George Osborne
Won’t someone please unleash the challenger banks?
In my Yorkshire town of Helmsley the NatWest branch, originally an outpost of Beckett & Co of Leeds, has closed…
George Osborne interview: smaller government is not enough
George Osborne on his love affair with Greater Manchester, and his party’s need for ‘a bit of the Heseltine’
How Labour’s 50p tax trick has ended up helping George Osborne
Last week’s public borrowing and tax-receipt figures, headlined ‘Chancellor hails biggest monthly surplus in seven years’, received considerably less attention…
Five questions to help you take control of your pension
Deciding the destiny of your retirement is about to get easier. But be sure you know the answers to these questions first…
George Osborne’s 13 tests for an election victory (and how many he’s passed)
These days George Osborne is rarely seen in public without a hard hat and a hi-vis jacket. But he used…
When a cricket ball cost Britain an heir to the throne
A fatal shot The sad death of Australian batsman Philip Hughes was a reminder that a cricket ball can kill.…
Cheap oil has finally arrived – and it looks like being a disaster
This oil price slump is turning into a ‘black swan’: one of those economic events that seem to come from…
How HS2 has blighted my parents’ lives
Whether the high-speed rail line is built or not, it is destroying the retirements of people like my parents
Forget corporate social responsibility: just do a proper job
A theme of this autumn has been conversations about corporate reputation and how it is guarded or lost. To name…
Deal with the debt, George Osborne? You’ve hardly started
George Osborne has declared victory over Ed Balls, the IMF and all the others who warned that his austerity measures…
Yes, Wonga lent at shocking rates – but it was customers who lied
‘Payday Lady is not trading at this time,’ says her website, sounding a little like La Dame aux camélias. Indeed (since…
Portrait of the week
Home The Commons, having been specially recalled, passed, by 524 votes to 43, a motion supporting ‘the use of UK…
Why the real winner from George Osborne’s ‘Google tax’ could be Nigel Farage
George Osborne’s promise to crack down on multinational companies’ avoidance of UK taxes by the use of impenetrable devices such…
Tom Bower’s Diary: Resuming hostilities with Richard Branson
This week marks another milestone in my 15-year battle with Richard Branson. Ever since he unsuccessfully sued me in 1999…
Sorry, but trains can’t really replace welfare lines
George Osborne proposed an attractive idea this week: that spending on state benefits should be diverted into new infrastructure in…
Here comes Boris! The next Tory leadership fight has just begun
The next Tory leadership battle has just begun
Secret oil fields! Skewed polls! The Yes campaign is losing the plot
The success of the campaign to save the Union can be heard in the increasingly hysterical tone of independence supporters
Forecasting is a mug’s game – but I was right about the economic revival
‘Perhaps I should shift my prediction to 23 July 2014,’ I wrote in April 2012. ‘That’s the opening of the…
George Osborne’s cynical grab for northern votes (and why I’m for it)
When John Prescott used to wax garrulous about a ‘superhighway’ from Hull to Liverpool, everyone assumed it was a wheeze…
Danny Alexander on Scottish independence, income tax, Nick Clegg and George Osborne
Danny Alexander, the coalition’s senior Scot, on cricket,on his battle for Britain and his colleague George Osborne
Peter Mandelson’s diary: The accomplishments of George Osborne – and Vladimir Putin
My trips to meet Russians in Russia these days are a little less controversial than my encounter with them in…
Meeting George Osborne at Waterloo
The defence of Hougoumont is one of the great British feats of arms. If the farmhouse had fallen to Bonaparte’s…
George Osborne is entitled to look smug
The popular pastime for financial commentators this season is sticking pins in George Osborne. To those on the left who…
Is full employment just another of George Osborne’s political stunts?
‘Full employment’ usually means the lowest achievable rate of unemployment — somewhere south of 5 per cent compared with 7.2 per…
Why I’ll join the silver stampede to cash in a pension
At the beginning of the last decade, a young man who claimed to be my ‘premier banker’ paid me a…
