Goodbye To 2014 And A Warm Finance Column Hello To 2015!

This is the time of year when newspapers are full of stories reviewing events and trends over the past 12 months and forecasting what might lie in store for us over the next 12 months. I wouldn't want to disappoint you but, as this is the finance column, I will not be venturing to make predictions about the gender or name of the new royal baby, still less will I rate Gibraltar's chances on the international football stage as the 54^th member of UEFA.

History is littered with pundits who have made, often spectacularly, the wrong call: so don't expect me to make predictions about the euro exchange rate against the pound or the level of the FTSE 100 index at the end of 2015. Rather I'll take a more general look at where we seem to be now and where we might be heading.