Rishi Sunak
The Brexit deal has left the City to fight for its own future
‘This Article shall not apply with respect to financial services.’ That’s what it says on page 92 of the EU-UK…
Portrait of the year: Coronavirus, falling statues, banned Easter eggs and compulsory Scotch eggs
January Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, signed the EU withdrawal agreement, sent from Brussels by train. Sajid Javid, the Chancellor…
The public sector delusion
I wonder how much more money we will have to bung the teachers in order to inculcate within them an…
If taxes must rise, Sunak should pick on private equity instead
It’s not axiomatic that taxes must rise to pay for the pandemic, if you seriously believe the surge in growth,…
Why Boris, not Rishi, will lead the Tories into the next election
Some Tory MPs are hoping that Dominic Cummings’ departure from Downing Street will bring with it a vital lift to…
Why now is the perfect time to invest in art
The Bank of England has told commercial banks to prepare for the possibility of negative interest rates. This last hypothetical…
Sunak warns of hardship
When Rishi Sunak was appointed Chancellor in February, he must never have imagined that his first address to the Conservative…
Portrait of the week: Curfew street parties, Trump’s taxes and a bone-eating vulture
Home More than a quarter of the population of the United Kingdom (three-fifths of the Welsh, a third of the…
Rishi Sunak prepares UK economy for 'permanent adjustment'
The UK economy is no longer hibernating; it is ‘adjusting’. Today’s measures announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak are designed to…
Now get off your sofa to help save the arts
Along, cold weekend brought a haul of business news more bad than good. The worst was from aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce,…
Why poetry matters
Juan Carlos, ex-King of Spain, behaved foolishly in relation to money and sex, and so his decision to leave Spain…
The Chancellor’s strange connection to cancel culture
The cancel culture wants to obliterate people who do, or more often say, the wrong thing (for example, that there…
Will masks mean the end of smiling at strangers?
I’ve been a regular runner for 40 years, pounding my way across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House and back. This…
We’ll never know whether Huawei is still listening
This column has been banging on about the peculiar nature of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, ever since its expanded…
Why isn’t the government learning the lessons of ‘red wall’ towns?
A rare illness has broken out in Westminster. Last week a case of what was known before Brexit as ‘consensus’…
What has ‘deadweight’ got to do with Rishi Sunak’s magic money tree?
I was trying to understand what they meant on the wireless by deadweight costs. These were something to do with…
Portrait of the week: Face masks in, Huawei out and Amazon’s TikTok trouble
Home New regulations would compel people to wear a face covering in shops in England from 24 July on pain…
'Rishinomics' could cost the Tories the next election
A truism is emerging that the Tories’ massive public spending has left Labour politically with nowhere to go. This quasi-social-democrat…
Prepare for Javid vs Sunak in the next Tory leadership contest
In 1992 a young footballer named Dion Dublin left my local team, Cambridge United, to take up one of the…
Portrait of the week: Sunak’s statement, shop closures and a hoo-ha over Boohoo
Home Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced measures intended to stimulate the economy. Under a £111 million scheme,…
The success of British Indians is troubling for some. Why?
The success of British Indians is troubling for some. Why?
Bailing out businesses looks inevitable – but it’s not all bad
Should the government be prepared to take equity stakes in major companies that will struggle to survive the current crisis?…
Portrait of the week: Europe’s lockdowns ease, England stays alert and Broadway stays shut
Home The government changed its slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus,…
Rishi Sunak must stick to his guns
Was the Chancellor wrong to guarantee only 80 per cent, rather than 100, of ‘coronavirus business interruption loans’ to keep…
At least some of the Chancellor’s promises are actually working
The phrase ‘sharing economy’ was coined a decade or so ago to describe collaborative new business models made possible by…
