Any other business
A bailout for the arts is good but reopening would have been better
The government’s £1.57 billion lifeline for the cultural sector was bigger than most practitioners were expecting — and drew a…
Entrepreneurship – not Johnson’s New Deal – will lead us back to prosperity
John Maynard Keynes looks down and smiles, recalling his own perhaps too-often quoted remark that ‘when the facts change, I…
A VAT cut won’t boost spending if we don’t trust this government
Should Chancellor Rishi Sunak cut VAT as an emergency stimulus to the consumer economy? When Labour’s Alistair Darling made a…
Shares have defied pessimism – but another fall is surely coming
Do stock markets foretell the future while politicians fudge and economists mumble? No: share prices collectively have a life of…
Quarantine will block more holidays abroad than foreign virus-carriers
All logic suggests that the 14-day quarantine for arrivals from abroad really is, as Michael O’Leary of Ryanair put it,…
Car factories revive but theatres remain dark and in danger
Car showrooms are open again: some dealerships, with a hint of forgivable hyperbole, report a surge of pent-up demand. And…
If ‘whatever it takes’ means state share stakes in industry, so be it
Should the government be prepared to take equity stakes in major companies that will struggle to survive the current crisis?…
This is Royal Mail’s chance to appoint a boss fit for the new age
The Royal Mail worker who rang my bell to deliver an Amazon package on Friday was wearing a glittery ball…
The birth of a new telecoms giant heralds the end of Branson’s empire
This month’s most significant corporate deal attracted less attention than it might have done in normal times, crowded out by…
Don’t throw money at airlines now: wait for creative destruction ahead
British Airways warns of 12,000 redundancies. Ryanair announces 3,000 job losses as ‘a minimum to survive the next 12 months’;…
Sunak was right to tie the banks into his rescue loan scheme
Was the Chancellor wrong to guarantee only 80 per cent, rather than 100, of ‘coronavirus business interruption loans’ to keep…
The pharma giant that will show us the future of capitalism
Keep your eye on GlaxoSmithKline. The UK-based multinational drug-maker represents the future, both as a mass-producer of the vaccines that…
Globally and locally, we need stronger business models for survival
When I wrote last week about business-to-business pain-sharing for survival, I was naturally thinking first about UK companies. I say…
A new ‘sharing economy’ offers a path to herd survival
The phrase ‘sharing economy’ was coined a decade or so ago to describe collaborative new business models made possible by…
Lower house prices and cheaper fuel will help recovery
The suspension of the residential property market is disheartening for those who were hoping to buy a first flat or…
Top salary sacrifices now might avert a backlash later
The CBI’s guidelines on ‘best practice for business’ during the pandemic tell the 1,500 larger companies that make up the…
Airlines are no special case when we all need a bailout
The world needs airlines — and, barring Armageddon, will still have some when this crisis is over. It will also…
The antidote to virus panic is in the hands of entrepreneurs
‘It’s a ghost town,’ said the officer manning the body scanner at Manchester airport — Manchester, New Hampshire, that is,…
The SFO as a deterrent? Not in the Barclays-Qatar case
Hit-and-miss, heavy-handed, but a necessary use of justice to deter repetition. That was my summing-up, last year, of the Serious…
Bet like Buffett: the virus scareis a chance to buy cheaper
If anything, stock markets have been slow to respond to the spreading coronavirus outbreak. Stories of Chinese supply interruptions, from…
Time for new leadership at Barclays and HSBC – and a new name at RBS
After a dull interlude, the big banks in their annual results season look a bit more interesting again. First to…
Never mind the numbers – the gender battle has barely begun
It’s the way the world’s going, but still it looks quite impressive that the number of women directors of FTSE100…
From Enron to Airbus, can justice ever keep pace with corporate sin?
So farewell Bernie Ebbers, former chief executive of WorldCom, the long–distance phone operator that became America’s biggest-ever bankruptcy case in…
The most sinister thing about Huawei may be how clean it is
I first wrote about the risks and rumours around Huawei — and made bad jokes about its name — in…
HS2’s completion is as likely as King Harry’s coronation
Seven years ago, when HS2 was still officially costed at £33 billion, I wrote that I was looking forward to…
