Banking
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…
The Wall Street Crash never ceases to fascinate
The 1929 catastrophe and its aftermath have obvious parallels and connections with our own era, as Andrew Ross Sorkin illustrates
How could the Co-op be so insensitive to Jewish shoppers?
Between news bulletins of the Manchester synagogue attack last week, I popped into my local Co-op for some groceries. When…
The best deer deterrent? Radio 4
Behind the latest push for recognition of a Palestinian state – even though there is no agreement of what it…
The rotten core of Credit Suisse
For scandal, sleaze, hubris and treachery, no financial institution has been a serial offender like the disgraced Swiss bank. Little wonder it was dubbed Credit Swizz or Debit Suisse
Bankers are hot again
‘I’m looking for a man in finance/ Trust fund/ 6’5”/ Blue eyes.’ When Megan Boni posted this ditty on her…
Portrait of the week
Home Ben Wallace said he would cease to be the Defence Secretary at the next cabinet reshuffle and would not…
The liberal case for Nigel Farage
After ‘it’s not happening’, ‘it may be happening, but for different reasons’, and ‘would it be such a bad thing…
Debunking debanking
As I sat down to write this column, an old friend let me know he’d just been ‘debanked’. That is,…
PEP talk
How Boris made me a threat to Mexico
Secrets of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street
Anne L. Murphy provides a vivid picture of clients, clerks and couriers, pay and perks, cases of fraud and incompetence and the underappreciated threat of fire and violence
A Tuscan gem
Siena, the jewel of Tuscan cities, was the mercantile and banking centre of medieval Europe. Bankers in Pre-Renaissance Siena preened…
Is Credit Suisse the tornado on the banking horizon?
Headlines about ‘alarm over CreditSuisse’ might be read as a sign of normality in financial news, rather than the reverse.…
Real life
The ladies in the bank now wear badges telling you to Be Kind and not do anything that might upset…
The money shot
Is the onscreen portrayal of investment bankers as monsters true to life? Martin Vander Weyer talks to the writers of Industry
Inflation pressures may be easing but the worst still lies ahead
Is anything anywhere getting noticeably better – economically speaking – or at least less bad? Are commodities and manufactured goods…
Of course airlines should have started rehiring months ago — but they didn’t
I sincerely hope you’re not reading this on a holiday flight that’s sitting on the tarmac with no indication as…
Daylight robbery
Why won’t banks help fraud victims like my daughter?
Be your own bank
There was a time when you could read a book to keep up to date about a subject. Well, that’s…
Why Y-fronts show that recession risks are rising
Should you happen to spot me these days lurking outside a Calvin Klein boutique, notebook in hand, I assure you…
At least BP and Shell tried to teach Russia true capitalism
BP will offload the 20 per cent stake in Rosneft, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant, that is the residue of 25…
