On this day: Big Bang hits the Square Mile October 27, 2025 On this day, 27 October 1986: Big Bang hits the Square Mile, and changes the City forever. Eliot Wilson takes us through it.
Is Brexit really to blame for the Chancellor’s growth headache? October 23, 2025 As the government prepares the public psyche for substantial tax hikes at next month’s Budget, the Chancellor has taken a Brexit-shaped risk. Keir Starmer’s government has largely opted for caution over talking about relations with the European Union. The Prime Minister has insisted that re-opening the Brexit debate would bring only “turmoil” but he also [...]
The nuclear stupidity of insisting reactors provide ‘social value’ October 23, 2025 The government is demanding that companies who want to build small modular reactors must ensure 50 per cent of workers are women and provide jobs for refugees rather than, you know, build a nuclear reactor, says Tom Harwood Let me take you back in time to a quite different world. Barack Obama is President of [...]
Banking watchdog boss warns easing capital rules ‘highly risky’ October 22, 2025 The head of the UK’s banking watchdog has warned of high risk if the UK loosens its rules around lenders’ capital framework as the government pushes for economic growth. Sam Woods, the head of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), said requiring banks to no longer set aside capital for top-tier sovereign bonds would “be equivalent [...]
The axe will have to fall on Britain’s runaway public spending October 22, 2025 Rachel Reeves likes to insist that she will “never play fast and loose with the public finances.” It’s a phrase she deploys quite often, not least when it looks as if the bond market could do with a bit of reassurance, and it means that she won’t breach her “cast iron” fiscal rules. Adherence to [...]
Inflation has doubled under Reeves and she has no plan to bring it down October 20, 2025 Inflation is the unseen robber that diminishes our savings and makes a mockery of our plans for the future. Reeves must explain what she plans to do about it before it gets out of control, says Eliot Wilson When Lord Gove hinted in The Spectator last month at parallels between contemporary Britain and Weimar Germany, [...]
Protectionism is economic cowardice. Britain must not fall into Trump’s trap October 17, 2025 Brexit is our new reality, but we must harness it to expand global trade, not retreat inwards like Trump, says Geoffrey de Mowbray.
Rachel Reeves and the tax and spend doom loop October 16, 2025 Rachel Reeves isn’t going to introduce a Wealth Tax, but she is going to tax the wealthy. She isn’t going to impose austerity, but she is going to get spending under control. Confused? Speculation over the contents of next month’s Budget has reached fever pitch, and it’s only going to ramp up from here. This [...]
We have to get serious about major spending cuts October 16, 2025 Speculation over the contents of next month’s Budget has reached fever pitch, and it’s only going to ramp up from here. This is not idle curiosity; with businesses still adapting to the confidence-sapping and job-smothering fallout from last year’s Budget, there is now a genuine fear that what remains of our economic resilience could be [...]
Andy Haldane elected president of British Chambers of Commerce October 15, 2025 Andy Haldane has been elected the new president of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), succeeding the serial entrepreneur and business doyenne Baroness Lane Fox. The central banking veteran, who spent eight years on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, was chosen to head up the business lobby group by representatives of its chamber [...]