Economy
Business rebirth is always possible – with the right help
The online fashion retailer Boohoo is buying Debenhams without its stores and staff, confirming the demise of the high street.…
‘Inessential’ workers have helped keep the country afloat
A common sight across Britain these past ten months has been those rainbow flags fluttering in urban and village streets:…
Capital punishment: why wealth taxes don’t work
Why wealth taxes don’t work
The rise of the super pessimist
Covid isn’t the only thing to have developed a dangerous strain in the UK; pessimism has also mutated and is…
Are there any mountains left unclimbed?
Bad service Economic growth fell by 2.6% in November, the month of the second lockdown, compared with falls of 7.3%…
Could the Australian approach to Covid work in Britain?
The government’s most important economic policy is its vaccination programme. The speed at which people are immunised will determine when…
Why 2021 could be the year of economic Armageddon
The British economy is wrapped in bandages – we won’t know whether the wound has scabbed or turned septic until…
The ideological bankruptcy of modern monetary theory
There’s nothing new about ‘new monetary theory’
Ring out, wild bells: 2021 will be a year of renewal
Save for those old enough to have lived through the second world war and its immediate austere aftermath, it would…
Do divorces really increase after Christmas?
Now and then Were households allowed to mix at Christmas during the plague? Samuel Pepys’s diary entry for 25 December…
Where is the Conservatives’ post-Brexit agenda?
What’s the point of Brexit? We are told it is to take back control, but that is a means to…
More Brexit talks are the worst possible outcome for the economy
Currency speculators at some of the hedge funds in Mayfair may be feeling quietly pleased.Trade experts will be relieved that…
Wealth taxes are not the answer to our financial woes
Today the Wealth Tax Commission, an initiative involving the LSE, has recommended a ‘one-off’ 5 per cent levy on the…
The texture of our country is changing before our eyes
On Saturday night we sat around the kitchen table, my family and I, and had a takeaway from the Turkish…
The government is sending the high street to an early grave
Does it matter that Debenhams and the Arcadia group have gone under this week, taking 25,000 jobs with them and…
The public sector delusion
I wonder how much more money we will have to bung the teachers in order to inculcate within them an…
A vaccine won't heal the scarring of lockdown
How can Britain recover post-Covid?
Trump’s story is still not over
The triumphant ululations of the almost unanimous Trump-hating media of America and much of the world did not clarify the…
Denial is not a strategy, Prime Minister
The psychodrama in No. 10 is badly timed. The government has used emergency powers to ban meetings, church services and…
Open and shut case: how did lockdown affect shops?
Shot in the arm Global stock markets reached a new high after pharmaceutical firm Pfizer announced a vaccine it is…
Britain's economy has been bouncing back – but there's a major caveat
Britain’s economy rebounded by a record 15.5 per cent between July and September, reflecting the relaxation of lockdown measures and increased consumer…
Do you want a Trump or Biden economy?
It would be great if the President was an icon of virtue and goodness, but he isn’t. As much as…
Will the economy recover enough to help Trump win?
It’s rather difficult to dissect or analyze policy areas from last night’s horrendous debate. But Freddy Gray and I attempt…
The true cost of coronavirus on our economy
The economic scars of Covid will define the decade
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…
