Britain needs a Rearmament Isa
The City’s self-styled ‘cheerleader in chief’, Lord Mayor Alastair King, on a recent visit to Beijing and Shanghai found leading…
UK tax on US tech is a useful bargaining chip
The Digital Services Tax (DST) is a relatively easy bargaining chip to give away in a last-ditch bid to appease…
Will eggflation burst Trump’s bubble?
‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’ is a maxim attributed to leaders on both sides of the French…
Don’t touch Boots!
‘Don’t stress over short-term stock market swings’ is a maxim on which Donald Trump and I might agree, even if…
Do not be hypnotised by Trump’s America
I’ve been judging a beauty parade, but I hasten to add that no bikinis were involved. Four leading investment firms…
BMW’s Oxford retreat signals deep trouble for UK carmaking
Among British car factories, Nissan at Sunderland is the most productive and Jaguar Land Rover at Solihull probably the most…
Brace for an outbreak of Trumpist investor activism
If the new Trump era has a theme, it’s one of quixotic disruption with random consequences. In that spirit, stand…
Where have all the new businesses gone?
The Chancellor’s appeal to regulators last month for suggestions to boost growth was mocked as evidence that the government itself…
Trump’s move on Canada is as mad as it’s insulting
When I visited Toronto with a UK delegation last winter, conversation focused on the issues of immigration, housing and inflation…
I’m being driven mad by Microsoft Outlook
Call me a cynic, but I suspect this week’s headlines about a revival of Heathrow’s third runway plan amount to…
Would it be worth Trump buying Greenland?
London’s capital market needs a kick in the pants, as I write every week, and ‘activist investors’ are no bad…
Rachel Reeves owes Brompton bikes an apology
I long to write less about Rachel Reeves and more about world-beating British businesses – such as Brompton, the folding…
Should you leave the country? Other questions for 2025
I was intending to write one of those ‘Ten tips to change your life’ lists that fill so many column…
My business predictions for 2025
Headed for ‘the worst of all worlds’ is not where any of us would wish to find ourselves at the…
Negroni inflation is out of control
Forty years ago this Christmas I visited Hong Kong for the first time – a few days after the signing…
The marketing genius of Jaguar
Woke it may be, but Jaguar’s ‘Copy Nothing’ video is a work of marketing genius. With its ungendered models, ungrammatical…
The dark side of Black Friday
How is it possible that we’re still reading headlines about the £4 billion fundraising from the Gulf that saved Barclays…
What does the City really think of the Chancellor?
Regular invitations to Mansion House banquets petered out after I asked a shifty-looking waiter for a glass of champagne and…
Why Trump changed his tune on crypto
This column comes to you from Atlanta, Georgia, where but for one giant ‘Trump Stands Up For Families’ billboard and…
Is No. 10 coming for game shooting next?
I confess I was lunching at L’Escargot in Greek Street as Rachel Reeves delivered her Budget. My excuse was that…
Still hunting for a Trump trade? Gold may have further to rise
Anyone hunting for a ‘Trump trade’ at this late stage has probably missed the US election bus. If you bought…
Wahed’s alarming Tube adverts
As the interminable Budget wait goes on, so does the trawl through the Chancellor’s bin bags. I refer to the…
In defence of eating out
Scheduling the Budget almost four months after their election victory would have counted as a monumental misjudgment for the Labour…
Where are all my after-dinner speaking gigs?
How excited are you to hear the Prime Minister talking tech with Eric Schmidt, an American billionaire who used to…
Goodbye to Old King Coal
So farewell, Ratcliffe-on-Soar: the UK’s last coal-fired power station shut down on Monday, having burned five million tonnes of coal…
