Martin Vander Weyer

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

Storm warning: the world economy’s October troubles aren’t over yet

18 October 2014 9:00 am

October is always a turbulent month, and I’m feeling uneasy about this one. The FTSE100 index, which looked set to…

Yes, Wonga lent at shocking rates – but it was customers who lied

11 October 2014 9:00 am

‘Payday Lady is not trading at this time,’ says her website, sounding a little like La Dame aux camélias. Indeed (since…

Why the real winner from George Osborne’s ‘Google tax’ could be Nigel Farage

4 October 2014 9:00 am

George Osborne’s promise to crack down on multinational companies’ avoidance of UK taxes by the use of impenetrable devices such…

Is the US using bank fines to bring allies into line against Russia?

27 September 2014 9:00 am

Here’s one for all you conspiracy nuts out there, prompted by readers’ comments on my recent item about whether BP…

Santander’s secret: to conquer the world, stay like a small-town bank

20 September 2014 9:00 am

Four years ago, I wrote that I knew no dark rumours about Santander, the rising force in UK high street…

BP's been punished enough – but not because Americans hate the Brits

13 September 2014 9:00 am

I should declare two connections before I start offering opinions about the latest US judgment against BP relating to the ‘Macondo’…

Rona Fairhead will be good for the BBC – but who was so keen to nobble her rival?

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Hats off to Rona Fairhead, the former Financial Times executive who will succeed Lord Patten as chairman of the BBC…

Europe's leaders worship Mario Draghi. They should listen to him instead

30 August 2014 9:00 am

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi secured a place in history by his demonstration, on 26 July 2012, of the…

It’s not just left-wingers who think the bosses’ pay boom is unhealthy

23 August 2014 9:00 am

The FTSE100 index stands precisely where it did in the first week of December 1999. Whichever way you look at…

Why a City job should be graduates’ last resort

16 August 2014 9:00 am

August is the season for conversation about career choices. Every holiday party seems to include new graduates or next year’s…

The man who could sell the British public on fracking

9 August 2014 9:00 am

Iain Conn, who will succeed Sam Laidlaw as chief executive of Centrica, would have been a dead cert for the…

I know how ineffective sanctions are – but these ones just might work

2 August 2014 9:00 am

‘Sanctions,’ said Kofi Annan, ‘are a necessary middle ground between war and words.’ Neither the EU nor the US will…

Forecasting is a mug’s game – but I was right about the economic revival

26 July 2014 9:00 am

‘Perhaps I should shift my prediction to 23 July 2014,’ I wrote in April 2012. ‘That’s the opening of the…

Any other business: trouble spots in European banking

19 July 2014 9:00 am

‘1914: Day by Day’, the Radio 4 series by the historian Margaret MacMillan, is a gripping reminder that significant global…

Gold-fixing is the last ghost of the old City. It won't be around much longer

12 July 2014 9:00 am

In a season obsessed with sport and personal misbehaviour — separately or in combination — the word ‘fixing’ immediately brings…

Damp, green and beguiling: Killarney

Damp, green and beguiling – the joys of Killarney

12 July 2014 9:00 am

Here’s a question for a Guinness-sponsored pub quiz: who or what is a ‘jarvie’? The answer is the gypsy driver…

Ryedale Festival: a beacon of survival without subsidy

12 July 2014 9:00 am

There are festivals of everything, everywhere. So why get excited about the Ryedale Festival (11–27 July) apart from the fact…

North star

10 July 2014 1:00 pm

There are festivals of everything, everywhere. So why get excited about the Ryedale Festival (11–27 July) apart from the fact…

North star

10 July 2014 1:00 pm

There are festivals of everything, everywhere. So why get excited about the Ryedale Festival (11–27 July) apart from the fact…

‘Dark pools’ are just another conspiracy of bankers against the public

5 July 2014 9:00 am

It was at the Mansion House dinner last year that a City gent two seats away announced himself to be…

George Osborne’s cynical grab for northern votes (and why I’m for it)

28 June 2014 9:00 am

When John Prescott used to wax garrulous about a ‘superhighway’ from Hull to Liverpool, everyone assumed it was a wheeze…

The return of oil price anxiety is a timely reminder to get fracking

21 June 2014 9:00 am

‘Iraq turmoil sends crude oil prices to nine-month high’ is the sort of headline that used to send shivers down…

The internet is broken – and we can no longer do without it

14 June 2014 8:00 am

‘The internet is broken,’ a corporate chieftain told me last week. It was an arresting remark, but he did not…

I salute the wisdom of young Scots on independence (they’re voting No, by the way)

7 June 2014 9:00 am

It’s a constant theme of this column that today’s young need to stop whingeing about their prospects and get on…

Fight Thomas Piketty or face a mansion tax

31 May 2014 9:00 am

The postman at the door is stooped by his burden like an allegorical statue of Labour Oppressed by Capital. His…