Hello and welcome to Off to Lunch

Off to Lunch focuses on the business and finance news that matters and an insider’s take on why. It is a mix of original reporting and curation.

Off to Lunch also has a geographic focus - the stories that matter in the UK outside London. These stories are not being told enough right now. Start-ups in the UK outside London raised more money than all the start-ups in France combined in 2021 - $14.7 billion. There is optimism around the UK - despite what you may have read - but also concern that an opportunity is being wasted. Levelling up the UK is the biggest political and economic issue of our generation. Consider Off to Lunch a tracker of how it is going. I will track the flourishing tech hubs in Manchester, Cambridge, Bristol and Edinburgh, the delays to HS2, the world-leading work on nuclear fusion in Oxford, the Issa brothers' attempts to take on the retail industry from Blackburn, and the lack of investment in electric car manufacturing.

I will not lose sight of the importance of London and the City - the financial heart and facilitator of much of what is going on. So you can expect coverage of the stories that are shaping the economy and markets for everyone. Off to Lunch will guide you through uncertainty, soaring inflation, volatile markets, new technologies and changing working practices.

I launched Off to Lunch in April 2022 after 15 years working in national newspapers, most recently as deputy business editor of The Times. I think London is one of the greatest cities in the world, but having grown up in Kendal, Cumbria (my parents still live in the bungalow I grew up) and gone to university in York, I know there are great stories across the UK that are not getting enough coverage.

Off to Lunch appears in your inbox and the Substack app on Mondays and Fridays at about noon. Paying members also get a Sunday press review at the weekend and bonus content from the podcast.

Our Business Studies podcast takes a second look at big business stories from the past by interviewing key people at the heart of what happened. New episodes are published on Tuesdays.