Initial reports suggested Gordon Brown’s Labour Party gained three percentage points in the opinion polls after last week’s G20 summit in London. However, a poll in today’s The Times suggests that the “New World Order” bounce for Brown was lost in the row over MPs’ expenses and in the post-summit analysis that exposed Gordon’s spin. Read on ›

This is when I miss London. It stages the debates we need. Last night Polis, the London School of Economics media think tank organised: Why Did Nobody See It Coming? Reporting The Crash – The Debate. The panel was distinguished and Charlie Beckett thankfully gives a good account of it today on his blog. Read on ›

Today Barclays Bank raised £7.3 billion from Middle East-based investors. That makes Barclays one of the high street’s premier brands, not just in terms of perception, but in terms of reality, along with HSBC. Read on ›

London’s latest shopping extravagnza, the Westfield London Centre, was planned in a boom in another century and opens at the beginning of a recession.

Oh doom, oh gloom, oh glum. Thank goodness, Boris says that view’s nonsense. Read on ›

Yesterday in the midst of recession, Volkswagen briefly became the world’s most valuable company, worth £238 billion. Hedge funds were gambling, which is what they do for a living, that VW shares would fall. Read on ›