Why the Budget let banks off the hook
‘Banks don’t vote and citizens don’t love them, so they’ll always be the Chancellor’s target of choice,’ I wrote in…
Let the Daily Mail buy the Telegraph
When I first joined The Spectator under the proprietorship of Conrad Black, we operated in sisterhood with the Telegraph titles…
Why has Peter Thiel dumped his AI stocks?
How, I wonder, did a shortlist of candidates to succeed Sir Mark Tucker as chairman of HSBC come into the…
This time it’s crypto: now the Bank of England bows to Trump
The softening of the Bank of England’s stance on ‘stablecoins’ looks like another tugging of the British forelock towards the…
Income tax must rise – but Rachel Reeves must go
Call me hard-hearted, but I doubt even a magic mushroom-induced tantric visualisation of a harmonious universe could transport me into…
Who would want to be a housebuilder in Britain?
In a radio discussion of the Renters’ Rights Act which passed into law this week, I heard ‘Britain’s housing emergency’…
The Chinese spy case you won’t have heard about
The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, handsomely housed in London’s Bedford Square, is responsible for trade relations between the…
The AI crash is coming
Who knows what Rachel Reeves reads in bed. Perhaps she dips into her own debut book, The Women Who Made…
How could the Co-op be so insensitive to Jewish shoppers?
Between news bulletins of the Manchester synagogue attack last week, I popped into my local Co-op for some groceries. When…
Don’t surrender to soulless self-checkouts
A friend runs a small factory employing 60 skilled workers. He exports industrial components worldwide, competing with Europe for quality…
Housebuilding’s in crisis? Bring back Angela Rayner!
Barely noticed amid all the other bad news and political shenanigans, there’s a slump in UK housebuilding that makes Labour’s…
Bring on the robot-run railways!
I awoke on Sunday to what felt like a Brave New World moment: Radio 4’s news-reader reciting an unedited Downing…
The Pret plunge isn’t quite what it seems
Gold goes on up: having risen by an unprecedented 40 per cent in a year to pass $3,600 (or £2,675)…
Kemi Badenoch’s North Sea plan is just another soundbite
‘We’re going to get all our oil and gas out of the North Sea’ was certainly a winning line for…
Don’t bring back British Rail
The theme of my holiday reading has been the insidious ways in which the vanities and fetishes of rulers harm…
In defence of fat cats’ growing pay packets
News from the High Pay Centre – the revolutionary guard of left-wing thinktanks – that average FTSE100 chief executive pay…
What is there to be optimistic about for British business?
In this season of scant corporate news – a Ryanair rant against the French here, a new BP oilfield there…
Was the car finance judgment fair?
I must modestly doubt that the Supreme Court justices took account of my 12 July column in their ruling on…
Is Len McCluskey a Manchurian candidate for the Tory party?
At Stansted on Monday, a currency kiosk offered me €270 for £300. ‘Wrong way round,’ I said, having swiftly figured…
A new water regime must still reward private investors
The weekend’s torrential Yorkshire rain amid a hosepipe ban offered a handy metaphor for the chaos that has befallen the…
Why wealth taxes don’t work
The nation owes the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock an eternal debt for losing the 1992 general election when he…
Don’t compensate drivers for mis-sold car loans
Surprisingly big numbers are the theme of this week’s column, several having flashed up to disturb the pleasures of a…
What hope is there for today’s unlucky graduates?
I’m fresh out of advice for those now leaving university and wondering how on earth they’re going to make a…
The hidden costs of Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill
One peril of a sudden adverse turn of global events is that it provides cover for bad domestic government. If…
Mark Carney, the mischief-making pin-up
Well, would you look at Mark Carney. Just three months ago I described the incoming prime minister of Canada and…
