on. I know the attention economy – of which this is clearly a part – wants to grab you and make you think about difficult or worrying stuff. But lookit! Clients want advice. They have money to invest. And they’ll do it when guided by caring professionals who know what they’re doing. Life could be much, much worse.

Your music choice this week is inspired by an amazing Fringe show I went to with my daughter. Tom Waits War Songs is the show and if you get a chance and you like Tom Waits you should absolutely go. I loved it. So here’s the original version of one of the songs in the show – never an easy listen but worth it. Please enjoy Boots On The Ground by Tom Waits and Massive Attack.