Any other business

A worthwhile policy proposal amid the Labour conference dogfight? Now there’s a surprise. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s scheme to freeze and eventually scrap business rates, in the meantime boosting high-street survival by raising the threshold for small business rate relief and incentivising re-use of empty premises, was the brightest moment of the Brighton event.

Will my bath water still be hot by Christmas? That’s not a question I’d normally feel a need to share with you, but shortly after this morning’s ablutions I read that Bulb Energy — the UK’s sixth-biggest energy supplier with 1.7 million customers, including me — ‘is seeking a bailout to stay afloat amid surging

I’m hugely enjoying meeting the finalists for The Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Awards. This year’s bumper entry was strong on paths to decarbonisation — as you’d expect for the new era of climate action — and on ventures rocket-boosted by the pandemic, whether designed to take pressure off the NHS or in the

Late-breaking exam results: many of the City’s top fund managers have failed a vital test of ‘stewardship’ — defined for this purpose as ‘the responsible allocation, management and oversight of capital to create long-term value for clients and beneficiaries leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society’. That mouthful comes from the

This is getting serious. Never mind global shortages of microchips, plastics, copper and container ships; now we’re running out of pigs in blankets. The British Meat Processing Association says its members are so understaffed that annual production of 40 million packs of this popular pork item for the Christmas market is under threat. The British

The Hundred — some sort of pimped-up cricket tournament, I gather — passed me by entirely, but I’ve been admiring the spin bowling of the Clayton, Dubilier & Rice team in another big contest, namely the bid battle for Morrisons. When CD&R made its initial 230p per share offer in June, there was much talk

Give or take a few leader-writing shifts and editing projects, I’ve been working from home for the past 30 years, so it may seem hypocritical to tell anyone else to return to the office. But it’s time to bring normality back to the world of work. I believe few people are capable of higher productivity

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey looks increasingly uncomfortable as inflation notches upwards from ‘nothing to worry about’ towards the Bank’s latest prediction of a decade-high 4 per cent peak later this year and a possible ‘Oops, we’re back to the 1970s’ if spiralling wage and price pressures confound the forecasters. I wrote last week

Here’s a patriotic proposal: let’s form a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers, of which the Road Haulage Association reckons there’s currently a 100,000 shortage. Daily headlines tell us this is causing supply disruptions that have led to reduced factory output and half-empty supermarket shelves, slowing recovery and contributing to the blip in inflation. We need

Be glad you’re not in Dr Mike Lynch’s shoes. A London judge has ruled that the founder of the Cambridge-based software venture Autonomy can be extradited to the US to face multiple fraud charges in relation to the takeover of Autonomy in 2011 by Hewlett-Packard of California. This was, undoubtedly, a disastrous purchase: HP paid

It’s a vivid example of unintended consequences that the swimming-pool builders of southern England should owe so much to Sir Nicholas Goodison, the former chairman of the London Stock Exchange who has died aged 87 and whose obituaries suggested little inclination to frivolity, poolside or otherwise. Head-and-shoulders the most cerebral of the Exchange’s leading members

Have you been scanning airline websites for exotic destinations to which your double-jabbed status might allow you to slip away in August? I certainly have, but I’ve ruled out the parts of Canada and the United States that are stricken by record-breaking heatwaves and forest fires — and I’m wondering what impact such extreme climate

The Financial Times carried a curious story at the weekend about ‘the secretive process to elect the Lord Mayor of London’ being ‘thrown into disarray’ by ‘objections from some City leaders’ to the candidacy, for 2022, of Nick Lyons — who has just been elected as one of the City’s two sheriffs but who happens

Nicola Sturgeon depresses me and seems to be having the same effect on Scottish house prices. In a housing market described by departing Bank of England economist Andy Haldane as ‘on fire’, the flames have been rising higher the further away from London — but more or less extinguishing themselves at Hadrian’s Wall. Why buyers

The late Sir Ken Morrison — founder of the eponymous supermarket chain that’s the latest UK target for US private equity — had the blunt manner of the Yorkshire cattle farmer he became in reluctant retirement after he was ousted by his own board. Criticising his successors from the floor at one of his last

The snatching of a 12 per cent stake in BT by French entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, last seen here when he bagged Sotheby’s for $3.7 billion two years ago, could be a good thing if it injects dynamism into the telecoms giant’s late-running plans to install high-speed broadband across the UK. But it’s also part of

Companies should willingly pay tax wherever they generate profits — this column has long argued — because it’s fair they should contribute to the cost of the public services on which all business ultimately relies, and because the reputation of capitalism as a whole is tainted when corporate tax bills are reduced to absurdly low

‘Feed the ducks when they’re quacking’ sounds like advice from a foie gras farmer — but let’s leave gastronomy till last and focus first on stock market activity. The saying actually comes from Wall Street and means that if investor demand is strong, it’s best satisfied with ample supplies of new stock. What’s wrong with

The long-awaited review of the railways by former British Airways executive Keith Williams chugged past the platform of public debate without creating much stir. Politicos noted that it had become ‘the Williams-Shapps Plan’, indicating an urge on the part of Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, in Tony Blair’s words, to be personally associated with eye-catching initiatives