Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer is business editor of The Spectator. He writes the weekly Any Other Business column.

Why can’t Britain hang on to its best new companies?

8 September 2018 9:00 am

Costa, in my opinion, sells a decent cup of coffee. It employs polite youngsters who seem happy in their work.…

The record bull run must end soon. So is it time for a return to gold?

1 September 2018 9:00 am

All good things must come to an end, including summer holidays and bull markets. The bull run in US shares…

Decent broadband is a public right. Get on and kick BT, minister

25 August 2018 9:00 am

As I set to compiling your email responses into our ‘broadband dossier’ to send to BT chairman Jan du Plessis,…

Give Mike Ashley a peerage if he can revive House of Fraser

18 August 2018 9:00 am

This column has consistently stood up for Mike Ashley, even when the lonesome billionaire’s notions of corporate governance at Sports…

It’s time to accept that companies such as Amazon are beyond shame

11 August 2018 9:00 am

‘There has to be a level playing field so that… Amazon cannot undercut domestic booksellers by using the tax advantage…

What’s bad for slick estate agents like Foxtons is good for working Londoners

4 August 2018 9:00 am

Those twice-weekly sales emails from Foxtons that the recent GDPR clean-up has failed to stop have lately been spattered with…

Full-fibre broadband by 2033? I wish I could believe you, minister

28 July 2018 9:00 am

I bought BT’s offer of an upgrade to ‘superfast’ broadband because the standard service seemed to be deteriorating just as…

An amoral money world needs ethical campaigners more than ever

21 July 2018 9:00 am

When I first visited Canary Wharf in the early 1990s, I was struck by a set of black-and-white posters in…

Data breaches show we’re only three clicks away from anarchy

14 July 2018 9:00 am

An IT glitch afflicting BP petrol stations for three hours last Sunday evening might not sound like headline news. A…

Enjoy your feelgood summer while you can – there may be trouble ahead

7 July 2018 9:00 am

I’ve been on a mini-tour, full of echoes and warnings. First, to the Grange Festival in Hampshire, where we might…

Carmakers are an undeniable voice in the Brexit debate

30 June 2018 9:00 am

The voice of business has been all but silent in the Brexit debate ever since former Marks & Spencer boss…

A bitcoin mine (Photo: Getty)

The myth and menace of cryptocurrencies

23 June 2018 9:00 am

‘So, Professor Shin, tell us what you really think about cryptocurrencies.’ I’m guessing that’s the brief the Bank for International…

For Pester of TSB, like Patterson of BT, the only way is exit

16 June 2018 9:00 am

Should he stay or should he go — or will he already have gone by the time you read this?…

Let’s hope for a better, demerged, RBS when it’s back in private hands

9 June 2018 9:00 am

At last the government has restarted the process of selling its stake in Royal Bank of Scotland. A first £2…

WH Smith, Britain’s worst high-street retailer, is ripe for disruption

2 June 2018 9:00 am

I’m not in the least surprised to learn that WH Smith has been voted Britain’s worst high-street retailer in a…

Why Mark Carney’s successor is likely to be woman

26 May 2018 9:00 am

If Ben Broadbent’s Daily Telegraph interview last week was the launch of a bid for the governorship of the Bank…

We might be plunging towards Brexit chaos – but at least everyone has jobs

19 May 2018 9:00 am

It’s heartening to see an authentic British entrepreneur heading this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, the industrial-ist Jim Ratcliffe, who…

It was a hot weekend for takeover deals – and cycling

12 May 2018 9:00 am

The bank holiday turned out to be a hot one, not least in the takeover arena. First, Shire Pharmaceutical accepted…

TSB’s new owners should have seen this computer catastrophe coming

5 May 2018 9:00 am

The systems breakdown at TSB is not (yet) the worst UK bank computer cock-up of all time: that prize is…

Bank AGMs are an opportunity to shout about branch closures

28 April 2018 9:00 am

The season of high-street banks’ annual general meetings is with us and I urge you to turn up and make…

I’m an optimist for trade despite the idiocies of politicians

21 April 2018 9:00 am

I’m proud to be a member of the 661-year-old Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York, having qualified…

The US Treasury shows London how to cold-shoulder Putin’s cronies

14 April 2018 9:00 am

A decade ago I commissioned an article about Vladimir Putin’s business cronies. Among other lines of enquiry, it sought to…

Call this US-China tit-for-tat a trade war?

7 April 2018 9:00 am

‘Stocks plunge as China hits US goods with tariffs,’ said a headline after the long weekend, and the FTSE100 duly…

So farewell Toys ‘R’ Us, the predator that became the prey

31 March 2018 9:00 am

I remember the arrival of Toys ‘R’ Us in Britain, because as a young banker in 1984 I was tasked…

Sorry fishermen, but we were never going to win back control of our waters

24 March 2018 9:00 am

My decision to vote Remain was driven in part by an exercise in which I tried to identify anyone close…