Chelsea Bloom assesses the economic impact, the property effects, and what London transport needs next LONDON, UK – The Elizabeth Line opened in full in November 2022, nearly a decade late and several billion pounds over budget, and has since transported over 700 million passengers […]
Sadiq Khan’s Business Legacy After Eight Years: A Data-Driven Assessment
Chelsea Bloom on the Mayor’s record on SMEs, housing, ULEZ, and the economy he is leaving behind LONDON, UK – Sadiq Khan has been Mayor of London for eight years, which is long enough to have a record and short enough that some of its […]
London’s Small Business Rents Crisis: The High Street Is Running Out of Road
Chelsea Bloom on the triple blow of rates, inflation, and post-COVID arrears crushing independent retailers LONDON, UK – The high street has been dying for twenty years and the cause of death keeps changing. First it was Amazon. Then it was COVID. Now, in the […]
The London Startup Pitch Has Become Its Own Literary Form
On the genre conventions of asking strangers for money I am Chelsea Bloom, and I cover London business from a desk in North London and a notebook full of scepticism; my columns live at my page. As reported across The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, […]
Every London Office Has a Free Snack Bar and a Quiet Despair
On the perks that paper over the modern workplace I am Chelsea Bloom, and I cover London business from a desk in North London and a notebook full of scepticism; my columns live at my page. As reported across The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, […]
The City Still Runs on Lunches Nobody Admits to Having
On the informal networks that move London money I am Chelsea Bloom, and I cover London business from a desk in North London and a notebook full of scepticism; my columns live at my page. As reported across The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, the […]
London Property Is a Religion and the Estate Agents Are Its Priests
On the capital’s all-consuming faith in bricks and mortar I am Chelsea Bloom, and I cover London business from a desk in North London and a notebook full of scepticism; my columns live at my page. As reported across The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, […]
The Four-Day Week Arrives in London One Exhausted Convert at a Time
On the slow revolution in how the capital works I am Chelsea Bloom, and I cover London business from a desk in North London and a notebook full of scepticism; my columns live at my page. As reported across The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, […]
Panini World Cup Album Completable For Under Two Thousand Pounds
Parents describe the pricing as an absolute liberty as analysts call the remortgage entirely foreseeable The Collectables Market Comes For The Family Budget In a development that financial analysts are describing as entirely foreseeable and parents are describing in language unsuitable for a business column, […]
Entree Battersea Charges Fourteen Pounds For Toast
Diners report enjoying the food, the financial regret, and a mild confusion about how potatoes became a luxury good The Most Expensive Way To Discover You Still Like Toast I went to Battersea this week, professionally, to investigate a restaurant that has been named London’s […]
PR Firm Generates More Buzzwords Than Revenue
London agency invents Reputation Laundering as the capital quietly rebrands reality into a strategic narrative opportunity The City’s Newest Growth Sector Is Adjectives I have spent fifteen years on the business desk and I have never seen a balance sheet quite like the one I […]
Disneyland London Becomes Britain’s Most Expensive Queue
Theme park promises magic the moment planning permission arrives, which analysts price somewhere around never A Theme Park Built Entirely On Anticipation There are few things the British economy enjoys more than a large, exciting project that may never actually happen, and Disneyland London is […]
Pinden Ltd Builds Britain’s Most Efficient Supply Chain
Kent firm celebrated for a logistics model that begins, remarkably, with things people actively wanted thrown away The Banana Peel That Became A Case Study Every so often the business world produces a story so pure that even a hardened North London cynic like me […]
Dominatrix Marketing Agency Hits 68 Billion Pound Valuation
London firm reaches dizzying heights by calling its customers utterly pathetic and then adding VAT on top The Market Has Spoken, And It Wants To Be Told Off I cover business for a living, which means I have sat through more brand strategy presentations than […]
Tube Strike Forces Entire Capital To Walk To Work
Experts confirm nothing builds community like 400,000 people simultaneously realising they should have left yesterday London’s Boldest New Fitness Scheme Is Industrial Action London unveiled an ambitious new public health initiative this week, in the sense that tube strike talks collapsed and four hundred thousand […]
Bar Sparta London Charges Premium For Genuine Suffering
Shoreditch venue introduces happy hour featuring slightly less suffering, one olive, and a lecture on moral weakness The Hospitality Trend Nobody Asked For Has Arrived Shoreditch has produced many things over the years that the rest of the country views with a mixture of awe […]
London Declares Itself A Megapolis To Justify The Rent
Capital adopts grander title in what analysts suspect is a sophisticated strategy to explain why a shed now costs half a million The City Has Given Itself A Promotion London has, with characteristic modesty, declared itself a megapolis, a word that means roughly the same […]
Labour Spends One Million A Month On AI To Warn About AI
Westminster discovers the future is terrible, but terribly convenient, and outsources the warning to the very thing it fears A Budget Line Item That Argues With Itself Occasionally a story comes along that is so perfectly circular it could power a small turbine, and this […]