By: Eliot Wilson

Eliot Wilson is a writer, commentator and contributing editor at Defence On The Brink. He was formerly a clerk in the House of Commons and writes regularly on politics, defence and international security, and Parliament and the constitution, including for The Spectator, The Hill, The i Paper and CapX

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Singing of arms and the man: Behind the big Boris defence announcement

November 20, 2020

The announcement was preceded, of course, by a leak to the media, so that it could make a splash in the morning press. Standard practice these days, unfortunately — but the story was still an impressive one: the Prime Minister was giving the Ministry of Defence an extra £4bn a year for the next four [...]
Cronyism and incompetence: The government is undermining trust in the private sector

November 10, 2020

It should surprise no one that a Conservative government turns to the private sector for the efficient delivery of services. Private enterprise is agile, responsive, innovative and provides good value for money (or at least, it can do), and public money should always be spent in the most effective way possible. This is the ideology [...]
The polls failed again, and blindsided businesses are crying out for better corporate intelligence

November 5, 2020

So Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States. Or Donald Trump will squeeze home (though, at the time of writing, that seems less likely). It has been a nerve-wracking 48 hours for anyone who watches US politics — and one of the reasons for that is that commentators and pollsters got [...]
Has Jack Ma made IPOs a weapon of corporate warfare?

October 29, 2020

Ant Group is not a household name. An affiliate of Chinese tech wizard Jack Ma’s Alibaba, it operates the digital payment platform Alipay, which serves more than a billion users and is China’s largest such enterprise. This week, Ant Group announced the pricing of its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai’s Star [...]
Deal or no deal, reports of London’s death are greatly exaggerated

October 23, 2020

London has for many years enjoyed the reputation as the world’s leading financial centre. Only New York has ever come close to challenging the capital’s crown — and since 2015 London has generally topped all the rankings. In that time, though, every paean to London’s preeminence has carried the gloomy caveat: “until Brexit”. The received [...]
Mayor 2.0: London deserves a leader who can punch at the capital’s weight

October 14, 2020

It’s more than 20 years now since we saw the creation of an elected mayor of London with executive power over the whole city. Devised at a time of widespread devolution, public response to the role was lukewarm, with only around a third of voters bothering to express a preference either way. It was somehow [...]
Investing in a greener future: How do we make the sums add up?

October 7, 2020

By 2030, the UK will produce enough wind from offshore sources to power every home in the land. That was the pledge the prime minister made to the Conservative Party Conference this week, promising to turn us into the “Saudi Arabia of wind” (a subtle joke? One can never tell with Boris). Household appliances, he [...]
Andrew Neil’s GB News will test whether there is appetite for a Fox News-style news channel in the UK

October 2, 2020

The announcement this week that Andrew Neil, the doyen of political broadcasters since David Dimbleby quit the stage, was to be chairman of GB News and anchor its flagship evening show four times a week breathed new life into a story that had become a little stale. It was momentous for a number of reasons: [...]
Who speaks for business? Government advice in a crisis

September 25, 2020

It has been another week of regulations and restrictions, another round of measures to try to beat the Covid-19 spread which has started to creep up again as we move into autumn. On Monday, the government sent its top boffins, Professor Chris Whitty and Professor Sir Patrick Vallance, to face the press unchaperoned. This, surely, [...]
A New Look for high street retail? Here’s what matters in the Covid-19 world

September 16, 2020

It has been what Sir Alex Ferguson used to call “squeaky bum time” for fashion retailer New Look these past few days. On Monday it was being reported that British Land and Landsec, two of the chain’s biggest landlords, were preparing to vote against the proposed company voluntary arrangement (CVA) which would have switched the [...]

Are century bonds back in vogue? A brief history

Jonathan Barnett: Gareth Bale’s former agent denies ‘sex slave’ claims in full

Bar of the week: Why Three Sheets is a little slice of old Soho

By: Eliot Wilson

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