Allister Heath

Allister Heath, 33, is Editor of City A.M., the daily business newspaper distributed in and around London and digitally. Under his editorship, the paper, which has now grown to an audited print circulation of 100,000 copies per day, has become an influential voice in London's business community. Heath's trenchant daily column in the paper covers economics, finance, politics, geopolitics, business strategy and other subjects and has gathered an increasingly large following.

In addition to in City A.M., he has written for a wide range of publications, including the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Wall Street Journal, the JC, the Literary Review and the Spectator, where he also serves as an associate editor.

He is an increasingly regular presence on the TV and radio. Recent appearances include BBC1's The Big Questions with Nicky Campbell; BBC1's Sunday Morning Live; Channel Four's Dispatches; and Channel Four's Britain's Trillion Pound Horror Story, now out on DVD. He is regularly interviewed on BBC2's Daily Politics and Sky News (where is also a newspaper reviewer). He is a weekly presenter's friend on CNBC's Strictly Money show. He has also contributed to a range of other outlets, including BBC News, BBC London News, Al Jazeera English, Bloomberg TV, NBC, Fox News and others. On the radio, he is regularly interviewed on Radio Five Live (including frequently as part of its Editor's slot), LBC and the BBC World Service.

Heath is a frequent public speaker, specialising in the outlook for the City and the economy, business trends and financial literacy. He often chairs conferences and seminars organised by corporates, think-tanks and trade associations.

His first book A Flat Tax: Towards a British model, with a foreword by Steve Forbes, was published in 2006. It was heavily drawn upon by George Osborne's Tax Commission, chaired by Lord Forsyth. Heath recently became the Chairman of the 2020 Tax Commission which is investigating what the ideal tax system for the UK would be and will report in 2012.

Prior to taking over at City A.M. in March 2008, he was Editor of The Business magazine, a publication he originally

joined as economics correspondent and leader-writer when it was a Sunday newspaper in 2002. He was also a regular contributor to The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. While at The Business, he also served a two year term as a Wincott visiting professor of financial journalism at the University of Buckingham.

Heath was born and schooled in France. He moved to the UK to attend university, graduating with a BSc in economics from the London School of Economics and an M.Phil in economics from Hertford College, Oxford University.

Heath is contactable by email and you can follow him on twitter:

allister.heath@cityam.com Follow Allister Heath on Twitter
  • Thursday 9th February 2012, 2:00am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    LOW interest rates are great, high interest rates are bad – that, at least, seems to be the general message from politicians and the media, who almost invariably welcome easy money and decry rate... [Read more]
  • Wednesday 8th February 2012, 2:44am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE are two ways a country can do well. The first is to introduce domestic policies that boost work, investment and innovation, and trigger an entrepreneurial revolution and job-creation.... [Read more]
  • Tuesday 7th February 2012, 2:41am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    ONE of the problems with Britain’s rail industry is its nightmarish, confusing structure. It is part private, part government owned; part financed by users and part by state subsidies; and few people... [Read more]
  • Monday 6th February 2012, 4:41am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    PART of the problem in Britain today is that public debate is taking place in a fact-less vacuum. People have no interest in what is really happening to investment bankers’ pay and prefer to ignore... [Read more]
  • Friday 3rd February 2012, 2:34am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    ENTIRELY unsurprisingly, the FSA is increasing its budget, by a cool 16 per cent. One thing it should do with the money is to accelerate its plans for a new bankruptcy code for complex banks. This... [Read more]
  • Thursday 2nd February 2012, 2:24am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    YES, this government is anti-business. This is the first time since 1994, when Tony Blair took over the Labour party, that both government and opposition are united in their relentless attacks on... [Read more]
  • Wednesday 1st February 2012, 1:48am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT is right that Sir Fred has become Mr Goodwin once more. Goodwin was knighted for “services to banking”; given that he has done more than anybody else in the Western world to damage that industry’s... [Read more]
  • Tuesday 31st January 2012, 2:26am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    BANKERS, business people and CEOs – with a small number of exceptions – are proving useless at making their own case to the media and hence to the general public. It is frankly pathetic. Few members... [Read more]
  • Monday 30th January 2012, 4:05am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE can be no doubt that the worst decision Stephen Hester ever made was to join a bankrupt and freshly nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland in November 2008. On the face of it, the mission he was... [Read more]
  • Friday 27th January 2012, 1:30am GMT
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT’S Friday, so for once let me recount a positive, upbeat success story. Increasingly, we are paying our way in the world by attracting visitors from overseas, who spend lots and sustain a growing... [Read more]
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