The Debate: Is pre-Budget speculation helpful? November 26, 2025 We want to write it, you want to read it, but is pre-Budget speculation actually helpful? We put two experts head to head.
The UK stands on a precipice – this Budget must show government is on the side of business November 25, 2025 The message from British business could hardly be starker: we need stability, simplicity and long-term thinking – not another round of stop-start policymaking, says Alan Vallance The UK stands on a precipice. After years of sluggish growth and wavering confidence, businesses are clear: small tweaks and short-term gestures from government won’t be enough to turn [...]
Why businesses can’t be bothered to engage ahead of the Budget November 25, 2025 After years of policy churn, rising costs and new rules arriving faster than anyone can absorb them, many firms have run out of energy to engage, says Georgiana Bristol There is a strange quiet in the business community this week. Not the calm of confidence, but the hush before something hits. Normally, in the run-up [...]
Price caps for pop concerts: is there any market Labour won’t restrict? November 25, 2025 Labour’s plan for a ban on secondary ticket sales is an open door for fraudsters. Yet more proof that only the Conservatives believe in free markets, says Andrew Griffith Anyone would think that growth is roaring back, public spending has been brought firmly under control and small boat crossings to our shores have ceased. Why? [...]
Labour’s inheritance tax raid hurts all family businesses, not just rich farmers November 25, 2025 Family businesses like mine are the lifeblood of the economy, but Labour's inheritance tax changes will break them apart, writes Nick Showering.
Reeves wants to protect today’s poor by ruining all our tomorrows November 25, 2025 If Reeves really cared about the less well off, she would understand they can only be protected with an affluent society, writes Ewen Stewart.
London is getting the wrong new railway November 25, 2025 The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) extension to Thamesmead is the wrong railway, at the wrong price, for all the wrong political reasons, argues James Ford Ooops. Rachel Reeves is about to shoot herself in the foot. Again. I thought about keeping quiet about this imminent act of self-harm. Afterall, not only did Napoleon counsel that [...]
There’s nothing new in Zack Polanski’s fantasy economics November 25, 2025 Let’s go for a lyrical opening to this column: “The newspapers shout a new style is growing, but I don’t know if it’s coming or going, there is fashion, there is fad, some is good, some is bad, and the joke – rather sad – that it’s all just a little bit of history repeating.” [...]
Britain’s SMEs are fed up with shouldering tax burden November 24, 2025 The Budget presents tough choices for the Chancellor, but SMEs shouldn’t have to continue shouldering the burden, writes John Phillipou.
Is Keir Starmer trying to hard to be a human being? November 24, 2025 Starmer’s cringe-making video address to his son for International Men’s Day only served to underline how odd and lifeless a politician he really is, says Eliot Wilson Last Wednesday was International Men’s Day. To mark the occasion – and, because he is a politician, and self-promotion is an intrinsic part of the role – Sir [...]