Martin Vander Weyer is business editor of The Spectator. He writes the weekly Any Other Business column.
Over the past 20 years or so, I have found myself almost continuously on the client side of building contracts, large and small, domestic, corporate and charitable, in four different countries: Britain, France, Hong Kong and Japan. It is an activity in which optimism is rarely justified by experience: builders the world over tend habitually
The proposals in the pre-Budget report were a desperate, knee-jerk response to the swing to the Tories in the polls. Rather than demonstrating Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s vision for the country, it revealed their commitment to blatant, vote-chasing expediency. Ultimately, this will make the country think less of them. Martin Vander Weyer There’s a
Can we make a link between the chopping of 1,500 jobs, mostly in London and New York, by the Swiss banking giant UBS, and the news that the City of London Corporation has come up with a £300 million contribution to the financing of Crossrail, the long-awaited Heathrow-to-Docklands transport link? Well, connecting unrelated news events
When I bumped into Barclays chief executive John Varley at Wimbledon one mid-week afternoon in July, I thought he looked remarkably relaxed for a man locked in a potentially career-breaking takeover battle with his deadliest rival. We had just watched Venus Williams make mincemeat of Maria Sharapova, and perhaps Varley was cheered by the thought
The first thing to be said about this combination of history, autobiography and polemic is how heavy it is — not in the literary sense, though it is by no means light reading, but in the literal sense that it is a surprising weight in the hand. Befitting its title, it is printed on unusually
Hindsight suggests that the Rock was always likely to get the Northern into trouble one day. The Northern Counties Permanent Building Society, founded in 1850 as the successor to the Newcastle Land Society, was by reputation ‘a serious establishment’ (one of its first decisions was to ban women from its board, a ruling observed by
Don’t mind me asking,’ a Geordie lad accosted me on the train, ‘but aren’t you Sid Waddell?’ I looked blank. Don’t mind me asking,’ a Geordie lad accosted me on the train, ‘but aren’t you Sid Waddell?’ I looked blank. ‘Go on, you are, aren’t you,’ his mate insisted, pumping my hand. ‘Hiya, Sid.’ Thanks
I’m back, as Arnold Schwarzenegger famously declared in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. In fact I haven’t really been away, just hovering in cyberspace to leave room for other contributors in our slimmed-down-for-the-beach summer Business section. I’m back, as Arnold Schwarzenegger famously declared in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. In fact I haven’t
Shoppers stay home as rates and floods rise — but there’s a bit of better news for M&S Shoppers have spent these past few weeks sheltering from incessant rain, rising interest rates and renewed threats of terrorism. Fuel- and flood-hit food prices are on an up-trend too, so we must brace ourselves for a spate
The £6 billion merger of Saga and the AA is a gift for cartoonists: a company whose ideal customer is Victor Meldrew with a broken fan-belt on the hard shoulder of the A22. To complete a brand conglomerate for grandads — and since all three are owned by private equity funds — why not bring
At wet, chilly Garsington last night I saw a spectacular production of Ariadne auf Naxos. Strauss’s wonderful finale was all the more uplifting for the triumph it represented on the part of cast and crew, all partially exposed to the elements, over prolonged downpours in the second half. Before, after and during the so-called picnic
Margaret Thatcher’s speechwriters always struggled to get her to do the jokes. I once had a similar problem with Shriti Vadera, the former banker who will next week become, arguably, the most powerful woman with a paid job in Downing Street since Lady Thatcher’s departure. Miss Vadera is Gordon Brown’s most trusted policy adviser and
I have long been a fan of Patak’s, the Lancashire-based Indian sauce-and-pickle empire that was acquired last week by Associated British Foods for an undisclosed price thought to be somewhere north of £100 million. The business that now sells 30 million jars of curry sauce a year and supplies three quarters of Britain’s Indian restaurants
In his Economics Made Easy column in the magazine last week, Allister Heath pointed out that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the debased European measure of inflation which Gordon Brown insists on using – stands at 2.8 per cent, while the more realistic Retail Price Index (RPI) is at 4.5 per cent and Allister’s personal rate –
Shortly after the death of John Paul II in 2005, the wise and amiable Father Dominic Milroy, former prior of the Benedictine college in Rome, leant across a dinner table and said, ‘Martin, you’d make a good candidate for Pope.’ ‘But father,’ I protested, ‘I’m not even a Catholic.’ ‘Oh don’t worry,’ he responded, ‘We
In my Any Other Business column in the magazine this week I warn that the overheating of the Shanghai stock market looks highly likely to lead to a local crash – swiftly followed by a wobble on major western markets. Though I’m not expecting the wobble to be a catastrophic one, I find myself moving
An interesting item by Tom Regan on the US National Public Radio blog points out that while our own Daily Telegraph and Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel all focus heavily on the negative aspects of the World Bank investigators’ report on Paul Wolfowitz’s conduct, both the Washington Post and the New York Times take the
The Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading US stocks passed 13200 for the first time last week, after its strongest run (23 rises in 26 sessions) since 1955. The S&P 500, a broader indicator, stood at just over 1500, a fraction below the record high set in the final spurt of the dotcom boom. London’s
If you have a long-lost Continental lover, you have a little under six months to arrange the perfect reunion under the clock at St Pancras on 14 November. That is the date when Eurostar will commence its new service along the full length of what is now called High Speed 1, the much-troubled fast link
The Business section of this week’s Spectator includes a fascinating interview with Sir Michael Bishop, founder-boss of the airline BMI. The interview is, in two respects, an example of the kind of civility and discretion that many readers, having just heard or read the story of Lord Browne’s sad downfall, may feel has disappeared from