Any other business
How to be a truly patriotic millionaire
Patriotic Millionaires UK, led by the former City trader Gary Stevenson and endorsed by Gary Lineker, has ‘100-plus’ members but…
The cinema is back
The hottest car I ever owned was a 1982 Volkswagen Scirocco GTI in metallic dark green. I once drove it…
Count Binface has shown Burnham how to make a manifesto
Count Binface’s manifesto, made for Makerfield and tweaked for Clacton, is a rare point of light in today’s Stygian political…
For true Brits, air con is as foreign as a bidet
A quartet of news stories all point in the same troubling direction. First, easyJet is about to become the latest…
Storm warnings for Burnham from the weathermen of Basel
Reading the annual economic report of the Bank for International Settlements while lying beside a pool with an Aperol spritz…
Alan Greenspan and the slow death of independent central banking
The passing, aged 100, of the former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, prompts thoughts about shifting tensions between politicians…
Brexit was a huge opportunity shamefully mishandled
The Damascene moment in my personal Brexit journey came not when my pen hovered over the referendum ballot on 23…
No, minister: investing in tech ventures isn’t your job
To the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for a ‘scale-up capital’ circus in which 18 ambitious tech ventures had ten minutes…
Can we trust Palantir?
Best not to say too much about Albert Manifold, who was ousted as chairman of BP last week after only…
The Spectator’s caught in the EU crosshairs
Is the flotation of Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture on the US Nasdaq exchange a beacon for the future of earthly…
Manchester won’t raise a statue to Andy Burnham
Already heard enough of ‘Is Manchesterism a thing and did Andy Burnham invent it?’ I’m afraid you’ll hear a great…
How private equity changed the world
The 50th birthday of New York private-equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts – founded with $120,000 by the cousins George Roberts…
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…
