Money
If the Greeks and Romans could cope without a Budget, we can too
Ancient states did not produce ‘budgets’. Ninety per cent of Greeks and Romans lived in self-sufficient farming communities; the rest…
Grand Theft Crypto
Last week North Korea pulled off the biggest heist in history when state-sanctioned hackers stole $6.3 billion from the Binance…
Girls, just say no to lab-grown diamonds
These days, when I spot a proper bobby-dazzler of a diamond on a woman’s ring finger, I feel a bit…
How to cope with ruinous hen dos
‘Hello girls!’ A few weeks ago, a WhatsApp chat named ‘Millie’s hen’ whirred into life on my phone. ‘We’re so…
All the big hitters are here: scenes from the golden age of boxing
In his 97chosen fights, John Sutherland discusses matters of race, class, empire and money, while never waxing too lyrical about an obscenely brutal sport
We are ignoring the biggest threat the world faces
In my mid-twenties, my one-bedroom in Astoria, Queens, developed a roach problem. I don’t mean the odd single scurry disappearing…
Why some small tradesmen are turning to bartering
Holly, a 25-year-old sign writer and muralist, recently spent a couple of days staying in a shepherd’s hut an hour…
Weddings should be short and sweet
As every single one of my friends – and their spouses – is a tasteful soul, it goes without saying…
Welcome to Diocletian’s cashless society
Money is a pagan god because it has value only as long as people believe it does. Refuse to believe,…
The ‘Trump sleaze factor’ grows and grows
Earlier this month, I wrote a cover story for The Spectator warning that Donald Trump’s increasingly brazen flouting of ethical…
How to solve the student debt crisis
England’s student debt is staggering. It comes to £270 billion – that’s larger than the budget for the NHS and…
Frugal chic, the movement changing the way women shop
It is, apparently, a novel concept in our age of overconsumption, that life can still be enjoyable even if you…
The rise of the pocket money app
I am standing in the village Co-op with my eight-year-old daughter when she asks, inevitably, to be bought a magazine.…
The taxman is coming for the self-employed
Spare a thought for Mrs McClafferty & Co. Like thousands of small business owners, she has spent years managing things…
The only living being on our banknotes should be the monarch
This Middle East conflict ought to be much easier than the oil embargo which followed the Yom Kippur war of…
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…
