Business
Enterprise is where policy meets a payroll. I write about the conditions that let firms start, scale and stay, why Europe trails the United States on the companies that matter, where capital actually goes, and how the new rules for technology change the terms of trade. Evidence first, trade-offs named.
The firms that create the wealth, and the conditions that let them start, scale and stay. Where Europe falls behind the United States, and what a small state can actually do about it.
The EU has cut about €14 billion a year of administrative cost against a €750 to €800 billion annual investment gap. Simplification is roughly five per cent of the diagnosis. The rest is capital.
EU citizens are around 30 per cent worse off per head than Americans, and the mega-companies are not European. What the competitiveness gap is really made of.
If Europe wants to grow, it has to be a place where it is easy to start, scale and stay. A practical case for backing the people who build.
A bazooka approach to investment while respecting subsidiarity: where the Union should act at scale, and where it should stand back.
Uncertainty, geopolitics and technological disruption are reshaping every small economy. How Malta moves up the value chain rather than running to stand still.
Britain and Europe are not short of money. The problem is where it goes. On allocation, pension capital, and the culture that rewards sitting still.
Britain holds trillions in long-term pension and insurance capital. The growth problem is where that money goes, not whether it exists.
Levelling up fails when treated as charity. The regions are a genuine investment opportunity, and the proof is already on the ground in Newcastle, Sunderland and Manchester.
We tax people for sitting still and shame them for taking a chance. How the tax system and the culture push savings away from British firms.
Automatic enrolment built the largest pool of savings in British history. The same nudge could direct a slice of it into UK growth, without forcing anyone.
A government that leads with ideology before growth loses the business community and the money it needs. The case for earning the growth first.
The rules now being written for technology are business rules. On platform business models, the AI Act, and technology as a source of prosperity.
Meta is on trial in California over a design its own research examined behind closed doors. The case for a new model: child protection, private identity and age assurance, and a split between business and personal accounts.
Europe's AI rulebook has been loosened and pushed back by the May 2026 Digital Omnibus. For a small state, the delay is a window to build the capacity to implement well.
Technology is the closest thing we have to a free lunch in economics. How a small economy turns adoption into productivity rather than hype.
Why business
Every public service, every safety net and every ambition rests on a productive private sector. I take enterprise seriously as the engine, then ask what actually helps it: competition over incumbency, capital that reaches new firms, and rules that are clear enough to plan against. Where markets fail, I say so. Where the state overreaches, I say that too.
More about my approachA short guide to how this section reads business, and where the argument stops.
It means the conditions that let firms create value: competition and market structure, access to capital, productivity, and the regulation that shapes how markets work. The focus is the European Union, the United Kingdom and Malta, read against each other, with sources shown and a clear line between analysis and argument.
Because it is where Europe is visibly falling behind. EU citizens are around a third worse off per head than Americans and the largest technology firms are not European. Competitiveness is not an abstraction; it is jobs, wages and the tax base that pays for public services.
No. This is commentary on business and economic policy, written from a centre-right position. It is personal and independent, and separate from the author's commercial and academic work.
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