Money
A fogey’s guide to cryptocurrency
All innovations seem unseemly to fogeys. When bitcoin, the first of the cryptocurrencies, was launched in 2009, we dismissed it…
Want to get rich? Invest like an American
Ramit Sethi wants to make you rich. He is not a household name in Britain, but the Stanford psychology graduate…
Is any other investment as good as gold?
Last year might have proved a good time to own shares in the chip-maker Nvidia, along with the booming American…
Where are you on the tightwad scale?
I once stood in a queue behind a Scotsman checking out of a hotel in Germany. After he had finished…
Save our charity shops!
If, like me, your tailor of choice is the British Heart Foundation or Save the Children, it is beginning to…
My plan for a wealth tax – with a difference
Reading Careless People, an exposé of life within Facebook written by a Kiwi, it occurred to me that one potential…
In defence of fat cats’ growing pay packets
News from the High Pay Centre – the revolutionary guard of left-wing thinktanks – that average FTSE100 chief executive pay…
Was the car finance judgment fair?
I must modestly doubt that the Supreme Court justices took account of my 12 July column in their ruling on…
Britain is hooked on car finance
It’s unnerving to think how close Britain came to financial disaster last Friday, ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on…
Is Len McCluskey a Manchurian candidate for the Tory party?
At Stansted on Monday, a currency kiosk offered me €270 for £300. ‘Wrong way round,’ I said, having swiftly figured…
Don’t compensate drivers for mis-sold car loans
Surprisingly big numbers are the theme of this week’s column, several having flashed up to disturb the pleasures of a…
Marriage, motherhood and money: Show Don’t Tell, by Curtis Sittenfeld, reviewed
Funny, smart stories explore the ‘stale’ married state, the anxieties of parenthood and the sweet-sour nature of female friendship. But do they go far enough?
Beware the £5 coffee
It wasn’t until I received a notification from the Monzo app that I realised I’d spent nearly £10 on two…
What’s the point in spending a fortune on a wedding?
I follow the YouTube postings of a maverick young economist called Gary Stevenson, author of The Trading Game. Whatever you…
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…
Is Britain funding organisations that wish us harm?
Frivolous state funding isn’t only going to chancers, the plain lucky and the devious, but also to those who would…
My impossible task as ‘minister for efficiency’
I am delighted that The Spectator is launching a campaign to highlight the grotesque levels of financial waste in government.…
Heaven is a Trad Dad
M y husband earns more than me. A lot more. I am, of course, extremely fortunate to be in such…
My wife earns more than me – and it doesn’t feel great
This is the article I have thought about writing for years, but I have always ended up asking what would…
‘Teaching someone to draw is teaching them to look’: the year’s best art books
Subjects range from a Paleolithic bone carving to Banksy’s graffiti, via colour concepts, romanticism, tattoos and mirror painting
We’re all caught in the insurance trap
In they pour, one after another, cheerily thudding on to the doormat: ‘Thank you for insuring with us again! Now,…
How to buy a house that isn’t on the market
There are many, mutually reinforcing causes of the property crisis: it is too easy to borrow; there are too many…
The real test for the republic
It’s always intimidating to write for a readership more clued up than you are. I file this on the very…
Labour’s new cabinet divide
There were no civil servants present when ministers gathered for their weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The reason? It was…
