Odd to write about Britain's costliest mansion without it becoming a piece of property porn. But possible in the case of 2-8A Rutland Gate. Although sold only in 2020 for £210m, it's now an derelict barrack in Knightsbridge, occupied only by a homeless man. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10...

Out now on A Long Time in Finance: our first live gig - in partnership with The Library of Mistakes in Edinburgh! We discuss Fred Goodwin, RBS and "The Art of The Shred" with Ian Fraser, author of Shredded, the seminal account of the fall of RBS. pod.fo/e/332216

It's true! On 25 September we're doing @ALTIFpodcast's first live show with our new friends, The Library of Mistakes. In THE ART OF THE SHRED we'll be discussing Fred Goodwin and RBS's 2008 collapse with author Ian Fraser. Click below for details & tix.. Hope to see you there..

This is adorable!

I've written a books essay in the FT about the nuclear age we are entering; one pregnant with old perils and new promise www.ft.com/content/7fec...

My latest post is on Heathrow's big outage, the mysterious wave of British substation fires and what's behind them. Is it enemy action.. or something more mundane? open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Coming up on A Long Time in Finance, we look at the history of Scunthorpe and British Steel..

Generals calling for rearmament often talk about the UK facing a "1937 moment". But what actually happened in the late 1930s, are there similarities and what can we learn? We talk to historian Dan Todman about the economic & military parallels. pod.fo/e/2c9967

Should the UK nationalise British Steel after Jingye opted for closure rather than take the taxpayer's £500m bung? To my mind, the question is more why the government didn't demand an equity stake in the first place. unherd.com/newsroom/chi...

My latest on Business Adventures is about mineral deals, and why they're not always what they cracked up to be, even if your concession is sitting on oceans of oil as the British, French and Americans were with the carve up of post-Ottoman Iraq.. open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

I know, I know.. I have started a substack on financial and business history called Business Adventures. It's just getting going and this is my "manifesto". I'll be posting properly in a day or two. If you want to join up, you would be most welcome open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

“So there was nothing Turkish about the Turkish Petroleum Company. I think that’s the first point to make.” @grepsul.bsky.social, Neil Collins and I talked an episode that has some contemporary resonance.

Podcast! With Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins, on a topic with some contemporary resonances.

Those who live by "beggar thy neighbour" tax schemes also die by them

Coming up this week on @ALTIFpodcast: in the wake of Trump's proposal for a mineral deal in Ukraine, we look at the greatest minerals carve up of all time - in the Middle East - and ask: "how did that all work out"?

Latest post: What's left of British shipbuilding? After the failure & rescue of H&W, I look at re-shoring, shipbuilding & defence - and the difficulties of rebuilding lost industrial capacity. There's also a plea for more sane defence procurement! open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Latest post on Business Adventures: What's left of British shipbuilding? After the failure and rescue of H&W, I look at re-shoring, UK shipbuilding, and defence; and consider the difficulty of building back industrial capacity once it's gone. open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

My latest Business Adventures Substack looks at re-shoring, UK shipbuilding, and defence; and considers the difficulty of building back industrial capacity, once it's lost. open.substack.com/pub/jonathan... pic.x.com/Hn7PfyuRtH

I wrote a profile of Ed Miliband, about how his tussle with Rachel Reeves could define - and even derail - the Starmer government.. thecritic.co.uk/ed-miliband/

How tin-eared is Starmer? This is, after all, the PM who's been - along with his ministers - sounding the alarm about war risk and rearmament. To use as your baseline for this feeble increase a period when Britain disarmed, leaving its forces denuded, is just unserious, even contemptible.

I struggle to believe as Russia menaces the peace of Europe and the western alliance disintegrates before our eyes that UK ministers can argue about whether a tiny, wholly inadequate, rise in defence sprending from 2.3 to 2.5 pct of GDP should happen this year, next year or the year after..surreal..

There is something almost Oscar Wilde like about Janan Ganesh's willingness to invite ridicule from the unwashed

Finally someone explodes the tosh about 2.5% of GDP or whatever arbitrary level of defence spending being "unaffordable".

I am still shocked by Reza Shah's decision to re-name Persia in the 1930s. The "Persian bomb" has a much better ring about it..

Out now on @altifpodcast: 1976: THE YEAR BRITAIN WENT BUST. We talk to @duncanweldon.bsky.social about when Denis Healey, G&T in hand, was called back from Heathrow's VIP lounge to the Treasury to announce Britain was applying for a $3.9bn loan. Listen to see what happened next! pod.fo/e/2a69cc

Should big tech be able to buy vast amounts of electricity from power plants privately & thus avoid paying grid costs for their massive data centres? An important test case in Pennsylvania https:https://tinyurl.com/5x79tndc

I recently set up a Substack called Business Adventures. The first post is about how Britain built an experimental atomic plant at Scotland's northernmost tip, about nuclear innovation, and what can be learned from this extraordinary physics experiment jonathandrewford.substack.com/p/the-dounre...

This short novel - by an anonymous British officer based on his service in Afghanistan - is a very moving read, capturing both the pity of war & the human dilemmas of those swept up in it. If you want to know what it felt like serving in Britain's Vietnam, here it is.. strongly recommended

I have yet to alight on any particular decision of the government where Keir Starmer has shown conspicuously, or even averagely, good judgment. TBH I find this rather dismaying in an administration which has four and a half tricky years to run..

In the first of my Business Adventures, I have written about how Britain came to build an experimental nuclear power plant at Scotland's northernmost tip, about nuclear innovation, and what can be learned from this extraordinary physics experiment. jonathandrewford.substack.com/p/the-dounre...

Basically, the message from this ⁦@TheEconomist article is that the RN now has too few ships to take risks with any of them. Not exactly a Nelsonian or Fisherite stance. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

The great Yannis Varoufakis, in an early bid for this year's pot-calling-the-kettle-black award, accuses Rachel Reeves of being a useless finance minister. unherd.com/2025/01/rach...

These should, of course, be consumption not production emissions.

More good news!

Out today on A Long Time in Finance: WHY GERMANS DON'T DO IT BETTER. We talk to the brilliant author and economic commentator @EuroBriefing about why he thinks Germany's economy went from wirtschaftswunder 2.0 to kaput

Really interesting piece, which illustrates (in the case of the car market) how policies in Britain towards transport, infrastructure, net zero, etc, are generally framed in the mistaken belief that we are a much wealthier society than we actually are open.substack.com/pub/martinro...

For a party that aspires to independence, the SNP is congenitally reluctant to take responsibility for its own actions..

Test for the BlueSky hive mind: am I missing something but how can Elon Musk join the Trump administration while hanging onto his interests in Tesla, Space X, Starlink, Solar City, etc etc etc. Are there no rules about conflicts of interest in Washington?

I know, I know.. I have started a substack on financial and business history called Business Adventures. It's just getting going and this is my "manifesto". I'll be posting properly in a day or two. If you want to join up, you would be most welcome open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

The govt confirmed today that Navantia will buy Belfast shipbuilder Harland & Wolff, reportedly for just £70m (or roughly half what H&W borrowed from some US hedgies). It's another fine procurement mess from the MoD as my piece in The Critic explains thecritic.co.uk/how-hw-hit-t...

Ofwat today unveiled the biggest water price rises since privatisation, when bills rose to fix an underfunded system and meet new enviro standards. So why do we face another crash price-rise 3 decades later? In this @telegraphnews.bsky.social piece, I explain why. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12...

Some folks are pretty good seeing things coming.

Coal use hits a new peak of 8.8 billion tonnes in 2024, according to the @iea.org. “The power sector has been the main driver of coal demand growth, with electricity generation from coal set to reach an all-time high of 10,700 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2024.”

Not such good news for Riverstone/Breakwall, the US debt funds who are in for £140m or more..

With water prices expected to rocket when the regulator sets prices next week, and the largest supplier Thames Water teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, it's worth asking how England's water industry got itself in such a mess. My piece from the Telegraph magazine www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12...

The weakness in the argument here, which will not be lost on finance ministers elsewhere, is that while the UK has deep global capital markets that can fund the growth that economies need, it’s not working for the British economy where low levels of investment are the most pressing problem. #EconSky

I wrote about England's water crisis, its origins and what it means. Basically we kidded ourselves that privatisation could depoliticise how much we have to spend on water services. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12...

IT'S OUT on A Long Time in Finance: we look back with author @edconway.bsky.social at the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, the only ever formal attempt to reorder the international monetary system, and consider what an increasingly protectionist world can learn from it. pod.fo/e/28c959