Watch: Are we on the brink of a financial crisis? August 28, 2025 This might be the calm before the storm; the final stretch of a summer holiday that we might look back on as heady days before things turned very nasty indeed. Yesterday I interviewed the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Business Secretary – all lined up in the City AM studio. The video will be [...]
Week in Business: Will Reeves Launch a Massive Tax Raid on Property and Pensions? August 21, 2025 Christian May interrupts your holiday with grim news on another punishing round of tax hikes coming in the Autumn.
Oxford Street’s new phone theft warnings are utterly depressing August 7, 2025 When demand emerges, the market will provide a solution and the internet is now awash with anti phone theft devices. Basic wrist straps are available on Amazon for a couple of quid, with more robust ‘retractable phone security tethers’ on offer for around £30. You can even get a body-worn strap system that looks like [...]
We are governed by people who don’t know what they’re doing August 6, 2025 Almost 100,000 jobs in the hospitality sector have disappeared since the government unveiled its hike to employers’ National Insurance Contributions, and lowered the threshold at which it is paid. Employers have also had to contend with a rise in the minimum wage amid a storm of other headwinds including inflation, energy costs and generally weak [...]
Brits are gloomy – and not just about the weather August 5, 2025 Writers often agonise over how a column performs. I can see how many people read the online version of the Editor’s Letter and while our analytics don’t yet tell me what people make of my opinions they often spark a lively debate on LinkedIn. That can be satisfying, but that’s a self-selecting crowd of people [...]
Week in Business: Is it time to leave the country? July 31, 2025 Facing low growth and high taxes, more and more of my friends are having the same conversation, for the same reasons.
Banks back in crosshairs as Labour eyes tax hikes July 31, 2025 George Osborne’s likely payday from the sale of Robey Warshaw to US giant Evercore won’t be the first time he’s extracted money from the banking sector. In his inaugural 2010 Budget he announced a UK bank levy of 0.05 per cent on certain bank liabilities. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the [...]
Cut tax for under 35s or watch them leave the country July 30, 2025 The most pressing choice I faced over the past week was whether to swim in the pool or the sea. We lounged our way from lazy lunch to long dinner, occasionally mustering the energy to stroll to the boulangerie. As I put the key in the front door of our south London home last night [...]
Week in Business: Reeves bets on the banks but economy still hurting July 17, 2025 Rachel Reeves set out to charm the City this week, but elsewhere, the economy is reeling from high taxes and low confidence.
Sticky inflation takes shine off Reeves’ week July 17, 2025 If the Chancellor was hoping to bask in the glow of supportive front-page coverage the morning after her Mansion House speech, she would have been disappointed. The spectacular revelations of Whitehall’s hushed-up cock-up over Afghan refugees knocked her off the top of the news agenda pretty much across the board. Only City AM gave her [...]
