Another banking scandal was the last thing the City needed August 6, 2012 JUST when it felt as if it couldn’t get any worse for the City, it is now Standard Chartered’s turn to be engulfed in a major scandal. The bank – which didn’t need a bailout and is hugely successful thanks to its emerging market focus – stands accused by US regulators of having deliberately ignored [...]
London must become a global tourist magnet August 5, 2012 EXTRAORDINARY. That was the only way to describe the atmosphere at the Olympic stadium this weekend. Team GB’s astonishing triumph has enthused the nation – it has become virtually impossible to walk anywhere in London without spotting someone sporting a Union Jack – and Usain Bolt’s spectacular 100m Olympic record last night was a magical [...]
Cameron’s decision to stick with Osborne is a major gamble August 2, 2012 SO that’s it, then. George Osborne will remain chancellor after the September reshuffle, and will keep his job until the election. David Cameron was emphatic yesterday. It means his fortunes are now inextricably linked to his chancellor’s; critics of Osborne’s policies will now also become critics of Cameron’s; and anybody who wants to replace the [...]
Team GB is doing brilliantly – but the British economy isn’t August 1, 2012 JUST as some had started to worry, Team GB delivered spectacularly yesterday, thanks in no small part to Bradley Wiggins, our new sideburned national hero. GB Plc isn’t performing as well, unfortunately. Manufacturing output is shrinking disastrously. The manufacturing purchasing managers index slumped from 48.4 to 45.4 in July – its lowest level since May [...]
London is suffering as Olympic boost outweighed by losses July 31, 2012 SOMETIMES, we don’t need statistics to tell us what is happening to the economy. London during the past few days has been a case in point: the Olympics are a great success, of course, and those retailers and companies positioned to cash in (such as the Westfield Stratford shopping centre) are doing a roaring trade. [...]
Workers should not be spending 650 hours a year on email July 30, 2012 IT seems that we finally have an answer to why productivity is falling in Britain – and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that so many of us are spending so much time watching the Olympics. The problem is much more prosaic and far more devastating: we are spending so much time [...]
Olympics are a great success but won’t solve economic crisis July 30, 2012 FOR those of us lucky enough to have been at the Olympic Park in Stratford yesterday or at one of the other venues, the scale and success of the Games was a wonder to behold. Tens of thousands of happy spectators from all over the world, brandishing flags of an extraordinary range of home nations, [...]
Even sceptics must now embrace the greatest show on earth July 26, 2012 IT’S TIME for a confession: I haven’t always been the Olympics’ greatest fan. I still dislike the Zil lanes, the disruption to business, the restrictions on free speech, the closure of parks and facilities, the immense cost to taxpayers. But it’s time to move on. Even I am now feeling really excited about the Games [...]
It is time for some genuine radicalism from George Osborne July 25, 2012 IT was typically cunning of Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, to call for a grand coalition on the economy yesterday. Cunning – but utterly wrong. George Osborne has failed lamentably – but that doesn’t mean Ed Balls is right, or that we need to ditch political debate in return for a disastrous neo-Keynesian consensus. The [...]
First signs that foreign investors are losing trust in Britain July 24, 2012 WITH the Eurozone back in crisis, it is tempting to assume that Britain will be fine, that we don’t share the problems plaguing much of the continent. Such complacency would be a mistake. As an intriguing note from Credit Agricole points out, there are growing signs that investors are losing confidence in sterling’s status as [...]