The greatest gift Ever Given: Why we all loved the Big Boat stuck in the Suez April 1, 2021 In a world of extraordinary complexity, at a time of enormous uncertainty, a big boat stuck in the Suez Canal took us back to a simpler time. “The greater our knowledge increases,” said John F Kennedy in the speech that launched the US space programme, “the greater our ignorance unfolds.” So it proved to be. [...]
Covid-19, a year on: The Corporation and the State March 22, 2021 In this series, City A.M. looks back at the last year of the pandemic and Covid restrictions and takes stock of its impact on industries and issues at the heart of British society. Read more: Read the full Covid-19, a year on series here. The state and the market have long been locked in a cautious dance. [...]
Tech billionaires’ privacy brawl: Facebook’s defence of its darkest arts defies belief March 5, 2021 Facebook’s new advertisement – “Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found” – is a study in audacity, in which the company wraps its darkest arts in a cloak of moral purity. Facebook tracks its users’ behaviour, not only on its own apps but all across the web. What it learns about you in the process, it [...]
Are supermarkets right to return their business rates relief to the Treasury? December 7, 2020 Are the big supermarkets right to return their business rates relief to the Treasury? Josh Williams, speechwriter and managing director at The Draft, says YES. Doing well in a crisis is a risky business. There is a thin line between those who turn a profit and those who profiteer. The supermarkets have had a good [...]
Don’t bid farewell to all the Brexit fish just yet November 24, 2020 So long, and thanks for all the fish. Not only book four in the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (“in five parts”) by Douglas Adams, but also, apparently, a negotiating strategy. The UK-EU trade talks are said to be trapped on a handful of unresolved issues, and one of them swims. We could be [...]
Fifty years on, Friedman was right: businesses answer to shareholders September 14, 2020 Yesterday marked fifty years since the publication of one of the most important articles in business history, written by Milton Friedman, the pint-sized American economist, and published in the New York Times. Friedman’s article had a simple argument but one with a profound impact. “There is one and only one social responsibility of business,” he [...]
Monzo? I’d rather invest my tuppence in the bank August 10, 2020 “Railways through Africa. Dams across the Nile. Fleets of ocean greyhounds. Majestic, self-amortizing canals.” So enthuses Mr Banks to his dubious son Michael. An investment in the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, in the words of director Mr Dawes, “fires the imagination”. And tuppence is all you need to open an account. Never has the promise of [...]
DEBATE: Was it the right decision to end the daily government press briefings? June 24, 2020 Was it the right decision to end the daily government press briefings? Eliot Wilson, co-founder of Pivot Point and a former House of Commons official, says YES. The coronavirus pandemic changed so much. One thing it brought was daily Downing Street press conferences, at which a senior minister would take questions, flanked by advisers or [...]
Beyond Petroleum: Is BP finally moving from rhetoric to reality? June 22, 2020 Kneeling in prayer for a sin he doesn’t regret, Shakespeare’s Claudius, Hamlet’s fratricidal uncle, ruefully admits: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below, / Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Claudius knew that empty rhetoric is entirely unpersuasive — a lesson many corporate executives have since learnt. In 2000, BP hired the advertisers [...]
Twitter’s feud with Trump could be a savvy business move June 3, 2020 The social media founders promised utopias, where speech would be democratised and each of us would be given our voice in the public square. Utopias, however, have always been tricky. The term was coined by Thomas More in his 1516 work of the same name, and it was a pun that More’s learned readers would [...]
