October 10, 2026 – London's Business House

Money and Commerce Posted on: October 10, 2026

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 […]

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Money and Commerce Posted on: October 10, 2026

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 […]

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Money and Commerce Posted on: October 10, 2026

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 […]

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London is the engine room of the British economy, a city where a two-bedroom flat costs more than a small country and somehow everybody acts like this is fine. It is home to the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange, and approximately forty-seven thousand coffee shops staffed by people with economics degrees wondering where it all went wrong.

The City of London, that ancient square mile of suits and spreadsheets, processes trillions of pounds daily and has done so since Romans decided the Thames was a decent place to charge tolls. Canary Wharf arrived later, shinier, and with better sushi, promptly declaring itself the future of finance while the City quietly got on with actually being the future of finance.

London hosts more international headquarters than any other European city, attracts more foreign investment than it has any right to, and charges businesses rents that would make a New York landlord blush. The startup scene in Shoreditch operates on oat milk, optimism, and venture capital, in that order.

For all its contradictions — the wealth beside the food banks, the global ambition beside the collapsed Tube infrastructure — London remains what it has always been. The place where British business comes to be taken seriously, and to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Billingsgate, Smithfield, Borough Market — three of the oldest trading markets in the world still operating within a mile of each other. The City of London built its entire commercial identity on the back of fish, meat, and bread sold at dawn before bankers were even awake.

Lloyds of London — the insurance market that will insure literally anything, has done so since 1686, and operates from a building that looks like it was designed by someone who lost a bet. They insured Bruce Springsteen’s voice. That is a business story.

The London Metal Exchange — where the global price of copper, aluminium, and tin is still set by traders shouting in a circle called the Ring. In 2024. Remarkable.

Street markets as economic indicators — Petticoat Lane, Portobello Road, Brick Lane. When the economy tightens, street markets boom. Londoners have always known how to trade their way out of trouble.

The Royal Exchange — founded by Thomas Gresham in 1565 as Britain’s first purpose-built trading centre. Now it sells luxury watches and champagne, which is either a fall from grace or the purest distillation of London commerce ever recorded.

London's Business House -- Insight and Inside the Buying and Selling