Business
Neil Woodford could do the washing-up at my fantasy Christmas lunch
It’s the season for kindness and conviviality. In that spirit — and recognising that business, like personal life, rarely follows…
Business is the only area of human activity where you get paid to change your mind
In 1891, a 29-year-old man moved from Philadelphia to Chicago intending to start a business. With $32 to his name,…
An American in Cardiff
The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards 2019, sponsored by Julius Baer, celebrates innovative businesses throughout the UK that…
What I learned from piercing ears at Claire's Accessories
I was 17, studying for my A-levels in Great Yarmouth. Looking to defy my parents’ instruction to get a part-time…
A very different kind of law firm
The closing date for The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards 2019, sponsored by Julius Baer, is Friday 7…
UK business investment has nosedived – what’s to blame?
Business investment in the UK declined in all four quarters of 2018 to complete a year-on-year dive of 2.4 per cent,…
A fanfare for music’s next generation
The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards 2019, sponsored by Julius Baer, are open for entries at www.spectator.co.uk/disruptor. We’re…
Creativity at the cutting edge of science
The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards 2019, sponsored by Julius Baer, are now open: the entry form is…
Watch out comrade: big business is turning communist
Is it me, or is business becoming a teeny-weeny bit Stalinist? Common features include 1) Paranoia about political ideology; 2)…
Po-faced but worth sticking with: Picnic at Hanging Rock reviewed
According to the opening captions in Picnic at Hanging Rock (BBC2, Wednesday), ‘the infamous events’ it depicts ‘began whena mysterious…
Grim and glorious: Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain reviewed
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Stay too long in the Lee Miller exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield and the metronome might…
An interesting – but unrealisable – interpretation: Royal Opera's Don Giovanni reviewed
When Kasper Holten’s production of Don Giovanni was first staged at the Royal Opera in 2014, I disliked it intensely,…
Running a bank’s tough. That’s no reason to start handing capital back
A mixed bag of annual results from the big banks. RBS, still 73 per cent owned by the taxpayer, recorded…
How the iPhone came to rule the world
Rory Sutherland doesn’t have an iPhone. But he knows why you do
The City still leads the financial world, but it faces a fight on all fronts
Should we place faith in a survey, conducted in June but published this week, that says London is still the…
Theresa May thought she didn't need business. She should think again
Take no notice of the resilience of the FTSE100 index, which, having reached record pre-election highs, shed barely 100 points…
The economy isn’t all roses, but that’s no reason not to vote for Theresa May
As the election campaign goes into full swing, we hear surprisingly little about the state of the UK economy —…
Even the most successful companies can be wrecked by idiots with MBAs
I rang a company’s call centre the other day, and the experience was exemplary: helpful, knowledgeable, charming. The firm was…
Is Donald Trump a man we can do business with? An insider’s verdict
How good a businessman is Donald Trump? Maybe the answer doesn’t matter, since barring death or impeachment he’ll be the…
Charlotte Hogg belongs to boardrooms’ real endangered species
Tesco chairman John Allan provoked feminist fury by telling would-be non-exec directors, ‘If you’re a white male, tough: you’re an…
The threat of protectionism has put world business leaders on the defensive
Globalisation has apparently been going too fast. It is blamed for benefiting managers and owners of capital — and emerging-market…
The footballing giant killers of 1914
Big league Lincoln City became the first non-league club since Queens Park Rangers in 1914 to win a place in…
We should all be glad that Unilever saw off predatory robot Kraft Heinz
I was sorry Kraft Heinz’s £115 billion bid for Unilever collapsed so fast — unveiled on Friday, it was dead…
Oxfam don’t understand the rich — but they still have a point
I’ve objected before to the fact that supporters of Oxfam shops are unknowingly funding not only an aid charity but…
Whatever happened to Sir George? A festive finale to an eventful year
Many (well, several) of you asked me what happened to George, the supermarket chairman who was the anti-hero of my…
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