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 […]