Starmer’s new team faces same old problem September 9, 2025 Good news from Downing Street as we’re told that economic growth is back on the agenda. Keir Starmer’s revamped cabinet meets for the first time today and the prime minister will apparently tell this bright new team to “step up a gear” and focus on the economy. The briefings that accompanied the wave of new [...]
Rayner’s lawyers: ‘We are being made scapegoats’ September 4, 2025 The law firm used by under-fire Angela Rayner for the purchase of an £800,000 flat in Hove say that they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give the Deputy Prime Minister any tax advice. In a statement issued to The Telegraph, Joanna Verrico, managing director of the family-run firm, said that their procedure is [...]
Watch: Reeves fights back against critics ‘talking rubbish’ September 4, 2025 It’s not just Angela Rayner who finds herself on the defensive; Rachel Reeves has come out fighting – claiming many of her critics are talking rubbish. Who could she be talking about? Imagine returning from your summer break to find that your boss has poached your deputy and hired a brace of advisers to advise [...]
If Rayner survives she’ll be much diminished September 4, 2025 Politically, this is fish in a barrel stuff. If you’re on the record saying that “every pound of tax that’s not delivered to the Chancellor of the Exchequer means that it damages our public services” [sic] and you’ve taken aim at your political opponents by claiming that “it’s one rule for them and one rule [...]
Tube strikes would be outrageous – where is the Mayor? September 3, 2025 Bob Crow, the late leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, once said “It’s an old media myth that the RMT union resorts to industrial action lightly.” These days, we’d call such a claim “trolling.” Indeed, as the historian Dr Jim Moher points out, Crow “cherished” a signed shirt from Millwall player Dennis Wise [...]
Keir Starmer has humiliated Rachel Reeves September 2, 2025 What is the Chancellor if not the Prime Minister’s economic adviser? We now know that she no longer performs that function, after the PM’s brutal move to bring economic policy into his office, rather than her’s. After little more than a full year in office, Keir Starmer’s government appears to be circling the drain. Support [...]
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 [...]