Alex Brummer



Profile:


Full name: Alex Brummer

Area of interest: Economics and Finance; Media

Journals: Daily Mail

Email:

Website: MailOnline / Alex Brummer

Blog:

Agent:

Networks:



Biography:
Education: University of Southampton: economics and politics; University of Bradford Management Centre: MBA

Career: J Walter Thomson and Haymarket Publishing (1970/1972); The Guardian: Financial Correspondent, Washington Correspondent (1979/1985), Washington Bureau Chief (1985/1989), Foreign Editor (1989), Financial Editor (1990/1999), Assistant Editor (1998/1999); Daily Mail City Editor, 2000-

Current position/role: City and business editor


 * also writes/written for: New Statesman; The Spectator; Jewish Chronicle

Other roles:

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Why didn't the City journalists see the financial crisis coming? - While the reporting has been impressive, forecasts were largely lacking, writes James Robinson - The Guardian, 12th October 2008

TV/Radio:

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours: Best Foreign Correspondent in the United States, Overseas Press Club New York (1989); Financial Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards (1999); Best City Journalist, Media Awards (2000); Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, Wincott Prize (2001); Newspaper Journalist of the Year, Work Foundation (2002); Business Journalist of the Year and Commentator of the Year, World Leadership Forum (2006)

Scoops:

Other:



Books & Debate:

 * James Hanson: a Biography OCLC 31518140, 1994
 * Arnold Weinstock: The Life and Times of Britain's Premier Industrialist OCLC 38550612, 1998

Latest work: The crunch: how greed and incompetence sparked the credit crisis OCLC 258100175, 2009

Speaking/Appearances:

Current debate: 

Daily Mail:
Column remit:

Section:

Role: City and business editor

Pen-name:

Email:

Website: MailOnline / Alex Brummer

Commissioning editor:

Day published: varies

Regularity: frequent

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2009

 * Shares lead the way back - International monetary diplomacy is as much about luck as anything else - 3rd April 2009
 * When watchdogs fail to bank - One of the few positives to arise from the credit crisis is that Britain finally has a banking rescue mechanism capable of dealing with a fast failing institution - 30th March 2009
 * Time to paper over the fiscal cracks at G20 - The Prime Minister's grand plans to save the world from depression at this week's G20 summit in London appear to be in disarray - 29th March 2009
 * Why the King should submit to Parliament's will - Mervyn King is testing the concept of an independent Bank of England to the limits. This must be a good thing - 27th March 2009
 * Serious Fraud Office seeks to raise its game - ...Over the years it has been a terrible disappointment. It has bungled the prosecutions of several cases, lost suspects like Asil Nadir of Polly Peck along the way and studiously avoiding tackling the difficult cases at the heart of the Square Mile - 26th March 2009
 * Gordon Brown faces a new and dangerous problem as he seeks to steer the British economy out of crisis - Investors at home and overseas have been so spooked by the scale of the nation's borrowing that, for the first time in seven years, they are refusing to buy British government bonds - 26th March 2009
 * Cash is the new prudence - Tim Breedon must be feeling the heat. As the chief executive of Britain's biggest long investor in the stock market, the group's fund managers make a habit of attacking under-performing bosses elsewhere - 25th March 2009
 * The spectre that keeps Mervyn King awake at night - Over the years, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has been asked dozens of times to comment on the Government's Budget plans. He has always studiously refused to do so. So his warning yesterday about the dangers of a further fiscal stimulus, which he said would increase the already alarming levels of public borrowing, was unprecedented - 24th March 2009
 * How to save the world (but don't hold your breath) - There is a golden rule of international financial gatherings. The more people who attend, the less likely it will result in any meaningful decisions - 14th March 2009
 * Bank of England's great experiment may prove a gamble too far - The Bank of England's great experiment in 'quantitative easing' -  boosting the supply of money in the economy  -  is now under way with the knock-on effect that savers and pensioners are already feeling the pain as the real value of their investments falls - 12th March 2009
 * Mucking out the cow shed - One cannot help feeling that there is a great deal of displacement activity currently taking place in the City - 10th March 2009
 * Cowdery falls under the cosh - The whole business of buying up 'zombie' insurance funds, refurbishing them and selling them on for vast profits is sleazy enough and a better regulator than the Financial Services Authority should never have allowed this to happen - 9th March 2009
 * It's time for Sir Victor Blank to quit Lloyds - ...The fall from grace of what is now the Lloyds Banking Group in just six short months following the disastrous merger with the battered and badly run Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) is a parable of our time - 9th March 2009
 * No escape from the lions' den - The idea that Lloyds Banking Group failed to agree a deal on 'Operation Broom' before it delivered its results because the Treasury team was tired looks a little far fetched. The Treasury can be accused of many things. Laziness is not one of them - 27th February 2009
 * Axe this obscene deal, Mr Darling - The stubborn refusal of former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin to forgo his pension, despite being responsible for the worst corporate financial failure in Britain's history, is the ultimate example of the banking world's crass insensitivity to the public mood - 26th February 2009
 * Long march to recovery for bank investors - Even Stephen Hester, the head of the clean-up crew at Royal Bank of Scotland, might find it difficult to regard the latest government bailout as good news - 26th February 2009
 * Banking by telephone numbers - No one can accuse Alistair Darling and his Treasury team of taking their foot off the accelerator when it comes to dealing with failing banks - 25th February 2009
 * When the selling has to stop - Global equity markets are in a sorry state. In Britain the latest voodoo on share prices is the ruling of the pension fund regulator that directors need to repair deficits before settling the dividend - 24th February 2009
 * Labour's contradictory advice has evoked a sense of panic - and fuelled the very instability it is trying to remove - If the Government has an overarching strategy for meeting the multiple challenges of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the collapse in economic output, then it is so confusing and contradictory that it is impossible to recognise - 24th February 2009
 * Borrowing the Swedish model - When the government recapitalised the British banks last October there was much talk of the Swedish model for repairing broken lenders. Now with the unions fearing for 100,000 jobs in the UK car industry and the £2.5billion Lord Mandelson bailout still stalled we have a new Swedish blueprint - 20th February 2009
 * Like John Sergeant, we are dancing on the edge of disaster - The ‘footwork’ of ministers and financial authorities in tackling the credit crunch ‘owed more to John Sergeant than Fred Astaire’, the deputy governor of the Bank of England said last night - 20th February 2009
 * A new dawn for the Old Lady - The Monetary Policy Committee crossed a Rubicon at its meeting earlier this month when it resolved to move ahead with quantitative easing - 18th February 2009
 * Sounding the bonus retreat - The bonus issue has been a huge distraction for the government as it has sought to stabilise the banking system - 17th February 2009
 * Poison chalice of nationalisation - There are many reasons why the government should seek to avoid further nationalisation of the banking sector - 16th February 2009
 * Bonus gravy train has to stop - Clearly it is early days and UK Financial Investments, headed by Treasury mandarin John Kingman, is still finding its feet - 6th February 2009
 * The emperor's new clothes - Baugur is a story of our time. It was always obvious that the Icelandic retail group run by the colourful Jon Asgeir Johannesson was a bubble waiting to burst - 4th February 2009
 * Hayward's dividend pledge - Tony Hayward seems to be going some way towards restoring investor faith in BP. Consumers will always be sceptical - 3rd February 2009
 * Labour leaves a toxic legacy - Now we are learning the truth. Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report in November was as Panglossian as the March budget, which saw the UK economy growing by 2.5 per cent this year after a mild dip in 2008 - 28th January 2009
 * Sterling takes the strain - Brits who made the journey to Washington for Barack Obama's inauguration face a nasty shock when it comes to paying the hotel bills - 20th January 2009
 * Another crisis of confidence for the global banking system - Just a month after Gordon Brown made his infamous claim to 'have saved the world', the global financial system is looking as sick as ever - 16th January 2009
 * The great Equitable sellout - New Labour has feet of clay when it comes to pensions. The party of protection from cradle to grave has made serious and painful mistakes, starting with the abolition of the dividend tax credit, which have permanently stained its reputation - 15th January 2009
 * Banks back under the cosh - Baroness Vadera may be seeing the 'green shoots' of recovery but the stock market, often seen as a good forward indicator, does not agree - 14th January 2009
 * Rudd raises fears of dissent - The sudden departure of Sir Nigel Rudd as deputy chairman of Barclays could not come at a worse time for the bank - 13th January 2009



Latest news & updates:
On 4 February 2009, Brummer appeared as a witness at the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, along with Robert Peston (BBC), Lionel Barber (Financial Times), Simon Jenkins (Guardian), and Sky News Business Editor Jeff Randall (journalist) to answer questions on the role of the media in financial stability and "whether financial journalists should operate under any form of reporting restrictions during banking crises" (Wikipedia info)

(see also: Treasury committee shoots the media messenger over UK banking crisis, Laura Oliver, Journalism.co.uk, 5th February 2009)



Links:

 * New Statesman: articles
 * The Spectator: articles
 * Jewish Chronicle: 'mediawatch' articles
 * Wikipedia biog.



Business & City Editors:

 • Damian Reece (The Daily Telegraph) • Mark Kleinman (The Sunday Telegraph) • David Wighton (The Times) • John Waples (The Sunday Times) • John Willman (Financial Times) • Deborah Hargreaves (The Guardian) • Ruth Sunderland (The Observer) • Jeremy Warner (The Independent) • Margareta Pagano (The Independent on Sunday) • Michael Williams (Wall Street Journal Europe) • Alex Brummer (Daily Mail) • Stephen Kahn (Daily Express)'''