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From Tariff Man to Starmergeddon: 2024’s business words of the year
Pensions are being amalgamated into megafunds. The British Isa was announced and scrapped – almost as quickly as National Service was called up and demobbed.
The Ford Capri is back but Ted Baker shops closed. BBC Radio 4’s Today programme called former chancellor Jeremy Hunt a fiscal drag queen. Farmer James Dyson denounced Labour’s family death tax.
The dictionary editors were kept busy in 2024. Every year new words enter the business lexicon, meanings change, expressions become redundant and some discarded phrases re-enter the vocabulary – like John Lewis reviving “never knowingly undersold”.
Budgets and elections were catalysts in 2024 but business wasn’t lost for words. Two big investment trusts merged to create Alliance Witan while two detached housebuilders formed the Barratt Redrow semi. Tech group Wandisco rebranded itself Cirata, while Sainsbury’s Bank is winding down.
Project Eclipse saw Blackstone bid for the Hipgnosis music rights company, while Project Timber was the Whitehall codename for a Thames Water rescue plan.
Project Emerald is drugs group GSK’s return to central London, near Oxford Street (which Sadiq Khan’s new Mayoral Development Corporation is pedestrianising).
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme called former chancellor Jeremy Hunt a fiscal drag queen - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph
Details emerged of Project Oban, an alleged internal investigation into the conduct on Lloyds Bank’s currency desk.
Project Sparrow was the Post Office hiding bugs in its Horizon computer system. The husband of the postal service’s former chief, Paula Vennells, suggested “exception” or “anomaly” rather than bugs. Project Sushi was the Whitehall push to exclude Fujitsu, the architect of the Horizon software, from further government contracts.
Meanwhile Royal Mail owner International Distributions Services singularly dropped the “s” from Distributions and received a bid from Daniel Kretinsky, aka the “Czech sphinx”.
Also shortening their names, the Stafford Railway Building Society dropped the “Railway”, London Metropolitan Archives – the stock exchange’s record keeper – dropped “Metropolitan” and Campbell’s Soup Company dropped the “Soup”.
Labour adopted a Ming vase election strategy without dropping it but after winning, Sir Keir Starmer severed the Levelling Up prefix from the Department of Housing & Communities and added a Local Government suffix. He also dropped Rishi Sunak’s proposed National Academy for the Mathematical Science and the Tell Sid campaign to sell NatWest shares plus Advanced British Standards, which were intended to combine A-levels and T-levels.
Axed too were Rwanda deportations, the Investment Opportunity Fund, the A303 Stonehenge tunnel and the Restoring Our Railways programme.
Former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings announced a Startup Party before the election; the Right-wing Conservative Britain Alliance sought to overthrow Sunak; Liz Truss added Popular Conservatives to the quintet of Tory families trying to steer the party; and Kemi Badenoch joined the Evil Plotters WhatsApp group.
Rachel Reeves taunted the Tories with Rishi’s recession; he, in turn, warned against Starmergeddon, feared a Labour supermajority and labelled the rival party leader Sir Sleepy.
The ubiquitous Elon Musk was behind a number of trends in the world of business in 2024 - Samuel Corum/Getty Images North America
The Conservatives’ triple lock plus proposal to raise pensioners’ tax thresholds did not survive the election – but neither did Labour’s £28bn Green Prosperity Plan or the Prime Minister’s 2024 Business Council, launched by Sunak in January with 15 top chief executives, followed by a Small Business Council.
The Lib Dems’ calls for a Clean Water Authority evaporated, but the Vaping Products Duty announced in Hunt’s March Budget re-appeared in Reeves’s October statement. Hunt’s British Savings Bonds remain on sale and Green Lanes continue to cut red tape on trade between Ulster and Britain.
After the Conservatives’ defeat, Sir Lynton Crosby, the party’s former strategist, suggested they stop calling themselves Tories. Five unaligned MPs in the new parliament, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, declared themselves the Independence Alliance. The Women’s Equality Party voted to wind up. Prince, the PM’s white Siberian kitten, lasted longer at No 10 than Sue Gray, who then briefly was slated to become the Envoy to the Nations & Regions.
Reeves’s much-cited £22bn black hole was dubbed a blame document by ousted ministers. She announced a Charter for Budget Responsibility plus a Corporate Tax Roadmap.
Government debt was reclassified as public sector net financial liabilities. The UK Infrastructure Bank became a National Wealth Fund. In came a Life Sciences Innovation Manufacturing Fund, plus a Regulatory Innovation Office to make technology developments easier. Skills England aims to improve job prospects while a youth guarantee will promise work or study to 18 to 21-year-olds.
The Government promised a New Deal for Working People – though defining working people proved troublesome. Labour has created a Border Security Command, a Building Back Britain Commission and a Covid Corruption Commissioner. It also set up the Child Poverty Taskforce and a Floods Resilience Taskforce.
Reeves revealed an Office for Value for Money but the US election resulted in a Department of Government Efficiency to be led by Elon Musk. The entrepreneur nicknamed Britain’s Labour leader Two-tier Keir, alleging police operated dual standards during the summer riots.
Rishi Sunak warned against ‘Starmergeddon’ under Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer - Benjamin Cramel/via Reuters
Joe Biden exited the presidential race after calling Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin” and describing his own running mate as “vice-president Trump”. Kamala Harris was declared Brat – briefly the word of the year – to win GenZ voters. She said Trump was a fascist, unhinged and unstable; the other half of her ticket, Tim Walz, called Trump weird. Trump called Harris stupid, slow and low IQ – and won the election.
The new president – now self-declared Tariff Man – unveiled the MacLeod golf course in Aberdeenshire, named after his mother, and floated Trump Media on Nasdaq, using his DJT initials for the ticker code.
In UK media, Readers Digest stopped printing but Loaded magazine was revived after nine years. The capital’s Evening Standard was replaced by the weekly London Standard. Fox Corporation launched its Tubi television streaming service in Britain. And U&Dave, U&Yesterday and U&W are old stations with U& glued upfront.
Harry and Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor changed their surname to Sussex and replaced their royalsussex.com and Archwell websites with Sussex.com. She launched the American Riviera Orchard lifestyle brand.
An update of CrowdStrike software caused blank screens at businesses worldwide. Hackers who stole data from Ticketmaster and Santander called themselves ShinyHunters but cybersecurity investigators labelled them UNC5537. Qilin hacked NHS patient records and North Korea’s Andariel hacked defence organisations. Rhysida are the Russian cyberhackers that cost the British Library £6m.
However, the National Crime Agency took control of the systems at LockBit, thwarting the world’s biggest ransomware threat. And the German state of Saxony sold €2.5bn of Bitcoin seized from Movie2k, a film piracy network.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI unveiled Copilot, an AI-powered search engine, and SearchGPT. The Apple Vision Pro wearable computer was launched – and is rumoured to have already been discontinued, though Apple Vision Pro 2 might appear in 2025.
China’s Huawei revealed Mate XT, a tri-fold smartphone, while the Barbie Phone (any colour so long as it’s pink) excludes access to social media. Google was fined $20 decillion – that’s 20 with 33 zeros – by Russia for blocking local YouTube channels.
Grok-2 is an AI chatbox from the ubiquitous Mr Musk, who also revealed a self-driving robotaxi. His SpaceX company meanwhile completed its first commercial spacewalk – he called it Crew Dragon after Puff the Magic Dragon – and caught the Starship Super Heavy booster with “chopsticks” and launched Japan’s LignoSat, the world’s only wooden satellite. SpaceX ended the year worth $350bn.
EarthCARE is a European Space Agency satellite studying climate change and a newly discovered Earth-like planet was named Gliese 12b.
Musk’s SpaceX completed its first commercial spacewalk this year - Joe Skipper/Reuters
Rolls-Royce axed the Advanced Air Mobility division developing electronic flying air taxis while China unveiled the C919, a 192-seat rival to Airbus and Boeing planes.
Renault cancelled plans to list its electric vehicle business, Ampere, but Source, a joint-venture from UK power group SSE and France’s TotalEnergies, will install 3,000 charge points across Britain. Sir Jim Ratcliffe delayed the launch of Ineos’s electric 4x4, the Fusilier, while Jaguar Land Rover is upgrading its Halewood plant for EVs under its Reimagine strategy.
A National Parking Platform co-ordinating multiple parking apps was part of the Plan For Drivers launched by the Conservatives before being driven out of Downing Street. Varamis Rail is a start-up planning to send parcels using night-mail trains. Renaming six London Overground rail routes the Suffragette, Windrush, Liberty, Lioness, Mildmay and Weaver lines was denounced as wokery – as was the Church of England’s advert for a deconstructing whiteness officer.
Lloyds Bank, owner of Scottish Widows, advised staff against calling customers widows. It formed the Made Partnership with Barratt and Homes England to build new housing and Dutch lender April Mortgages entered the UK market.
HSBC launched Zing, a currency payments app, and sold its French retail bank, which reverted to its old name of Crédit Commercial de France.
A former PayPal boss called Britain’s competition watchdog a “small but aggressive Chihuahua”. Regulators published Basel 3.1, banks’ new lending rules. The Takeover Panel made cold shoulder an official City term when sanctioning those involved in MWB hotels, which went into administration in 2012. An Audit, Reporting & Governance Authority is replacing the Financial Reporting Council.
Investment banks Panmure Gordon and Liberum merged, dropping ‘Gordon’. Somerset Capital Management, founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg, entered voluntary liquidation. Peel Hunt announced Retail Book to help the public invest in flotations. The government-supported Pisces – Private Intermittent Securities & Capital Exchange System – will launch in 2025 to facilitate dealings in unquoted companies.
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Somerset Capital Management entered voluntary liquidation - Daniel Liel/AFP
The Treasury renamed the Rose Review into female entrepreneurship after chairwoman Dame Alison Rose was debanked as NatWest chief executive. Christ Church, Oxford, set up a Centre for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to train students to be enterprising – with a competition to find a better name.
Among start-ups, former Tesco boss Terry Leahy backed Selkirk Group’s Aim flotation, looking to buy undervalued companies, much like Melrose founder Simon Peckham’s Rosebank Industries. Mark Levine left Elliott to found his own hedge fund, Sargasso Partners, and Just Eat sold Grubhub to US start-up, Wonder.
Anne Boden Associates is the new vehicle of Starling Bank’s founder while former CBI head Tony Danker set up Growth Incorporated.
Marketing group WPP merged The & Partnership with MSix & Partners and renamed them T&Pm. Wealth manager James Hay Partnership morphed into Nucleus. Greek energy firm Mytilineos Holdings became Metlen for its London float because of the tricky name.
Monkey pox was renamed Mpox by the WHO after complaints. FLiRT and Juno are new Covid strains but AstraZeneca withdrew its Vaxzevria Covid vaccine.
GLP-1 agonists are a new class of anti-obesity drugs, which include Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy and Retatrutide, a new experimental drug being trialled by Eli Lilly. The NHS is piloting Health MoTs that measure weight. Junior doctors’ 22pc pay deal rebrands them resident doctors. Ministers finally established an Infected Blood Compensation Authority.
Whitehall also gave us a National Security Act, a National Energy System Operator that takes over gas and electricity National Grid’s systems and – post-Grenfell – a Building Safety Regulator plus a £3bn Building Safety Levy on housebuilders.
Cheltenham Festival renamed Ladies’ Day Style Wednesday and Royal Ascot’s dress code is now its Lookbook. The home of England Rugby now has a German sponsor as Twickenham was renamed Allianz Stadium. In Manchester, the Co-op Live arena opened after hiccups. The Museum of London moved to Smithfield and became the London Museum.
Jeremy Clarkson bought Burford’s Windmill pub and renamed it The Farmer’s Dog - Ben Birchall/PA Wire
Beyoncé and Moet Hennessy launched SirDavis, an American whisky. Tractor tax critic Jeremy Clarkson bought Burford’s Windmill pub and renamed it The Farmer’s Dog. Gordon Ramsey plans Lucky Cat and Bread Street Kitchen eateries for the City’s 22 Bishopsgate tower, also known as Horizon 22. London’s La Caprice restaurant re-opened as Arlington and former Conran restauranteur Des Gunewardena’s new chain is the D3 Collective.
Also entering the 2024 dictionary were Zimbabwe Gold – ZiG – the bullion-backed currency that replaced the country’s dollar; National Landscapes, the rebranded Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty; and the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order, a new city-state created inside Albania’s capital, Tirana. Back came Amstrad Digital, repurchased and relaunched by Lord Sugar.
A new batch of words come and go in 2025. Back will come the Volvo V60 and V90 estates, which were axed in 2023, while the postponed boiler tax levy on firms selling too few heat pumps will arrive. But the deposit return scheme due to start in 2024 has been bottled until at least 2027 and the social care cap is on ice indefinitely.
And disappearing from the future dictionaries should be no-fault evictions, personal statements on university applications, Smithfield and Billingsgate, while Virgin Money is being withdrawn under Nationwide’s ownership.
