Don’t blame Trump for food price hikes and cancelled flights
In the hierarchy of factors that will make consumers curse politicians and company bosses this summer, food price inflation probably…
I’ll dare to say what Andy Haldane doesn’t
A sandwich with Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England economist, now president of British Chambers of Commerce, is the…
People need to calm down about Nigel Farage’s bitcoin wheeze
There’s a Tube strike in the old-fashioned style as I write – and you’ll understand the irritation, mine and that…
A private credit crash is coming
What with headlines focused on the Strait of Hormuz and scare stories about out-of-control AI, forecasts of a storm in…
Making Tax Difficult: another Whitehall farce
Welcome to the new tax year, with its overflowing hamper of half-baked, growth-eating, enterprise-crushing Labour measures. And if you happen…
Hong Kong is the new Dubai
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that National Savings and Investments (NS&I) began life in 1861 as the Post…
Never mind bashing ‘profiteers’, slash fuel taxes and green levies
As chairman of the value-for-money Iceland frozen-foods chain, Richard Walker might be expected to know what he’s talking about in…
Has Rachel Reeves secured a rare victory for growth?
There’s very little to celebrate in Downing Street these days but it must have been vodka shots all round in…
If oil prices stay high, you can bet on a recession
Shares everywhere dived for cover as missiles started flying. But one stock ahead of the pack, and responding to a…
Brace for higher inflation
All eyes on the Strait of Hormuz, the 24-mile-wide choke point between Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, through…
The no.1 quango that deserves the axe
There are elements of economic life, such as the impact of President Donald Trump’s ever-changing tariffs, that are far beyond…
Is it last orders for BrewDog?
‘Nostalgia is not a strategy,’ declared Schroders chief executive Richard Oldfield after announcing that the investment firm, descended from a…
Japan’s female leader is a bright beacon, but do her sums add up?
My scepticism towards soaring markets with unconvincing fundamentals was nurtured by working in Tokyo in the mid-1980s, when the Nikkei…
The role of ABBA in the Ajax fiasco
‘It’s all about ABBA,’ a military acquaintance whispered when I mentioned the scandal of the British Army’s order of 589…
Where have all the graduate jobs gone?
It’s a relief not to have been pressganged into joining the Prime Minister’s plane-load of business chiefs and reporters bound…
Bookshops deserve tax breaks
My Davos spy disguised as an Uber Eats driver sent word that this year’s World Economic Forum was rammed ahead…
Trump’s attack on the Fed is a pivotal moment of hubris
The phrase ‘trumped-up charges’ dates from the 18th century, I learn, and derives from the Old French tromper, to deceive.…
Am I really a tightwad?
Of all the heavyweight books I’ve ever been asked to review, one that most influenced my view of how the…
Pubs, schools and water in crisis: my economic forecast for 2026
Forecasting is a mug’s game, as the Bank of England governor Mervyn King once said. But I’ll sketch a few…
Why does Netflix never show us business heroes?
God bless Netflix: I’ve just watched all 28 episodes of Foyle’s War, the 1940s detective series set in Hastings and…
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…
