Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak's real opponent
Things are starting to get more awkward for Rishi Sunak — something the Chancellor has long been prepared for. He…
Rishi’s nightmare: will inflation crush the recovery?
Fear of inflation is stalking the Treasury
The case for keeping business taxes low
Why should business pay tax at all? That’s a provocative but forlorn question to ask in Budget week. Business pays…
What Rishi Sunak could learn from the vaccine rollout
Barely a year has passed since Rishi Sunak’s first Budget. Its centrepiece was a £30 billion stimulus designed to calm…
Rishi Sunak is a prime minister in waiting
It is always a pleasure to see a first-rate mind in action, as we did during today’s Budget. Equally, when…
Will Rishi Sunak's Budget give Britain the boost it needs?
For a man who has only delivered two Budgets, Rishi Sunak is no stranger to fiscal announcements. Last March’s £30bn spending…
The Budget could be an awkward moment for fiscal conservatives
There is no getting around the fact that these are awkward times for fiscal conservatives, such as myself. It has…
Are the Tories about to ditch one of their biggest policy achievements?
We already know much of what will be in Rishi Sunak’s Budget next week. Another £30bn for Covid-relief measures: furlough…
The Brexit deal has left the City to fight for its own future
‘This Article shall not apply with respect to financial services.’ That’s what it says on page 92 of the EU-UK…
Portrait of the year: Coronavirus, falling statues, banned Easter eggs and compulsory Scotch eggs
January Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, signed the EU withdrawal agreement, sent from Brussels by train. Sajid Javid, the Chancellor…
The public sector delusion
I wonder how much more money we will have to bung the teachers in order to inculcate within them an…
If taxes must rise, Sunak should pick on private equity instead
It’s not axiomatic that taxes must rise to pay for the pandemic, if you seriously believe the surge in growth,…
Why Boris, not Rishi, will lead the Tories into the next election
Some Tory MPs are hoping that Dominic Cummings’ departure from Downing Street will bring with it a vital lift to…
Why now is the perfect time to invest in art
The Bank of England has told commercial banks to prepare for the possibility of negative interest rates. This last hypothetical…
Sunak warns of hardship
When Rishi Sunak was appointed Chancellor in February, he must never have imagined that his first address to the Conservative…
Portrait of the week: Curfew street parties, Trump’s taxes and a bone-eating vulture
Home More than a quarter of the population of the United Kingdom (three-fifths of the Welsh, a third of the…
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…
Now get off your sofa to help save the arts
Along, cold weekend brought a haul of business news more bad than good. The worst was from aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce,…
Why poetry matters
Juan Carlos, ex-King of Spain, behaved foolishly in relation to money and sex, and so his decision to leave Spain…
The Chancellor’s strange connection to cancel culture
The cancel culture wants to obliterate people who do, or more often say, the wrong thing (for example, that there…
Will masks mean the end of smiling at strangers?
I’ve been a regular runner for 40 years, pounding my way across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House and back. This…
We’ll never know whether Huawei is still listening
This column has been banging on about the peculiar nature of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, ever since its expanded…
Why isn’t the government learning the lessons of ‘red wall’ towns?
A rare illness has broken out in Westminster. Last week a case of what was known before Brexit as ‘consensus’…
What has ‘deadweight’ got to do with Rishi Sunak’s magic money tree?
I was trying to understand what they meant on the wireless by deadweight costs. These were something to do with…
Portrait of the week: Face masks in, Huawei out and Amazon’s TikTok trouble
Home New regulations would compel people to wear a face covering in shops in England from 24 July on pain…
