Retail
The stealth philanthropy of buying a Range Rover
Even though Christmas is over, I’ve been thinking about the season just gone. There is a tradition of complaining about…
The independent bookshops that aren’t what they seem
Independent bookshops remain some of Britain’s loveliest places. Quaint, charming, precarious, they are a bulwark against blandness and offer refuge…
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…
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 shoplifting shame
On reflection, a tradition of shelving many desirable goods within ready reach is extraordinary – especially because the premises in…
The Sizewell delusion
The Chancellor’s promise of £14 billion for the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk is hardly news. The project…
Don’t touch Boots!
‘Don’t stress over short-term stock market swings’ is a maxim on which Donald Trump and I might agree, even if…
Britain’s shopfronts are a national embarrassment
A few weeks ago, a couple of men with ladders started work on a former bridal boutique at the end…
The dark side of Black Friday
How is it possible that we’re still reading headlines about the £4 billion fundraising from the Gulf that saved Barclays…
Has your local shop blacklisted you?
Britain’s obsession with surveillance is reaching new heights. Several of the UK’s largest retailers have quietly installed facial recognition checkpoints…
How much do we spend on workwear?
The first nimby Who coined the term ‘nimby’? — The expression, from ‘Not In My Backyard’, entered the political sphere…
Don’t look back in anger… it’s just how ticket sales work
We expect Ryanair tickets to cost more on holiday Saturdays than term-time Tuesdays and Uber fares to surge in the…
There will be no price cap on ‘basic items’
Sometimes it’s the little things that depress most. I groaned last week to hear the news item. The government is…
Barometer
Finnish lines Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said she had taken a test for illegal drugs after being filmed at…
Oxford Street reborn could be the model for every British high street
Oxford Street is ‘a dinosaur district destined for extinction’, says Marks & Spencer boss Stuart Machin – whose plan to…
Wishful drinking
I fancy myself as a bit of an oenophile and during the lockdowns, when my local branch of Majestic was…
Barometer
A slip of the tongue George W. Bush condemned a political system where one man could wage a ‘brutal and…
Sparks
‘It’s not as nice as it looks,’ said my husband, not leaving time to look it in the mouth before…
Haldane would have been a smarter inflation fighter than Bailey
Would Andy Haldane, the economist who left the Bank of England to run the Royal Society of Arts, have made…
Real life
The window of the new shop was as brightly coloured as a circus entrance, and stuffed full of items bearing…
Name drop
Why are so many classic British brands going downmarket?
Old money
In defence of hard cash
The borrowers
Are banking apps luring under-thirties into debt?
