Retail
Can the ‘next Bicester Village’ take off without tourists?
Retail footfall will be the first measure of recovery this spring. Everywhere I look, from central London to small-town Yorkshire,…
Can John Lewis and Waitrose really remain partners?
Historians of unforeseen crises talk about ‘chaos theory’ and the ‘butterfly effect’, in which a small perturbation far away —…
Portrait of the week: A royal baby, Boohoo buyouts and France legalises lunch al desko
Home On Sunday 7 February, as the week began, 11,465,210 people in the United Kingdom had received a first vaccination…
Had the kitchen shop assistant been drugged and handcuffed?
The kitchen tap began dripping as if it knew perfectly well that this would land me in a predicament whereby…
Portrait of the week: Vaccine battles, illegal haircuts and Biden’s chat with Boris
Home Supplies of the Pfizer vaccine (made in Belgium) were feared to be at risk from a declaration by the…
The Darvell marvel has brought joy to a Covid Christmas
Many ingenious ways of evading Covid-19 have been devised to assist commerce, fewer to assist worship. In our next-door village,…
Can Mike Ashley defy high street reality?
Separating heroes from villains in the great retail survival struggle is like spotting bent coppers in Line of Duty —…
Portrait of the week: Tiers, Scotch eggs and a devastated high street
Home The Commons voted by 291 votes to 78 for new coronavirus regulations putting 55 million people in England into…
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…
What are the best pandemic board games?
Dangerous games Sage scientists advised against playing board games at Christmas. Some games to consider if you are feeling subversive:Pandemic…
The Co-op Bank isn't worthy of its name
We’ve heard a lot this week about infrastructure spending, and how much more will be needed if the UK is…
Why is buying a car such an ordeal?
Why is buying a car such an ordeal?
Shouting in Guildford, and six other things you’re not allowed to do
You can’t do that there ’ere Some of the things which have been banned under Public Spaces Protection Orders, according to…
How contactless cards will change the world (much more than you think)
I am one of those annoying, mildly claustrophobic people who sit at the end of a row in cinemas. There…
RBS’s note from a crashing plane: wild headline grabbing or wise advice?
Should anyone take investment advice from Royal Bank of Scotland, the institution which so misread markets before the crash that…
After the Black Friday flop, shops can get back to what they do best
The high street flopperoo that was ‘Black Friday’ may have something to do with terrorism fears, or even the downturn…
TalkTalk shows us the internet is only three clicks from anarchy
I’m not a customer of TalkTalk, the phone company which revealed last week that a hacker had potentially compromised the…
Martin Vander Weyer: Why I’d rather run M&S than Tesco
This first working week of January is apparently the time when we’re most likely to think about a change of…
Barometer: Spain’s own version of Gibraltar
Other people’s rocks Spain threatened to introduce a €40 border-crossing charge and find other ways of making life difficult for…
