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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Splash the cash and hope for the best

March 12, 2020

He didn’t look or sound like a man who had only been chancellor for a matter of weeks. It would have been a difficult debut outing in good times, but delivering an emergency Budget — just hours after an emergency rate cut — would test the mettle of a seasoned parliamentary grandee. The delivery was [...]
Rebel platoon gives government a scare

March 11, 2020

Despite the best efforts of the government, today’s Budget will be the Coronavirus Budget. As much as Downing Street wants to refocus the conversation — even for a day — on its “levelling up” agenda, attention will inevitably fall on the chancellor’s economic antidote to the effects of the outbreak. But it isn’t just ministers [...]
Government bides its time as markets panic

March 10, 2020

When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. Global markets were already nervous about the looming consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, so Saudi Arabia’s declaration of an oil price war obliterated what little confidence remained on trading floors around the globe. Oil prices had already fallen as the virus took a bite [...]
Chancellor faces tough job as virus fears grow

March 9, 2020

Sajid Javid never got to deliver a Budget, and now his successor will this week unveil one of the most important in decades. Wednesday’s statement was meant to be a showpiece for a government determined to “level-up” the economy and flex its newly-won Commons majority. While ministers are still hoping to regain some political initiative [...]
It’s on: Khan v Bailey will be a chance to scrutinise the leading candidates

March 6, 2020

Four years ago I chaired the first head- to-head debate between the mayoral candidates Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith. It was a dramatic encounter, with the Labour candidate (and current London mayor) laying into his rival for the Tory campaign’s descent “into the gutter.” Just days before the debate, Goldsmith had launched a stinging attack [...]
New Bank governor seems open to battle of ideas

March 5, 2020

Andrew Bailey will take the governor’s seat at the Bank of England later this month amid a global health emergency that threatens to undermine the world economy and shape the Bank’s course of action for many months to come. So pressing is the issue that Bailey has effectively started work early, telling the Treasury Select [...]
The world’s biggest economy is scared

March 4, 2020

The final weeks of 2019 saw the traditional flurry of analysts and market commentators raising the prospect of so-called black swan events in 2020. Looking back through these notes today, one is confronted with a range of nightmare scenarios ranging from military conflict in the South China Sea to the collapse of a major investment bank [...]
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 [...]

Fifa won’t fix itself – scrap it now and set up a World FA, led by Uefa and South America

Fifa won’t fix itself – scrap it now and set up a World FA, led by Uefa and South America

Is the Maybach GLS the most excessive SUV?

By: Christian May

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