Economics
I told you so: the UK electricity gap looms wider than ever
Amid all the turmoil in global energy markets, we should not lose sight of the UK power programme that we’re…
Keynes’s big mistake
The one thing most people think they know about economics is wrong
If the world economy crashes again, blame the central bankers
Like the Christmas pudding sampled by Hercule Poirot at Kings Lacey — but six weeks early — our Spectator Money…
John McDonnell’s true economic guru: the emperor Nero
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor in the Corbynite splinter-group, has announced that £120 billion is waiting to be reclaimed from tax…
Cheer up: we’re robust enough to withstand a shock from China
Home from the hot Aegean, huddled by the fire as rain ruins the bank holiday weekend, I’m thinking: what gloom…
Sorry, but I can’t join in the China panic
MS Queen Victoria, 38°N 19°E I’ll do my best, but I’ve got to be honest: being surrounded by shining Ionian…
Despair springs eternal
The left is always eager to be told that capitalism’s final crisis is upon us – and it is always disappointed
Degrees in disaster
From Greece to Kenya, the worst economic ideas come from alumni of British universities
The wrong man
Why Jim O’Neill isn’t fit to run the Northern Powerhouse
Just giving
Seven years ago I wrote here about a site called Kiva.org. I had met the co-founder of this charity when…
Late news: what was really served at the Mansion House banquet
Last week’s deadline did not allow me to report from ringside at the Mansion House dinner, but there was so…
A lightbulb moment at the self-checkout
I spent the last few days in Deal and Folkestone with Professor Richard Thaler at Nudgestock, Ogilvy’s seaside festival of…
Pedant’s revolt
Jonathan Portes, master of the political correction
Unequal struggle
Joseph Stiglitz, the left’s favourite economist,on making the free market work
Full employment, Prime Minister? What exactly do you mean by that?
‘Two million jobs have been created since 2010 — but there will not be a moment of rest until we…
Why estate agents aren’t dying out
I don’t like to make business predictions, but — barring some apocalypse — I suspect there will be plenty of…
Diary
To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I…
The extraordinary Green manifesto
I’m disappointed that Ed Balls’s suggestion that the Office of Budget Responsibility should audit the parties’ manifestos was never taken…
Public man, lover, connoisseur
To the 21st-century right, especially in the United States, John Maynard Keynes has become a much-hated figure whose name is…
Barometer
Watching brief Samsung warned users of its voice-activated televisions that what they said in front of the TV could be…
Muck and brass
The whole idea of capitalism, according to Enlightenment philosophers, was that it created a positive spiral of moral behaviour. ‘Concern…
Who’s afraid of deflation?
Campaigning in Putney in 1978, Mrs Thatcher famously took out a pair of scissors and cut a pound note down…
What happens in Vegas… and why I’m happy it doesn’t happen at home
I didn’t realise that the Rialto Bridge has a moving walkway and muzak, that the gondolas beneath it float on…
Kilkenny Notebook
‘What is a Minsky moment, anyway?’ asks Gerry Stembridge, an Irish satirist. ‘I’ve been reading about them in the papers…
S&M and B&Q
I never got beyond page 20 in Fifty Shades of Grey. No one got shot in the first chapter, and…
