Business rates reform: for once, a useful Labour idea
A worthwhile policy proposal amid the Labour conference dogfight? Now there’s a surprise. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s scheme to…
Gas crisis offers hard choices: market mayhem or limitless subsidy
Will my bath water still be hot by Christmas? That’s not a question I’d normally feel a need to share…
Don’t scrap start-up grants for wannabe entrepreneurs
I’m hugely enjoying meeting the finalists for The Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Awards. This year’s bumper entry was…
Tea with the WI offers lessons on responsible investment
Late-breaking exam results: many of the City’s top fund managers have failed a vital test of ‘stewardship’ — defined for…
Trouble ahead if we run out of pigs in blankets
This is getting serious. Never mind global shortages of microchips, plastics, copper and container ships; now we’re running out of…
Leahy’s love bomb livens up the bid battle for Morrisons
The Hundred — some sort of pimped-up cricket tournament, I gather — passed me by entirely, but I’ve been admiring…
Time to restore normality in the world of work
Give or take a few leader-writing shifts and editing projects, I’ve been working from home for the past 30 years,…
London calling
Why I’ve gone back to city life
The bottleneck in shipping will deliver an expensive Christmas
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey looks increasingly uncomfortable as inflation notches upwards from ‘nothing to worry about’ towards the…
Your country needs you at the wheel of a lorry
Here’s a patriotic proposal: let’s form a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers, of which the Road Haulage Association reckons there’s…
Is it too cruel to throw Lynch into the jaws of US justice?
Be glad you’re not in Dr Mike Lynch’s shoes. A London judge has ruled that the founder of the Cambridge-based…
The clever radical who led the City’s transformation
It’s a vivid example of unintended consequences that the swimming-pool builders of southern England should owe so much to Sir…
Better to back clean aviation than to punish frequent flyers
Have you been scanning airline websites for exotic destinations to which your double-jabbed status might allow you to slip away…
Why shouldn’t the City pick an Irish Lord Mayor?
The Financial Times carried a curious story at the weekend about ‘the secretive process to elect the Lord Mayor of…
Will surging house prices send the English young to save Scotland?
Nicola Sturgeon depresses me and seems to be having the same effect on Scottish house prices. In a housing market…
Why private equity sharks are shopping at Morrisons
The late Sir Ken Morrison — founder of the eponymous supermarket chain that’s the latest UK target for US private…
Beware foreign money on the hunt for fast bucks
The snatching of a 12 per cent stake in BT by French entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, last seen here when he…
G7 is right: business should pay tax wherever it make profits
Companies should willingly pay tax wherever they generate profits — this column has long argued — because it’s fair they…
The new breed of retail investors look like ducks ready for stuffing
‘Feed the ducks when they’re quacking’ sounds like advice from a foie gras farmer — but let’s leave gastronomy till…
Who cares if rail is public or private? Just make the trains run on time
The long-awaited review of the railways by former British Airways executive Keith Williams chugged past the platform of public debate…
Clinging to optimism as revival collides with fear
The happiest thing that happens in May is the coming into leaf of my long beech hedge. The shift from…
Top pay restraint may persist over here – but not in the US
‘Consider a temporary cut in executive salaries’ was the Confederation of British Industry’s advice to members at the start of…
The inflation scare is overdone but watch out for the price spike
‘We are seeing very substantial inflation,’ the great investor Warren Buffett told shareholders in his master company Berkshire Hathaway at…
Who’s really to blame for the Post Office scandal?
The alleged frauds for which the Post Office prosecuted no fewer than 736 of its sub-postmasters has turned out in…
Crypto may go mainstream but it’s still a virtual Las Vegas
What should we make of the valuation of Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange listed on Nasdaq last week at $80 billion…
