Devolution's Missing Layer - Why Mayors Need the Capacity to Deliver
Devolution is finally happening at pace. Without delivery machinery beneath the new mayors it will fail - and the fix needs no legislation at all.
Latest, September 2026
Could Modular Rare Earth Refineries Break China's Stranglehold?
Rare earths aren't rare. What's scarce is the will to build a refinery. Two technologies could shrink the plant to the size of a shipping container, and the Gulf is where the first one might land.
Read the pieceWriting
Essays and columns on the Gulf economy, government, and where policy meets private capital. Some first appeared elsewhere; all of them live here.
We've Seen This Film Before - and Dubai Wrote the Ending
I watched a government respond to a crisis from the inside once before. Dubai is running the same playbook, faster, and what we have seen since March is not the response. It is the warm-up.
Dubai Has Thousands of Acres of Empty Land. Nobody Knows What To Do With Them.
Vast corridors of scrubby desert cut through some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. There is a reason - and a far better use for them than nothing.
Healthcare's Biggest Disruption Isn't AI. It's the End of Treatment.
At the world's largest healthcare event, the thing that stopped me was not a robot or an algorithm. It was a fifteen-minute procedure that could make an entire treatment category redundant.
Saudi Arabia Admits What the UK Never Could: "We Have No Ego"
A Saudi finance minister said something I never heard in fifteen years in British government. It explains why the Gulf builds and we deliberate.
Dubai Does Something Fascinating With Project Names - And It's Smarter Than It Looks
Sports City. Academic City. Production City. After years of UK branding workshops, Dubai's literal naming looked too simple. It is actually a masterclass in strategic clarity.
The GCC's "Government Accelerators" - What the UK Got Wrong About Innovation
The UK invented the idea and then gave it away. The Gulf kept it inside government, where it works.