A 6-3 vote, inflation back up to 3.1 percent and a warning about 4 percent in early 2027: Chelsea Bloom reads the small print from Muswell Hill The Bank of England Holds at 3.75 Percent for a Sixth Time and Asks London to Be Patient […]
Central London Offices: 2.5 Million Square Feet Let and a Vacancy Rate That Has Not Panicked
BNP Paribas Real Estate’s first-quarter figures show the City and West End moving in opposite directions, with prime rents still rising Central London Offices: 2.5 Million Square Feet Let and a Vacancy Rate That Has Not Panicked BNP Paribas Real Estate’s first-quarter figures show the […]
Budget Week in London: Business Rates, Pubs and a Fiscal Headroom That Has Halved
With the Autumn Budget set for 28 October, Grant Thornton’s preview lists what is ruled in, what is ruled out and what nobody will confirm Budget Week in London: Business Rates, Pubs and a Fiscal Headroom That Has Halved With the Autumn Budget set for […]
Prime Central London Is Down 5 Percent in a Year. Spare a Thought for the Broker in Cebu.
Savills reports a subdued prime market in the capital, while retirees weigh a condominium abroad; Chelsea Bloom compares the two Prime Central London Is Down 5 Percent in a Year. Spare a Thought for the Broker in Cebu. Savills reports a subdued prime market in […]
London’s Stock Market Is Open for Business Again, and the Takeover Bids Have Noticed
UK IPO proceeds more than trebled in the first half of 2026, while easyJet and part of ITV drew offers; the reforms behind it are five years in the making London’s Stock Market Is Open for Business Again, and the Takeover Bids Have Noticed UK […]
Your Deposit On A Flying Car Is An Unsecured Loan: What British Consumers Should Know
A North London business journalist reads about deposits for the long-delayed flying Tesla Roadster and explains how pre-orders really work, and what protects you if they go wrong A Car With A Deposit But No Price The London Prat reports that Elon Musk has unveiled […]
The Price Of Diesel Is A Foreign Policy: Why Ukraine’s Refinery Strikes Reach A North London Van
A North London business journalist reads about Washington slowing Ukraine’s drones to protect fuel prices and traces the line from Russian refineries to British haulage and the interest rate A War Over A Fuel Bill The London Prat reports that Trump tried to stop Ukraine […]
Money In Transit: What France’s Spending Puzzle Tells Britain Before The 28 October Budget
A North London business journalist reads about French school money that never arrives and asks the question every British taxpayer should put to the new Chancellor The Money Exists, It Is Just Somewhere Else I cover business and markets from a desk in Crouch End, […]
Why Husbands Check For Sky Sports: The Six Billion Pound Business Behind A Dinner Party Question
A North London business journalist reads about dinner party guests hunting for the sports package and explains the economics of football broadcasting rights and subscription television The Most Important Question At The Table The London Prat has a report on British dinner parties and why […]
Fined For Being Late, Then Told To Fight: What Bramblewick Rovers Teaches British Employers
A North London business journalist reads about six non-league players suspended after a lateness policy turned violent and looks at the law on workplace discipline and wage deductions A Very Bad HR Policy The London Prat reports that six Bramblewick Rovers players were suspended after […]
London Offices Leased 3.1 Million Square Feet in the Second Quarter and 8 Percent Still Sits Empty: What the West End and the City Are Telling Tenants
Knight Frank figures show a rebound from a weak first quarter, a tighter West End and a City with more space and far more people looking for it The London office market has spent several years being declared dead and then reported as busy, sometimes […]
The FTSE 100 Closed at 10,378.82 on a Day That Included a 3,800-Job Cut and a Rejected Takeover: Reading a London Market Report
A 30 April snapshot shows a 1.6 percent rise, an 8 to 1 rate vote, oil above 114 dollars and a handful of company announcements that moved the index The London stock market report is a small literary form. It reduces a day of anxiety, […]
Your Local Coffee Shop Is a Property Business That Happens to Froth Milk
A north London high street, a flat white and the honest numbers behind the capital’s favourite small enterprise Your Local Coffee Shop Is a Property Business That Happens to Froth Milk On the high street nearest my flat there are, at the last count, nine […]
The Knowledge Is London’s Hardest Exam and Its Strangest Business Decision
Why people still spend years memorising every street in the capital when a phone will do it for nothing The Knowledge Is London’s Hardest Exam and Its Strangest Business Decision On a wet Tuesday morning in north London, a man in waterproofs is riding a […]
The Arithmetic of a London Pint, Explained by People Who Pull Them
Where the money in your glass actually goes, and why the landlord is not the one getting rich The Arithmetic of a London Pint, Explained by People Who Pull Them There is a moment, familiar to anyone who drinks in this city, when the card […]
The Tuesday-to-Thursday City: How Hybrid Work Rewired London’s Lunch Trade
Sandwich shops, dry cleaners and shoe repairers are learning to live on three days a week, and not all of them will The Tuesday-to-Thursday City: How Hybrid Work Rewired London’s Lunch Trade At a quarter to one on a Wednesday, the queue outside a salad […]
Under the Arches: The Small Firms Powering London From Beneath the Railway
Brewers, bakers, mechanics and metalworkers share the capital’s most characterful industrial estate, and the rent is the story Under the Arches: The Small Firms Powering London From Beneath the Railway Every few minutes the ceiling rumbles. Nobody looks up. In the arch where I am […]
Six to Three: The Bank Rate Is Stuck at 3.75 Per Cent and the Next Move May Be Up
For a year small firms have been waiting for borrowing to get cheaper, and the talk in the markets has turned the other way Interest Rates and What Comes Next I have a small overdraft on the business account and a slightly larger opinion about […]
City Office Rents Have Hit 130 Pounds a Square Foot. The Rest of London’s Offices Would Like a Word
Record prices for the best towers and empty floors in the tired ones: the capital’s office market has split in two, and I have been doing the sums London Office Rents Hit a Record as the Market Splits in Two I work, most days, from […]
The Laundrette’s Gas Bill: What Rising Energy Costs Mean for the Smallest Firms
Household bills are forecast to jump in January and diesel is near two pounds a litre, and a business has no price cap to hide behind Energy Bills and Small Businesses There is a laundrette at the end of my road that has been there […]
Record Rents, Falling Construction: Why London Is Not Building the Offices Everyone Wants
When prices go up, supply is supposed to follow, yet forecasts say office building will decline this year, and the reasons say a lot about British construction UK Office Construction Is Set to Fall Even as Rents Reach Records I did economics at A level, […]
Ninety-Three Thousand Hospitality Jobs Gone in Two Years, and a Row About VAT
The trade bodies want the tax on a restaurant meal cut, the Treasury has no money, and I counted the closed doors between my flat and the Tube Hospitality’s Bad Two Years Between my front door and Turnpike Lane station there are, by my count […]
Four Weeks to the Budget and London’s Businesses Are Holding Their Breath
Confidence is falling, costs are rising and a Chancellor with little room to move is due to speak on 28 October UK Budget 2026: What London Businesses Are Worried About There is a mood that descends on the British business community in the weeks before […]
The Chancellor May Raise Small Business Rates Relief to 17,096 Pounds. In London That Is a Broom Cupboard
A higher threshold would free thousands of small firms from rates altogether, and I went looking for a shop in the capital small enough to qualify Small Business Rates Relief and the London Problem There is a number doing the rounds ahead of the Budget, […]
Nobody Is Starting Anything: Business Creation at a Decade Low
Fewer new firms, fewer vacancies and graduates with nowhere to go, and I asked three people who thought about setting up on their own why they did not The Start-Up Drought A healthy economy is always starting things. Somebody leaves a job and opens a […]
The FTSE Had a Bad Thursday. Here Is What a Bond Market Wobble Means for the Rest of Us
London shares tumbled as worries about government debt spread through global markets, and the reasons are closer to your mortgage than you might think FTSE 100 Falls as Bond Market Worries Bite: A Plain Guide I try not to write about the stock market going […]
Oxford Street Loses Its Traffic on 26 October. Now for the Harder Part: The Rates Bill
Pedestrianisation promises more shoppers, but the economics of a West End shop are decided by rent and tax as much as by footfall Oxford Street Pedestrianisation: The Business Case and the Bills I have a rule about Oxford Street, which is that I go there […]
The Royal Memoir Economy: Why Books About the Windsors Keep Selling and Who Profits
The uncle memoir at the heart of the traitor row is part of a lucrative publishing niche, and the business model behind it is more interesting than the gossip Grief, Gossip and the Bestseller Lists Let me say at the outset that I have enormous […]
The Insider Industry: How Anonymous Royal Sources Became a Business Model for the Media
The traitor claim travelled the world on the word of one unnamed person, and the economics behind that journey tell us a lot about the British media business Follow the Clicks I have covered business in London long enough to know that when a story […]
Brand Windsor Under Pressure: Reputation Management Lessons From the Royal Traitor Row
Every consumer brand fears a public family feud among its founders, and the monarchy is, among other things, one of the most valuable brands in Britain A Brand With a Family Problem Marketing people in London often talk about the monarchy as a brand, sometimes […]
The Crown Estate, the Althorp Estate and the Business of Owning Very Old Land
Behind the royal traitor row sit two very different kinds of estate, one run like a commercial property portfolio and one run like a family seat, and both are fascinating businesses Land, Not Just Lineage For all the talk of betrayal and books, the London […]
The Firm Has a Succession Problem: What the Royal Traitor Row Teaches British Family Businesses
Strip away the crowns and the royal feud looks like a textbook family-business dispute, the kind that quietly sinks thousands of UK firms every year Call It What It Is: A Family Firm The royal family has long been nicknamed The Firm, a label that […]