• Europe is risking a trade war with US
    Friday, 12th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    ONCE again, the European Union has got it wrong. It doesn’t have a clue about regulating hedge funds, private equity or other financial products and players. Brussels is tilting at windmills,... [Read more]

  • The City is not in love with Osborne
    Thursday, 11th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    SOMETHING has gone badly wrong for the Tories. Not only is their lead in the national opinion polls looking too low to prevent a hung parliament – they are on just 37 per cent, against 32 per cent... [Read more]
  • Dangers ahead despite bull market
    Wednesday, 10th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    YESTERDAY was the first anniversary of the bull market. The FTSE 100 has soared 57 per cent since reaching 3,460 on 9 March 2009, a six-year low, closing at 5,602 yesterday. The S&P 500 touched... [Read more]
  • Global house prices still far too high
    Tuesday, 9th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IF you want to find a really cheap house, the best place to go is Detroit, home to America’s crumbling car industry. One in five properties lies empty; the city appears to be in terminal decline, its... [Read more]

  • The public’s priorities are mixed up
    Monday, 8th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    THERE was a rather interesting set of findings in this weekend’s BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday. When presented with options about what would make people more likely to vote for a political party,... [Read more]
  • Fresh thinking needed to tackle crisis
    Friday, 5th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THANKS to Britain’s spiralling budget deficit and out-of-control national debt, the link between taxation and spending has been broken, with large numbers of voters tricked into believing that ever... [Read more]
  • Why we need to balance the books
    Thursday, 4th March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT is often forgotten that Britain has defaulted on its national debt in the past. The Great Conversion of 1932, after another economic and financial crisis, was a humiliating moment for what was... [Read more]
  • Britain needs more world-class firms
    Wednesday, 3rd March 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IF you want to understand why so many people have now become so downbeat about the prospects for the UK, look no further than yesterday’s survey of the Hundred Group of FTSE 100 finance directors.... [Read more]
  • UK is facing chaos while Asia booms
    Tuesday, 2nd March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    WHETHER or not Prudential is overpaying for AIG’s Asian operations remains to be seen. Shareholders, spooked by the prospect of Britain’s biggest-ever rights issue, sent the Pru’s share price... [Read more]
  • Warren Buffett’s next task: train a successor
    Monday, 1st March 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    WHEN the times get tough, everyone turns to old favourites. This is especially true of investors, hence the renewed interest in two of the greatest names in finance. Anthony Bolton, Britain’s stock-... [Read more]
  • Green rules pushing up energy prices
    Friday, 26th February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    ENERGY prices are too high in Britain, even after the recent cuts in gas prices. But those tempted to join in the populist rage at British Gas-owner Centrica’s results yesterday – UK profits hit a... [Read more]
  • Welfare state requires a revolution
    Thursday, 25th February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    FOR once, some good news. The City has become slightly more optimistic about the size of the budget deficit. The consensus view is that it will hit around £171bn for 2009-10; remarkably, this is... [Read more]
  • From easy money to $1m comic books
    Wednesday, 24th February 2010
    EDITORS LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    Q. What do quantitative easing and super-hero comic books have in common? A. Quite a lot. Cheap money from central bank asset purchases and ultra-low interest rates is helping to reinflate bubbles... [Read more]
  • BA staff can’t resist change for ever
    Tuesday, 23rd February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    WHAT a shame British Airways’ cabin crew has voted to strike. Willie Walsh, the firm’s chief, is doing a good job in extremely tough conditions to take out costs and ensure the airline will still be... [Read more]
  • How a secret rule caused the crisis
    Monday, 22nd February 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    SLOWLY but surely, some economists are beginning to piece together the real causes of the crisis. And as you might imagine, their findings are strikingly at odds with the conventional explanations,... [Read more]
  • The Beatles were right about taxes
    Friday, 19th February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    BEATLEMANIA is back – or at least that is what it is starting to feel like when one reads the endless coverage of the proposed sale of the Abbey Road studios by EMI, Guy Hands’ troubled music giant.... [Read more]
  • Public sector’s turn to face squeeze
    Thursday, 18th February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE is a simple reason why unemployment in Britain, while tragically elevated, has remained under control despite the recession: private sector workers have been on a pay freeze for well over a... [Read more]
  • Era of cheap money is gone forever
    Wednesday, 17th February 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE is one, overwhelming reason why interest rates are going up on products such as credit cards, even though the Bank of England’s base rate remains very low. It has nothing to do with greed,... [Read more]
  • EU has been hiding its debt for years
    Tuesday, 16th February 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT is astonishing how short our collective memories have become. It was once well-known that Greece, Italy and other countries had used dodgy tricks to embellish their public finances prior to the... [Read more]
  • We must grow ourselves out of debt
    Monday, 15th February 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    BRITAIN has been spending more than it earns for years now, which is why the government and individuals alike are crumbling under a huge burden of debt. Two kinds of policies are needed to get us out... [Read more]
  • Greek rescue doesn’t solve anything
    Friday, 12th February 2010
    ALLISTER HEATH
    HOW predictable. Yesterday’s supposed bail-out of Greece was short on details and long on feel-good verbiage, as the City soon came to understand. And even if a loan guarantee from EU countries does... [Read more]
  • Britain must not fork out for bailout
    Thursday, 11th February 2010
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE are two policies the British government must pursue over the looming bail-out of Greece and other weaker Eurozone countries, a move which looks increasingly likely and which will be debated in... [Read more]
  • Bailing out Greece is not the answer
    Wednesday, 10th February 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT is now clear that Germany, the European Central Bank and others are seriously talking about bailing out Greece. The negotiations could still collapse; but there has been a significant shift over... [Read more]
  • Don’t assume Pigs will be bailed out
    Tuesday, 9th February 2010
    ALLISTER HEATH
    HISTORY is repeating itself – and much more quickly than we seem to realise. The consensus view appears to be that Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain – the PIGS – will by hook or by crook be given a... [Read more]
  • Rise of Texas is a lesson for London
    Monday, 8th February 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    HERE is an intriguing question which says a lot about modern America but which everybody here in London always gets wrong. Which US state is home to most big companies? New York, surely, host to... [Read more]
  • Euro debt crisis worse even than UK’s
    Friday, 5th February 2010
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE is a crucial yet often over-looked difference between the mounting fears over the solvency of Greece, Portugal and Spain and worries about Britain’s debt mountain. All four countries are... [Read more]
  • Pain ahead for the British economy
    Thursday, 4th February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    WE simply don’t realise how painful the next few years are going to be – that, in a nutshell, was the message grim-faced analysts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies delivered yesterday. The... [Read more]
  • Tory economic plan is a damp squib
    Wednesday, 3rd February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    IT should have been an important moment, the day the Tories unveiled their masterplan to sort out the economy. So it was with some trepidation that I turned to George Osborne’s 23-page document,... [Read more]
  • It’s time to halt quantitative easing
    Tuesday, 2nd February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    ONE of the most important pieces of data is also one of the hardest to understand. Working out how much money is circulating at any one time in the economy is the Holy Grail of macroeconomics; those... [Read more]
  • Vast state payrolls will veto reforms
    Monday, 1st February 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    MORE evidence of a growing public-private divide: 57 per cent of extra UK jobs created during 1997-2007 were either officially on the government’s payrolls or “para-state” – technically private but... [Read more]
  • It’s hard not to be gloomy on the UK
    Friday, 29th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE has long been a huge gap in Britain between London and the South East and the rest of the country. The former is powered by private sector growth; the latter depends ever-more on the public... [Read more]
  • No wonder there is no British Apple
    Thursday, 28th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    WHY isn’t there a British Apple? The sight of Steve Jobs standing up again on stage last night to unveil yet another blockbuster – this time, the iPad – is a stark reminder of how bad we have become... [Read more]
  • British economy faces years of pain
    Wednesday, 27th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    “THE UK is a must to avoid. Its gilts are resting on a bed of nitroglycerine.” So says Pimco’s Bill Gross – and given yesterday’s pathetic 0.1 per cent fourth quarter growth, he is clearly right. It... [Read more]
  • All can fail: my new manifesto for the banks
    Tuesday, 26th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    REGULAR readers of this column will know that I am no fan of many of the proposals being cooked up to reform the banks. I have opposed Barack Obama’s plan to ban retail banks from engaging in... [Read more]
  • We must learn from financial history
    Monday, 25th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    SPEAKING to this newspaper last night, Lord Myners, the City minister, points out that banks’ proprietary trading and investments in hedge funds and private equity were “in no way central” to the... [Read more]
  • New rules would be bad for London
    Friday, 22nd January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    HOW predictable. No sooner was Barack Obama humiliated by the Massachusetts electorate earlier this week – his left-wing candidate lost Ted Kennedy’s ultra safe seat to a radical conservative – than... [Read more]
  • UK about to miss a great opportunity
    Thursday, 21st January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE are two, diametrically opposed ways to respond to the immense challenges posed by globalisation and the rise of the emerging markets. The first – and right way – is that followed by much of... [Read more]
  • Price of everything going up too fast
    Wednesday, 20th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    BRITAIN has a credibility problem – and no, I’m not only talking about the government’s hypocritical and self-serving protectionist rhetoric on Cadbury. Yesterday’s inflation figures were even more... [Read more]
  • A sad day as Cadbury bites the dust
    Tuesday, 19th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT is a great shame that Cadbury’s management has succumbed so easily to Kraft’s advances. Ever since I can remember, the British confectioner had been stalked by predators; yet for years it defied... [Read more]
  • Time to reform our monetary policy
    Monday, 18th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    THERE have now been dozens of books and thousands of research papers on the causes of the crisis yet we are no nearer to a consensus. But there is one factor on which virtually all US analysts agree... [Read more]
  • Obama’s tax risks new credit crunch
    Friday, 15th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT is clear that Barack Obama’s latest scheme to tax the banks, just like Gordon Brown’s own super-tax, will go down well with the electorate. But both will do little to make the economy more stable... [Read more]
  • Google is right to pull out of China
    Thursday, 14th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    GOOD on Google. The tech giant now seems almost certain to pull out of China in an astonishing blaze of publicity. It takes real guts to thumb one’s nose at a country of 1.3bn potential consumers; it... [Read more]
  • UK Plc has much to learn from Tesco
    Wednesday, 13th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    NAPOLEON Bonaparte was right: Britain is a nation of shopkeepers. Tesco’s great figures yesterday confirm that the retailer remains one of the UK’s few truly world-class corporate giants. Group sales... [Read more]
  • The real reason for London’s prosperity
    Tuesday, 12th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    AT least three times since the 1960s, the City has been saved by the stupidity of others. London’s economic prominence is partly home-grown, of course, not least thanks to the free-market reforms of... [Read more]
  • Britain needs to rediscover how to save
    Monday, 11th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    BELIEVE it or not but many forecasters are becoming more upbeat about Britain’s prospects for the coming year. HSBC, whose predictions are always cautious, is expecting growth of 2.2 per cent, much... [Read more]
  • Asian nations laugh at our incompetence
    Friday, 8th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    IT’S all rather sad. While we count the laughably high costs of a little snow, obsess about minor policy differences in?Westminster and argue over whether our economic performance in 2010 will be... [Read more]
  • Labour can’t even organise a proper plot
    Thursday, 7th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    HOW  incompetent can you be? If the Labour Party had any sense, it would remove Gordon Brown as soon as possible; all the polls show that Labour would gain at least some ground with any half-decent... [Read more]
  • Labour can't even organise a proper plot
    Thursday, 7th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    HOW incompetent can you be? If the Labour Party had any sense, it would remove Gordon Brown as soon as possible; all the polls show that Labour would gain at least some ground with any half-decent... [Read more]
  • Iceland sees the first anti-bailout revolt
    Wednesday, 6th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    SOMEONE should give Gordon Brown a copy of John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Published in 1919, it addressed post-war Germany – but the book is uncannily relevant to the... [Read more]
  • Why the UK’s factories are back to 1973
    Tuesday, 5th January 2010
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    EVERYBODY knows that financial services have been the hardest hit sector during the recession, right? Wrong. Manufacturing has been by far a greater drag on UK plc than services, including finance;... [Read more]
  • Why 2010 will be make or break for UK
    Monday, 4th January 2010
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    IT is hard to believe that just three years ago the UK economy was still being lauded as a great success story; our fall from grace has been spectacular. In 2007, London was overtaking New York as... [Read more]
  • It will be easy to lose money this year
    Friday, 18th December 2009
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    ONE of the great paradoxes of 2009 was that economic meltdown went hand in hand with strong gains for many investors. After a disastrous few months when everybody was pricing in the end of... [Read more]
  • Recession over but tough 2010 for UK
    Thursday, 17th December 2009
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    ALLISTER HEATH
    THERE will be so many challenges confronting the British economy next year that it is hard to know where to start. The last remaining hard-core bulls, who still believe in a v-shaped recovery, will... [Read more]
  • Nobody should ever be bailed out again
    Wednesday, 16th December 2009
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    CAPITALISM only really works when success is rewarded and failure punished. So as the New Year approaches, here is a radical suggestion: let us usher in a new era of personal responsibility. Let 2010... [Read more]
  • ­Selfish strikes to cripple British Airways
    Tuesday, 15th December 2009
    EDITOR’S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    WHAT a tragic outcome at British Airways. The airline’s management is hardly perfect but it is almost unbelievable that BA’s staff have chosen to walk out like this. The strike – supported by an... [Read more]
  • People don’t come here for the weather
    Monday, 14th December 2009
    EDITOR'S LETTER
    Allister Heath
    In 1733, Voltaire, one of France’s greatest thinkers, wrote a series of letters on the English nation, describing some of the extraordinary going-ons he had discovered during his exile to this... [Read more]