The evening before the government was formed, I walked back from the television tent city on College Green to the House of Commons with a man who was about to become a cabinet minister. The evening before the government was formed, I walked back from the television tent city on College Green to the House
This morning, on the way up to my desk, I bought a croissant. In doing so, I immediately penalised almost everybody who sits anywhere near me, because I had one and none of them did. And I didn’t even feel particularly guilty about it. I’m a right bastard, me. And that’s not all. I came
For some time now I’ve had this idea for a running gag in a comedy sketch series. For some time now I’ve had this idea for a running gag in a comedy sketch series. It would star a character called Unfunny Observational Comic. Each week we’d see him dying a death with his ‘Have you
The idea that those who can should pay for their university education has taken more than a quarter of a century to become full government policy. Even now, in the week in which Lord Browne reports, people hate it. It is the first issue that I can remember where I came up against the ability
‘A jolly nice little place for lunch, handy because you can get to it on a number 11 bus.’ That was a senior partner of Cazenove the stockbrokers talking about the Savoy in the days when captains of industry and City grandees treated its Grill as their canteen — and my predecessor Christopher Fildes, who
The crash has led to a new boom in corporate bonds. When Tesco’s debt yields more than its shares, every little helps When the Bank of England began its £200 billion programme of quantitative easing — ‘QE’, its technical name for printing money — at the height of the credit crisis in March last year,
Outsourcing firms and insurers may find opportunity in the government’s fiscal crisis It’s an ill wind that blows no good and, counterintuitively, some companies could benefit from next week’s government belt-tightening. Despite fears that spending cuts may stall fragile economic recovery, firms which provide services more cheaply than the public sector may enjoy increased turnover
Before he became one of London’s most admired fund managers, Jonathan Ruffer had, by his own account, two spectacularly unsuccessful spells as a barrister. Not long into our interview, I gain a clue as to why this seemingly harsh self-assessment might be true. We’re discussing the credit crunch, which he predicted well before it hit,
Never before have so many people in so many places collected works of art. In the past decade, the auction houses in particular have made heroic efforts to expand their markets, both by reaching out to emerging economies and by embracing new technologies. Thanks to instant translation by online search engines and live online auction
