The M6 Toll is a moneyspinner for its offshore owners but unloved by motorists, says Neil Collins. Is it really the best model for road-building without taxpayers’ money? Drive south down the M6 towards the Midlands and you pass an illuminated sign at junction 15. If you’re lucky, it will display the following message: ‘To
We’re all Shanghai gamblers now You might think yourself a fairly cautious investor. Maybe you dabble in a few shares and unit trusts, probably in major, well-established markets such as the US, Japan or Germany, as well as London. Emerging markets, and in particular the wild frontier that is China, you might reckon best left
Should you ever buy any investment — a share, a commodity, an acre of land — when its price stands at an all-time high, having risen by half in less than a year? Or does that make you the ‘greater fool’, the greedy investor who buys into the top of the rally? In recent days,
Janice Warman looks at two ‘ethical’ banks that are drawing customers away from the shamed high-street giants The credit crunch left most of our major banks in disarray, not to say disgrace. But it has been remarkably good for some of their smaller competitors. ‘Ethical banks’ might once have been dismissed by the high-street giants
Banking governed by Koranic principles is a rare growth market in a shaken financial world, says Edie Lush — but is it really more stable than its Anglo-Saxon equivalent? The clash of civilisations between the Muslim world and the West takes many forms. Even on the financial front, there are deep differences of philosophy in
In the autumn of 1984, solicitors were allowed to advertise for the first time, but if the public failed to spot their modest announcements it was probably because the newspapers were awash with a much more unusual publicity blitz. The government was selling half of British Telecommunications, as the phone company was then called, and
Dominic Midgley says a great institution of national life is under threat from the credit crunch, the smoking ban and cheap supermarket booze — but there are signs of hope The sounds of merry-making could be heard from the street as 300 journalists, suppliers and associated hangers-on gathered at The Northcote pub in Clapham last
ITV shareholders did not wait for Sir Crispin Davis to be appointed chairman before saying publicly they didn’t like him. No wonder people are thinking twice before putting themselves forward to head our major companies. Even salaries of £500,000 plus share options have left supply well short of demand in the ‘C-suite’. A large number
2nd October New York: Opera Verdi’s Aida opens at the Met, conducted by Daniele Gatti, former principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana sings the title role. 4th October Paris: Racing The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is a Group 1 flat race held at the Longchamp course and one of
Five travel writers journey far and wide to find the world’s last unexplored wildernesses Patagonia Lucinda Baring Arriving in Patagonia, the region spanning Argentina and Chile at the southernmost tip of South America, I really felt I’d reached the end of the earth. The journey is an epic but rewarding one – this was the
I was Shriti’s speechwriter once upon a time — but she won’t need me in Seoul Several national newspapers lazily copied each other last week in describing me as ‘a former speechwriter to Shriti Vadera’ — the business minister who is leaving the government to become Gordon Brown’s emissary to the G20, and perhaps to
The best moment in a chancellor’s life comes early. ‘Mr Deputy Speaker,’ he says, ‘we have examined the books. The position is grave. My first duty is to put the public finances in order.’ He then sends for the Hungarian middle-distance runner, Savij Kutz. This bogeyman, first identified by Alan Watkins, has been off the
It’s an axiom of auto-makers — as it is of most producers of goods — that they are squeezed between suppliers and customers. Upstream suppliers have options to reduce costs and improve profits while their customers downstream, the retailers, can set prices to suit their markets. Although the producer likes to think of himself as
We’ve been bingeing on plastic for the past decade, says Matthew Lynn, and the £54 billion we owe as a result is about to knock another hole in the banking system One year on from the period of panic that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, you might be forgiven for thinking the worst of
If John Maynard Keynes were alive today, he would be appalled at the disastrous state of our public finances. He is loved and hated in equal measure as the man who made pump-priming during downturns intellectually respectable. But nothing he ever wrote could be used to justify the scandalous mess in which Gordon Brown has
Bourneville chocolate with Kraft cheese slices? Not a recipe I’d recommend The £10 billion bid for Cadbury by Kraft Foods, Inc of the US has provoked little protest — other than from the chocolate maker itself, which says it would rather remain a ‘pure-play confectionery business’ than become a component of Kraft’s ‘low-growth conglomerate’. The
A few months ago I appeared on a panel organised by a leading firm of pay consultants, Hewitt New Bridge. The audience, in the City, was packed with ‘human resources’ directors, pay experts and members of ‘remuneration committees’ — the directors who set pay in leading public companies — among whom there was broad acceptance
Flying out of JFK on 11 September was a sombre experience. As I checked out of my hotel the concierge dropped his daily niceties as a mark of respect, and instead gently urged me to ‘have a thoughtful day’. The handful of star-spangled banners that lined Madison Avenue flapped at half-mast and the skies opened
The former Fed chairman tells Dominic Crossley-Holland that, on mature reflection, he doesn’t feel he should be blamed for a financial bubble blown by global economic forces ‘I feel bribed,’ said Dr Alan Greenspan in a soft voice. It had been a bit like a dinner party game. What do you give the world’s greatest
Having made an ambitious campaign pledge and staked his domestic credibility on the promise to radically reform and restructure the health insurance industry, Barack Obama has been forced to endure a sticky summer of sliding poll ratings and sustained Republican attacks. One gets the impression that even die-hard Democrats are slightly ‘over’ their initial enthusiasm