Martin Vander Weyer
The Spectator
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Martin:
The antidote to virus panic is in the hands of entrepreneurs
I’m buoyed by optimism of a different kind among start-up entrepreneurs, in fields from virtual reality to cannabinoid products → Read More
Who’s really to blame for the Crossrail fiasco?
Who’s really to blame for the Crossrail fiasco? on The Spectator | There’s been a strong sense of pre-Christmas turkeys coming home to roost in this week’s… → Read More
Why I’m boycotting ‘Davos in the Desert’
The current stock-market correction has been steaming down the track since August and I claim no wisdom for having predicted it: the FTSE100 dipped below 7,000 at the start of the week, having shed… → Read More
Why can’t Britain hang on to its best new companies?
Costa, in my opinion, sells a decent cup of coffee. It employs polite youngsters who seem happy in their work. If you’re desperate for caffeine, even its petrol-station vending machines are not too… → Read More
Give Mike Ashley a peerage if he can revive House of Fraser
This column has consistently stood up for Mike Ashley, even when the lonesome billionaire’s notions of corporate governance at Sports Direct and staff welfare at its Shirebrook warehouse made that a… → Read More
It’s time to accept that companies such as Amazon are beyond shame
‘There has to be a level playing field so that… Amazon cannot undercut domestic booksellers by using the tax advantage of booking in Luxembourg a sale to a… → Read More
What’s bad for slick estate agents like Foxtons is good for working Londoners
Those twice-weekly sales emails from Foxtons that the recent GDPR clean-up has failed to stop have lately been spattered with the words ‘recent price… → Read More
Full-fibre broadband by 2033? I wish I could believe you, minister
I bought BT’s offer of an upgrade to ‘superfast’ broadband because the standard service seemed to be deteriorating just as the daily quota of sales calls… → Read More
An amoral money world needs ethical campaigners more than ever
When I first visited Canary Wharf in the early 1990s, I was struck by a set of black-and-white posters in the shopping concourse advertising the Co-op… → Read More
Data breaches show we’re only three clicks away from anarchy
An IT glitch afflicting BP petrol stations for three hours last Sunday evening might not sound like headline news. A ten-hour meltdown of Visa card payment… → Read More
The myth and menace of cryptocurrencies
‘So, Professor Shin, tell us what you really think about cryptocurrencies.’ I’m guessing that’s the brief the Bank for International Settlements (the Basel-based central bank of central banks) gave… → Read More
For Pester of TSB, like Patterson of BT, the only way is exit
Should he stay or should he go — or will he already have gone by the time you read this? These are frequently asked questions about chief executives whose… → Read More
Bank AGMs are an opportunity to shout about branch closures
The season of high-street banks’ annual general meetings is with us and I urge you to turn up and make trouble. When I say ‘you’, I don’t mean the likes of… → Read More
Call this US-China tit-for-tat a trade war?
Call this US-China tit-for-tat a trade war? on The Spectator | ‘Stocks plunge as China hits US goods with tariffs,’ said a headline after the long weekend… → Read More
Announcing the Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards
Announcing the Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards on The Spectator | Human progress has depended on economic disruptors since long before the advent of… → Read More
Can Theresa May find time to be her own housing supremo?
Theresa May has belatedly taken the advice I offered her here last May and named a supremo to tackle the housing crisis — which has been getting steadily… → Read More
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 a small profit for the first time since 2008 but… → Read More
Investors were right to sell Carillion shares when they spotted trouble ahead
The fallout from Carillion’s bankruptcy spreads in slow motion — just as the outsourcing and construction giant’s finances gradually stretched to breaking… → Read More
Forget a Channel bridge and celebrate Crossrail
Forget a Channel bridge and celebrate Crossrail on The Spectator | This column has long been a sucker for a grand projet. ‘Time for a trip to Boris Island,’… → Read More
Outsourcing is a good thing, regardless of the Carillion crash
Carillion is a disaster on all fronts, but my sympathies go first to the fallen contracting giant’s sub–contractors. Upwards of 30,000 smaller firms were… → Read More