Richard Alvin on why every business owner — and every citizen — must turn out for tomorrow’s local elections, regardless of which box they tick.
Category: Columns
Columns, blogs and opinion from some of the UKs leading business opinion makers and entrepreneurs and small business owners
Last orders for British hospitality: Are Reeves and Starmer trying to kill the UK restaurant sector?
From a £3.4 billion National Insurance hit to a refusal to cut hospitality VAT, the policies of Reeves and Starmer read like a hit job on Britain’s high streets.
Britain doesn’t have a start-up problem, it has a stay-at-home problem
Britain launches companies brilliantly. It just can’t keep them. Richard Alvin on why the next British unicorn will probably IPO in New York, and what to do before it does.
On May Day, spare a thought for the workers who took the risk and built the bloody company
May Day belongs to founders, sole traders and family firms too, says Richard Alvin. A defence of entrepreneurship as labour, and of the silent grind behind every payroll.
I worry for the rural pub, and yes, this one is personal too
Richard Alvin returns to the rural economy, and to the village pub at the heart of it. A defence of the countryside’s last surviving piece of community infrastructure.
Day-one rights, six-figure tribunals: how the Workers’ Rights Bill is killing hiring before it starts
Six months in, says Richard Alvin, the Workers’ Rights Bill is doing the opposite of what it set out to do — quietly freezing graduate slots and pushing SMEs to hire abroad.
How resilient leaders help their teams thrive through change
Resilience is one of those words that gets used a lot in business. But when you strip it back, it’s not complicated. It simply means being able to keep moving forward when things don’t go to plan.
Business rates: Britain’s most punishing levy on the very firms it claims to champion
The 2026 revaluation has clobbered hospitality and independents while warehouses skate. Richard Alvin makes the case for scrapping rates and starting again.
The April Cost Squeeze: Why Small Businesses Must Plan Ahead, Not Catch Up
For many small businesses in the UK, April has become a predictable pressure point.
Easter on the high street: bunny ears, empty tills and a hospitality sector running on fumes
Post-Easter trading data tells a familiar story. Richard Alvin on a high street propped up by bank-holiday spikes and a hospitality industry running on the smell of an empty fryer.
Trump’s tariffs are squeezing British exporters – and Westminster is asleep at the wheel
A year of Trump tariffs has bitten UK exporters hard. Richard Alvin says Britain needs a coherent transatlantic strategy, not another envoy in a nice suit.
The non-doms have packed their suitcases and the tax base is going with them
A year after the non-dom regime was scrapped, says Richard Alvin, the data is in. The capital, the giving and the City salaries that have left town tell their own story.
Happy New Tax Year: same kicking, slightly higher boot
6 April brings higher employer NICs, the rates revaluation, and IHT bear-traps for family firms. Richard Alvin: in Britain, ‘growth’ is something done to you, not for you.
British manufacturing is being electrocuted to death, and we are calling it net zero
UK industrial energy is four times the US. Richard Alvin on the slow strangulation of British manufacturing — and the policy choices we are dressing up as climate leadership.
AI is quietly making graduates redundant: we will regret this inside a decade
Big consultancies are slashing graduate intakes. Richard Alvin warns Britain’s talent pipeline is breaking, and that the next generation of partners and CFOs has to come from somewhere.
