The Spectator of March 2030 will wonder how the immense, mature, formidable, intelligent, capable, rational western society of 2011 got itself into such a tizz about the Arab world. Why ever (our successors will ask) did we think we had anything really big to fear from the 21st century’s most spectacularly unsuccessful regional culture? Last
The Fawn came up to me the other day in a state of extreme agitation: she’d been listening to George Monbiot on the radio. The Fawn came up to me the other day in a state of extreme agitation: she’d been listening to George Monbiot on the radio. My ears pricked up. I do so
‘You can be young, optimistic and oppose AV’, says the magazine spiked. ‘You can be young, optimistic and oppose AV’, says the magazine spiked. I am sorry to hear it, because we anti-AV people were hoping not to be pestered by any young, optimistic people, but to oppose change in an elderly, unthinking and sullen
The last time I wrote about wine for these pages, the global recession still lay ahead of us. In June 2008, fine wine prices were soaring on the back of the decision by the Hong Kong government to abolish import duty on wine (previously 40 per cent, and prior to that 80 per cent). The
For the outspoken Terry Smith, successful investing means never having to say ‘sell’ Terry Smith’s office is high up in Tower 42, formerly the NatWest tower, in Old Broad Street. It has a sweeping view over Docklands towards Essex, the neck of the woods with which he seems to be associated in the popular mind.
Forget Bernie Madoff. The biggest Ponzi scheme in history is unfolding before your very eyes. If you have money in the bank, you will be a victim. The rot set in on 15 August 1971. That was the date on which the Nixon administration, reeling from the costs of the Vietnam war, unilaterally took the
Stoical and fatalistic, the Japanesenational character will rise to the challenge When I was a banker in Tokyo in the mid 1980s, it was my occasional pleasant task to tour the provinces visiting local banks which kept sterling accounts in London. I had nothing to sell, but my colleagues and I carried bags full of
