Tag Archives: Comment

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 17:00 EDT, 10 July 2024 Government is not all about grand gestures such as bulldozing planning laws and a National Wealth Fund to power up Britain’s investment in green technologies. Labour’s inheritance includes the debt crisis at Thames Water, unfinished work in …

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 17:00 EDT, 9 July 2024 The ‘critical risk’ to Britain resulting from the desperate finances of Thames Water may appear to have little to do with Royal Mail. The Labour administration, which is selling itself as a bastion of stability, needs to …

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 17:01 EDT, 8 July 2024 As a former Bank of England insider, it should come as no surprise that Rachel Reeves held her first meeting with Andrew Bailey while the embers of the election campaign were still burning. The new Chancellor has …

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 16:50 EDT, 5 July 2024 Pointing the way: New PM Keir Starmer The scale of Labour’s win gives Keir Starmer’s government the muscle it needs to fulfil its growth mission. Unlike 1997 when Tony Blair swept to power on a great wave …

The private equity bandwagon in Britain keeps rolling. Latest to be imperilled is gaming group Keywords Studios, creator of Fortnite and League of Legends, which is being bought by Swedish buyout firm EQT for £2.2billion. The highly leveraged deal for Royal Mail owner International Distribution Services is, to all intents …

Among the first industrial tests facing an incoming Labour administration is what to do about the Royal Mail. The owner of Britain’s postal system, International Distributions Services (IDS) is proposing to sell a vital part of UK infrastructure to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky and a controversial Slovakian finance group, supported …

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 17:02 EDT, 27 June 2024 There are many reasons for opposing the ‘Czech Sphinx’ bid for International Distributions Services (IDS), the owner of the Royal Mail. These include the public interest, fragile knowledge of the would-be buyers Daniel Kretinsky and partners, workforce …

The business of government stops during general election campaigns, with Whitehall and quangos going into purdah.  This has provided City bankers and advisers with an opportunity to press ahead with bids and deals under the radar. There is no more important transaction at present than the proposed takeover of International …

Dear readers, to those who have quite rightly concluded in this silliest of silly seasons that the country is going to the dogs, apologies. It is time for a new metaphor of decline; Britain is for the birds. And I’m not even referring to Swiftmania; if only our ills really …

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 16:51 EDT, 21 June 2024 Britvic has long appeared an anachronism. Down at the Druids Head in Brighton, for as long as I can remember, it sold orange juice in the smallest bottles for the highest prices. One often mused as to …