Any other business
The Sizewell delusion
The Chancellor’s promise of £14 billion for the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk is hardly news. The project…
In praise of Michael O’Leary
NatWest has returned to full private-sector ownership 17 years after the £46 billion bailout that took it into state hands…
Will Labour’s rail replacement service leave travellers stranded?
By spooky coincidence, on Saturday night I watched an old episode of Slow Horses in which a passenger died mysteriously…
It’s time to get rid of the Rich List
Here’s a takeover tale that captures the zeitgeist. It involves two FTSE 250 companies and some deep-pocketed US investors –…
Beef farmers have been stitched up
An awkward delay in the unveiling of the Mansion House Accord was, we’re told, nothing more than a Downing Street…
If the numbers add up, Shell should bid for BP
A hangar full of analysts and investment bankers must have spent the long weekend formulating advice for Shell chief executive…
The New York deli sandwich that changed history
There’s nothing new about bringing maverick businesspeople into government to give the bureaucratic blob what an unnamed ‘Trump adviser’ was…
Save London’s black cabs!
Donald Trump’s Soprano-like threat that the ‘termination’ of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell ‘cannot come fast enough’ has been headlined…
No one wants American cars
The weekend’s Scunthorpe drama was a distraction from endless chatter about Donald Trump and his tariffs. Perhaps Downing Street’s spinners…
Why it might be best if US stock markets go on falling
It gives me no pleasure to say I told you so. ‘If [Donald Trump] is prepared to cause mayhem in…
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…
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…
