By: Christian May

Editor-in-Chief Christian May is the Editor-in-Chief of City AM. He served in the role from 2015 to 2020 and returned in 2024. He writes the daily Editor's Letter for print and online and releases The Week in Business roundup video each Thursday. He is particularly interested in the health of London's capital markets, economic policy, politics, regulation and business activity in the City of London. He regularly appears in the broadcast media and presents a daily Business News slot on LBC at 0730, Monday to Friday. Find Christian on X and LinkedIn.

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Barclays forgot about the humans in HR

February 21, 2020

Barely a day goes by without a think tank, employers’ group or minister talking about the need to improve the productivity or British business, and while this generally conjures up images of factory floors it’s reassuring to know that investment banks are also searching for elusive gains. How else to explain the decision by Barclays [...]
The government is taking a gamble with its immigration reform

February 20, 2020

The Brexit pennies just keep on dropping. First there was a mixture of genuine and feigned shock when the government announced it would not align itself with EU regulations. Now, the publication of a new immigration strategy has some people up in arms at the prospect of reform. But with the UK leaving the EU [...]
HSBC’s drastic reforms still leave the big questions unanswered

February 19, 2020

Noel Quinn may only be an interim chief executive at HSBC but there’s nothing temporary about the sweeping changes he announced yesterday. The dramatic reduction in headcount goes further than the 10,000 figure he floated in October last year, when he said “there is scope throughout the bank to clarify and simplify roles.” Now we [...]
David Frost doesn’t sugar-coat it for the EU

February 18, 2020

Trade deals are like sausages — it’s best not to see them being made. But while any UK-EU deal will certainly be the result of high compromise and low politics, Boris Johnson’s chief negotiator popped his head out of the factory door last night to offer some thoughts on his recipe for success. David Frost, [...]
Labour looks destined to sit out the next 10 years in political wilderness

February 14, 2020

On Monday Lord Michael Ashcroft published a detailed and searingly honest critique of the Labour party’s failed 2019 election. Based on polling and focus groups of former Labour voters, he painted a picture of a party that had drifted so far away from the values and aspirations of ordinary people that its drubbing was inevitable. [...]
Sajid Javid opts to go down with the ship

February 14, 2020

Just under three months ago, Boris Johnson promised a room full of business leaders that Sajid Javid was guaranteed to remain in office as chancellor. He praised Javid and gave a “categorical” commitment to the CBI conference that he will remain in post. Yesterday, Javid was told that if he wanted to keep his job [...]
BP’s plan is far bigger than a PR move

February 13, 2020

The closest thing to a boastful holiday snap on Bernard Looney’s new Instagram page is a rather dreary image of Bonn. BP’s new boss was in the German city last week, so the caption tells us, to meet the head of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. It should have come as no surprise [...]
It’s time for Labour to wake up and smell the coffee

February 11, 2020

Following their third consecutive electoral drubbing in 2005, Lord (Michael) Ashcroft set out to offer the Conservative party some frank advice. His book, Smell the Coffee, was a forensic account of where the party was going wrong and why they were unpopular. It played a big part in David Cameron’s subsequent modernisation project. Today, Lord [...]
Levelling up does not require cutting down

February 10, 2020

Towards the end of last year, this column suggested that 2020 “could be the year when the voice of the provinces is heard more clearly than the roar of the metropolis”. We recognised that the seizure by the Tories of scores of formerly safe Labour seats would mean a recalibration of Conservative priorities, indeed — [...]
The Lords will benefit from Square Mile lifers

February 7, 2020

If you were designing Britain’s constitutional system from scratch, it is unlikely the House of Lords in its current form would make it into the final draft of your masterplan. With 794 members, it is now the second largest legislative body in the world, trailing only the National People’s Congress of China in that dubious [...]

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By: Christian May

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