Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer is business editor of The Spectator. He writes the weekly Any Other Business column.

Martin Vander Weyer

Crossrail: transport miracle or public sector folly?

Phyllis has gone to Tottenham Court Road, but Ada is having a day off. In fact she’s slumbering deep below us, just south of Bond Street station with her head under Grays Antique Centre. Phyllis and Ada are twin sisters, 140 metres long, weighing 1,000 tonnes each. I’m imagining them as domesticated versions of those

I’d rather be selling Tumblr than buying it

I haven’t used Yahoo as a general search engine since an American friend introduced me to the miracle that was Google in November 2000, but I do use Yahoo Finance for share price data, and the clunky BT Yahoo email service. All this points me to one conclusion: Yahoo is as middle-aged as I am,

British banking would be poorer without a Co-operative challenge

When the Manchester-based Co-operative Bank was announced last July as the buyer of 632 Lloyds branches, tripling the size of its own network, I hailed the news as a step forward for  ‘banking biodiversity’. In February, George Osborne was still praising the deal, codenamed Project Verde, as one that would ‘shake up the established players’.

An upside to the gold rout

Unless you bet your life savings on gold some time in the past three years — after its price had passed on the way up the level to which it has now fallen back — there’s no need to be distressed by headlines about a ‘gold rout’, nor even the prospect of a ‘bear embrace’.

Britain’s energy crisis: when will the lights go out?

The day Margaret Thatcher died was also the day Britain nearly ran out of gas. In late March, it was reported that stored reserves were down to just two days’ supply. As the cold spell continued, the BBC even reported the names of ships bringing liquefied natural gas from Qatar, each cargo representing six hours’

Overseas aid – the alternative

‘We have written to David Cameron to applaud his decision to stick to the UK’s commitment to overseas aid to the developing world, despite the tough economic times,’ begins a letter to the Financial Times from the bosses of major companies from BP to Vodafone, with PR maestro Alan Parker of Brunswick at the top

Why aren’t more people unemployed?

An unfamiliar noise floats over the town; an insistent, one-note metallic drone. Tracked to its source, it turns out to come from a sawmill in a hidden wooded valley a quarter of a mile from my house. Abandoned for the past year, the mill has suddenly come back to life. It is emitting great plumes

Privatisation is the only solution for Royal Mail

We have had a very high failure rate in deliveries of the catalogues for Emily Patrick’s exhibition,’ says an email from the painter’s husband. ‘Over 50 per cent have been lost in the post or inexplicably delayed.’ Come to think of it, my own most recent Amazon order, allegedly dispatched a fortnight ago, hasn’t reached