Portfolio
This is the complete archive of my published writing on business, economics and public policy: 39 essays and articles, a running series of editorial cartoons, selected video, and a book. Every piece shows its sources. Analysis is kept clearly separate from opinion.
The Auditor General found coordinated inspection running at under three per cent of total inspections, an anti-corruption commission that has never referred a case, and 5.58 billion euro of arrears written off as uncollectable. The pattern is detection, not law. Every figure sourced and re-verified.
A forensic post-mortem on how a 411-seat majority built on a 34 percent vote collapsed into third place behind Reform in under two years, ending in Starmer's resignation on 22 June 2026. The arithmetic, the U-turns, and the structural read. Every claim sourced.
England's biggest local-government shake-up in fifty years is called devolution. Tested against subsidiarity, a good part of it is centralisation wearing the language of its opposite. The Malta read-across, on Gozo and local councils, is closer than it looks.
Estonia runs almost its whole state online and saves about 2% of GDP doing it. The three things bigger countries, Malta included, can actually copy, and the honest reasons it is harder than it looks.
Living on a small island, you become acutely aware of limitations. The horizon, though beautiful, can sometimes feel like a boundary. For Malta, a nat...
The Shattering of Old Certainties across the Western World
The EU is cutting €37.5 billion a year of administrative cost against a €750 to €800 billion annual investment gap. Simplification is worth about five per cent of the diagnosis. The other ninety-five per cent is capital, and Britain's version of the problem is not the same as the EU's. R&D, energy, productivity, training and infrastructure, charted against the US and China.
John Healey has floated war bonds to fund UK defence. On the accounts the label changes nothing, so where does a purpose bond do real work? Who lends, what the money is tied to, and the £450 billion sitting in cash ISAs. With The Rest Is Money video and every figure sourced.
UK net public wealth fell from a quarter of national income in 1970 to minus £695.7 billion by March 2026, while private wealth rose to six times GDP. Where the wealth went, why taxes no longer buy services, and what rebuilding the state's balance sheet as a shock absorber would take. Every figure sourced.
The UK sells its industry the most expensive electricity in the developed world, four times the American price. What ten EU countries pay instead, why British power costs so much, and why cheap energy is now a security question. Every figure sourced.
Britain is not short of money. It 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.
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.
We tax people for sitting still and shame them for taking a chance. How the tax system and our culture push savings away from British firms, and how to change it.
A government that leads with ideology before growth loses the business community and the money it needs. The case for earning the growth first.
Britain and Malta both grew their economies by growing their populations. It flatters the headline and barely moves output per person. The growth can come from productivity, participation and investment instead, but the honest answer is that it is slower and harder. Every figure sourced.
Rents have outrun wages and a flat now sells for around fourteen times a young salary. For Gen Z in Malta, getting on is starting to depend on who your parents are, not how hard you work. Every figure sourced.
Do Scotland's regional house prices reflect their economies? Mostly yes, with two revealing exceptions: the capital, and the rural and island periphery. A region-by-region look, every figure sourced.
Malta says its house prices simply reflect a strong economy. True on the average, false in the distribution. A look at the imbalances the headline number is built to hide, with every figure sourced.
What the UK's latest wellbeing data says about the gap between the economy on paper and the country people actually feel. GDP per head, inflation and jobs are improving, yet confidence is at its lowest since 2023.
A New Era of Power Politics and Economic Nationalism
The world is grappled with economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, and environmental challenges. Malta is not an except...
Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor, recently laid out an ambitious plan for economic growth, stability, and investment in the UK. And let's be honest, t...
The subject of AI is reaching all corners of public and private spheres. AI is reshaping industries with disruptive speed. It is no longer an abstract...
In the azure heart of the Mediterranean lies Malta, a nation whose economic growth story has been significantly shaped by immigration. However, the wi...
Every time a new housing report or another news segment discusses housing in Malta, the same message goes: "Housing is unaffordable" and "Young people...
It's fascinating, isn't it, how something as fundamental as knowing what's going on can profoundly impact something as significant as the property mar...
Imagine you buy something highly valuable like a property, and you don't have detailed data and information available at your finger tips. Would you b...
Malta's under-18s have no ballot and no lobby, so the rest of us decide their future for them. Five things they should be able to expect, each with a number attached.
A few weeks ago, an SME owner in Mosta asked me how she should think about a new hire who could not write a clean email. She had interviewed eleven ca...
We build roads and ports and digital networks without much argument, then treat the capability of the people who use them as a cost to be trimmed. Why skills are national infrastructure.
Meta is on trial in California over a design its own research examined behind closed doors. The case for legislating a new model: child protection, private identity and age assurance, a split between business and personal accounts, and what the UK, the EU, Australia and Malta are already doing.
Around 47 per cent of trips in Malta stay inside their own region and the average trip is 5.5 km, yet 84 per cent are made by private vehicle and 7.1 per cent on foot. Free buses added riders without removing cars. What Paris, Ghent, Barcelona and Scotland changed, and the four moves the SPED and local plan review should make.
Europe's AI rulebook has just been loosened and pushed back by the May 2026 Digital Omnibus. For a small state like Malta, the delay is a window to build the capacity to implement well, not an excuse to do nothing. Named regulations, dates and sources throughout.
A Bazooka Approach to Investments while respecting the subsidiarity principle
Today, European Union citizens are 30% worse off in economic wealth per capita compared to those in the United States. Today, the US has 7 mega compan...
Championing European Businesses
The Noise Tragedy
A serious centre-right is not nostalgia for one party or one leader. It is a standing argument about how a country should be run, and Malta is overdue one.
A running series on politics and policy in the UK and Malta, when an argument lands harder as a picture.
VideoSelected video, talks and appearances worth your time.
BookA practitioner book on making learning change behaviour, with a second book in preparation.
The portfolio collects 39 essays and articles on business, economics and public policy, alongside editorial cartoons, video, and a book. Every essay is published in full on this site with its sources shown.
Business and enterprise, economics and growth, public policy and institutions, housing and property, and the European Union, the United Kingdom and Malta read against each other. Analysis is separated clearly from opinion.
Yes. Alongside the essays here, Stefan writes to commission for organisations and public figures: op-eds, briefings, reports, ghostwriting and strategy documents. See the Work with me page.
New essays appear here first. You can also follow on LinkedIn and X, and see the full record of education, publications and lecturing on the CV page.
