How the Romans set an example of good business practice
Ever since the societas publicanorum, corporations have been linked with the common good, carrying out projects for which the state is ill-equipped
We should never have tried cosying up to Chinese investors
I can’t read ‘China rocked by protests’ and ‘Zero Covid could be the end of Xi Jinping’s rule’ without recalling…
The welcome death of the ‘my truth’ investment boom
A colourful selection of news items this week seem to have a central thread. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the Theranos…
Made.com is a dotcom parable from an earlier era
‘Reparations’, much bandied about at Cop27, is a dangerous word. It speaks of an admission of historic guilt, which no…
After the Truss-Kwarteng crash, a tentative welcome for Sunak
Let’s hope Tuesday’s partial eclipse of the sun was a good omen for the return of Rishi Sunak to Downing…
The truth about corporate taxes
I’ve chosen to write about corporate tax rates this week not because they’re the sexiest subject available but because –…
A house-price crash won’t be the only effect of the Kwarteng calamity
Where next for house prices? Clearly, they’re going down as mortgage rates go up – and my forecast in May…
Is Credit Suisse the tornado on the banking horizon?
Headlines about ‘alarm over CreditSuisse’ might be read as a sign of normality in financial news, rather than the reverse.…
City slickers’ reaction to Kwarteng’s unfunded plan is entirely rational
‘Fury at the City slickers betting against UK plc,’ shouted the Daily Mail on Tuesday, after Monday’s mayhem saw the…
Is this really the moment to scrap bankers’ bonuses?
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – keen to sharpen the City’s competitive edge, we’re told – wants to remove the legislative cap,…
Let’s see some energy policy action
At His Majesty’s Treasury, it’s all looking a bit like Year Zero in revolutionary Cambodia. Kwasi Kwarteng’s first act was…
Can anything halt the pound’s fall?
My predecessor Christopher Fildes looked at exchange rates through a cocktail glass: three negronis for the Italian lira equivalent of…
Will energy bills kill off working from home?
‘The jury’s out’, was Liz Truss’s pert response to the question ‘Macron: friend or foe?’ at last week’s Norwich hustings.…
Are bankers really as bad as they're portrayed on screen?
Is the onscreen portrayal of investment bankers as monsters true to life? Martin Vander Weyer talks to the writers of Industry
It’s time to clear out the Bank of England’s board
Liz Truss says she intends to review the Bank of England’s mandate, which has been fixed as a 2 per…
Blaming Saudi won’t make energy cheaper
How outraged should we be that Saudi Aramco has reported a world-record quarterly profit of $48 billion, representing a giant…
How to save money: switch to cash and reprogram your boiler
We’ll find out shortly whether official statistics agree with economists surveyed by Bloomberg who say UK GDP probably shrank by…
Why Centrica is right to restore its dividend
‘What’s worse, they’re paying the profits to shareholders,’ said a grey-haired woman ahead of me in the Co-op queue. ‘Bloody…
How to save Royal Mail
The government’s ‘cost-of-living tsar’, Just Eat co-founder David Buttress, was appointed last month as a Canutian gesture against the inflation…
Sack Heathrow’s boss? No, put him on the front line
Airports are on my mind, since I’ve just stepped off an on-time early-morning flight from East Midlands to Bergerac –…
