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British banking would be poorer without a Co-operative challenge

18 May 2013

When the Manchester-based Co-operative Bank was announced last July as the buyer of 632 Lloyds branches, tripling the size of its own network, I hailed the news as a step… Read more

Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chatres Photo: Getty

Bishop of London Richard Chartres on bankers, Occupy and Justin Welby

11 May 2013

You may have gathered from last week’s column that I’ve been cruising the Med in search of fresh subject matter. It’s the sort of cruise that includes a programme of… Read more

Last year tourism contributed 16 per cent of Greek national income Photo: Getty

Why Greece isn’t recovering: the view from a cruise ship

4 May 2013

This column comes to you from the cruise ship Minerva in the Greek port of Piraeus. Why I’m aboard is a story for another day — and let me admit… Read more

Reinhart and Rogoff's faulty spreadsheet doesn't destroy the case for austerity

27 April 2013

Economists should always leave themselves a margin for error. When challenged that free-market policies on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1980s led straight from boom to bust, Milton… Read more

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Gold bugs have always been bores, but perhaps now they’ll be a bit quieter

20 April 2013

Unless you bet your life savings on gold some time in the past three years — after its price had passed on the way up the level to which it… Read more

Thatcher changed the City for the better – but human nature led it astray

13 April 2013

‘Margaret had no love for the banks,’ Nigel Lawson wrote in The View from No. 11. The idea that the amoral greed of the City and the banking crisis it… Read more

Lord Mayor of London Roger Gifford Photo: Getty

Is Lord Mayor Roger Gifford finally unleashing his inner Boris?

6 April 2013

A short stroll from Poultry to the Mansion House offers vistas of the old and new City. The fortress of the Bank of England awaits its new Governor while the… Read more

It's not just rich Russian that will share Cyprus' pain

30 March 2013

In their second attempt to clean the Augean stables of Cyprus’s banking system without jeopardising the integrity of the euro, bailout negotiators seem to have heeded most of my advice… Read more

In Cyprus as in Britain, the prudent must pay for others’ folly – but not like this

23 March 2013

The Cypriots are the authors of their own misfortune, having turned their banking system into a rackety offshore haven for Russian loot and lent most of the proceeds to Greece.… Read more

Overseas aid - the alternative

16 March 2013

‘We have written to David Cameron to applaud his decision to stick to the UK’s commitment to overseas aid to the developing world, despite the tough economic times,’ begins a… Read more

Europe’s cap on bankers’ pay is merely a harbinger of the Great Persecution to come

9 March 2013

‘Possibly the most deluded measure to come from Europe since Diocletian tried to fix the price of groceries across the Roman Empire,’ was Boris Johnson’s assessment of the proposal to… Read more

London house prices are a better guide to how the world sees us than Moody’s ratings

2 March 2013

‘There are two superpowers in the world today,’ said the American columnist Thomas Friedman in 1996. ‘There’s the United States and there’s Moody’s bond rating service. The US can destroy… Read more

A Royal Mail postbox is pictured in cent

Privatisation is the only solution for Royal Mail

23 February 2013

We have had a very high failure rate in deliveries of the catalogues for Emily Patrick’s exhibition,’ says an email from the painter’s husband. ‘Over 50 per cent have been… Read more

Barclays CEO Jenkins As Company Posts Full-Year Loss

Here’s my strategic review, Barclays: see shareholders right and the rest will follow

16 February 2013

Antony Jenkins, the new-broom chief executive of Barclays, has the tone of a junior minister, not long in parliament, who finds himself promoted to high office after the big beast… Read more

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Remember the lesson of Shaun of the Dead: some zombies eventually come back to life

9 February 2013

Funny how little phrases go viral. Suddenly everyone’s talking about ‘fasting diets’, ‘zombie companies’ and ‘leadership plots’. As to the first, the idea of the ‘5:2 intermittent fasting diet’, I… Read more

Baggage Handlers Face Job Losses At Manchester Airport

I look forward to using my pensioner’s pass on HS2 – and I’ve spotted the people to run it

2 February 2013

Investing £33 billion in HS2 — £46 billion if you accept the Taxpayers’ Alliance’s calculation — won’t boost us out of this triple dip, but it might ease the one… Read more

Greek Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconst

Greek tax-dodgers, Irish horse dealers and Chinese art cheats: please skip this column

26 January 2013

It’s only fair to warn you — especially if you’re Greek, Irish or Chinese — that this week’s column contains negative stereotyping. I’ll leave the transsexuals to Rod Liddle, but… Read more

Hardly a hammer blow if 800 jobs have shifted from Swindon to Solihull

19 January 2013

My item last week about brighter prospects for car makers looked forlorn by Friday lunchtime, when news bulletins were leading with a quote from one Tony Murphy of the Unite… Read more

An employee shows a 250 grams golden bar

Gnomes of Zurich will fall like skittles before US investigators finish with them

12 January 2013

So farewell, Wegelin & Co, the oldest bank in Switzerland and the one with the simplest strategy for growth — which was to offer secret accounts to American tax-evaders who… Read more

Ex-editor sets banking agenda – and £100 says he’ll win the climate debate too

5 January 2013

The sun shines warmly in south-west France, and rabbit bouillabaisse is the pièce de résistance of a New Year lunch at which Nigel Lawson is a fellow guest. The former… Read more

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