Martin Vander Weyer is business editor of The Spectator. He writes the weekly Any Other Business column.
From our UK edition
Now the hubbub has subsided after last week’s sale of Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ at Christie’s New York for $450 million, we can assess whether the record-shattering price was an indicator of an impending turn in the boom-bust cycle or merely an extreme example of art market operators conspiring to ease the burden of the super-rich.
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The Chancellor sounded purposeful when he declared that he’ll do ‘whatever it takes’ to boost the rate of housebuilding — including pushing developers and councils to use up land banks and act on existing planning permissions — with a view to hitting a politically symbolic target of 300,000 units per year. But I wonder whether
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Numerous readers told me they liked my recent tale — offered as an antidote to ‘media sniping at corporate capitalism’ — about the temporary school built by Porta-kabin after the Grenfell Tower fire. I’m on the lookout for other business stories that celebrate the positive, and I had it in mind to write about an
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What would a perfect tax system look like? For companies, profit taxes should be competitively low, to encourage inward investment, with generous reliefs for start-ups, research and capital projects; the corporate tax code should be designed to generate rising productivity and prosperity rather than to maximise short-term tax revenues, and companies should acknowledge a duty
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Perhaps we should be relieved that Donald Trump has made a dull appointment to succeed Janet Yellen as chairman of the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank. He might have picked another alt-right wacko or Kremlin stooge — or his Las Vegas buddy Phil Ruffin, the casino owner he allegedly thought of sending as envoy to
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This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any Other Business’ column. In connection with the receding possibility of a London Stock Exchange listing for Saudi Aramco, I wrote that the City authorities’ apparent eagerness to accommodate companies ‘from places not best known for their accounting standards, business probity or general attachment to democracy and
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There are occasions when an apparently negative economic indicator is also in some sense positive. September’s 9 per cent drop in new car registrations compared with the same month last year was no bad thing if it means fewer people are loading themselves up with debt to buy cars — and won’t hurt British car
From our UK edition
In connection with the receding possibility of a London Stock Exchange listing for Saudi Aramco, I wrote that the City authorities’ apparent eagerness to accommodate companies ‘from places not best known for their accounting standards, business probity or general attachment to democracy and the rule of law’ smacked of Brexit-driven desperation. Russia was one of
From our UK edition
Another week, another blue-chip in the dock. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has brought fraud charges against London-based mining giant Rio Tinto and two former executives in relation to an ill-starred coal venture in Mozambique. Whatever its legalities, this was a colossal corporate cock-up. In 2010, Rio paid $3.7 billion for Riversdale, an Australian
From our UK edition
Another week, another blue-chip in the dock. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has brought fraud charges against London-based mining giant Rio Tinto and two former executives in relation to an ill-starred coal venture in Mozambique. Whatever its legalities, this was a colossal corporate cock-up. In 2010, Rio paid $3.7 billion for Riversdale, an Australian
From our UK edition
How did we mislay half a trillion pounds? Revised data from the Office for National Statistics has just reduced the UK’s ‘net international investment position’ from a surplus of £469 billion to a deficit of £22 billion. Downing Street dismissed this as ‘a technical revision’ — and in truth it’s not as bad it sounds,
From our UK edition
How did we mislay half a trillion pounds? Revised data from the Office for National Statistics has just reduced the UK’s ‘net international investment position’ from a surplus of £469 billion to a deficit of £22 billion. Downing Street dismissed this as ‘a technical revision’ — and in truth it’s not as bad it sounds,
From our UK edition
How did we mislay half a trillion pounds? Revised data from the Office for National Statistics has just reduced the UK’s ‘net international investment position’ from a surplus of £469 billion to a deficit of £22 billion. Downing Street dismissed this as ‘a technical revision’ — and in truth it’s not as bad it sounds,
From our UK edition
Ah yes, our top Brexit negotiating team… Sack Boris! Sack Spreadsheet Phil! Don’t bother sacking Theresa because she’s already had the real P45 from her colleagues as well as the joke one from the prankster; she just hasn’t been asked to leave the building yet. That leaves David Davis as the last man standing but
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This is an extract from the ‘Any Other Business’ column in this week’s Spectator. ‘Bombardier exposes post-Brexit realities’ was the FT’s headline after the Trump administration imposed a 300 per cent tariff on sales of the Canadian manufacturer’s C Series aircraft into the US, threatening 4,000 Bombardier jobs in Northern Ireland. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar weighed
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A reader in the FTSE boardroom world told me sternly the other day that I should resist the temptation to join the Corbynist mob and most of today’s media in sniping at corporate capitalism, and instead celebrate its positive achievements. So, here’s a parable designed to do just that. The Kensington Aldridge Academy is a
From our UK edition
‘Bombardier exposes post-Brexit realities’ was the FT’s headline after the Trump administration imposed a 300 per cent tariff on sales of the Canadian manufacturer’s C Series aircraft into the US, threatening 4,000 Bombardier jobs in Northern Ireland. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar weighed in: ‘There’s been a lot of talk of a new trade deal between
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Sir Richard Greenbury, the former Marks & Spencer chairman who died last week aged 81, was one of those choleric but thin-skinned corporate chiefs (Sir Alastair Morton of Eurotunnel was another) who never learned to handle journalists. The Telegraph reporter Kate Rankine famously caused him to blow his top at a 1997 press conference by asking when
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Monarch Airlines was the ghost of an earlier age of holiday travel. When I used to see its planes lined up at Leeds-Bradford airport alongside those of Ryanair and its brash northern rival Jet2, I sometimes wondered why Monarch was still there. Now it has been brought down by a combination of the weak pound,
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An Uber insider tells me not to write off the ride-hailing giant too soon, because it’s a very smart company for all its faults — and because the numbers of drivers and users for whom it is part of daily life will make it difficult for Transport for London to uphold its licence withdrawal on
