Immigration supporters must face facts: The public has no confidence in the system August 12, 2016 How would I sum up the job of the new home secretary Amber Rudd when she thinks about immigration in a post-Brexit world? “Immigration might be good for your GDP, but it doesn’t help mine.” A friend made the point when he visited London a few weeks ago. He isn’t racist, he has nothing against [...]
From semiconductors to soccer, foreign takeovers are good news for Britain post-Brexit August 12, 2016 "Corporate raiders” in a “stampede of acquirers” “crushing UK innovation” – the rhetoric around foreign takeovers in the past few months hasn’t been warm and welcoming in some parts. While alarmist in tone, this narrative is in part borne out by data – stats recently released by Thomson Reuters point to an increase in the [...]
After a gloomy RICS survey, should we be prepared for big falls in UK house prices? August 12, 2016 Andrew Craig, an independent financial adviser and founder of Plain English Finance, says Yes. We have already seen significant falls in house prices in the UK if, as should be the case, you measure such things in currency units other than pounds sterling. If you bought a property worth £1m around 10 years ago, that property [...]
It’s time to purge the stock market’s noticeboard of PR puff and let activist investors report on what really matters August 12, 2016 It's not exactly needle-in-a-haystack stuff: trawl through the reams of regulatory news announcements on most days and you will spot numerous examples of public relations puff masquerading as crucial investor information. So it’s disappointing that this week has thrown into sharp focus yet another of the perversities of London’s listings regime – and one which [...]
How to bridge the great Brexit brand divide? August 11, 2016 A YouGov survey has found a cultural divide at the heart of British society and it’s evident in the way we shop and, in particular, the brands we choose. The research lists the top 10 brands for Leave voters versus the top 10 brands for Remain voters and reveals that the former tend to choose [...]
End the stadium standing ban: It’s an open goal for football fans and clubs August 11, 2016 Twenty eight people died at the 30 June Stadium in Cairo last year, suffocating in a crush that began when police fired tear gas at away fans entering without tickets. It was another in a long line of stadium tragedies. But like the 2006 PhilSports Arena disaster in the Philippines, and the disasters in Johannesburg [...]
Cut Lloyds boss Antonio Horta-Osorio some slack: His “tryst” doesn’t make him worse at his job August 11, 2016 Not since Fred the Shred was at his most dastardly has a banking boss made the gossip pages of the tabloids. But this week Lloyds boss Antonio Horta-Osorio strolled into the headlines hand in-hand with Russell Group director general Dr Wendy Platt, after The Sun revealed an alleged tryst between the pair The paper’s report [...]
How free trade died in the US – and why the same could happen in Britain too August 10, 2016 Two landmark US trade deals look like candidates for the morgue: the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU. After nearly 70 years at the forefront of efforts to liberalise trade and investment across international borders, the US has done a complete about face, with leaders [...]
Why the post-Brexit economic doom and gloom may have been greatly overdone August 10, 2016 Something quite remarkable happened in the UK economy in June. UK broad money growth M4ex rose 5.8 per cent (year-on-year) – its fastest rate since the introduction of quantitative easing in 2009. Indeed, the growth rate is approaching the 6 per cent baseline for broad money growth that the Bank of England announced was its target [...]
The RMT’s dangerous strikes are a cynical ploy to pave the way for rail renationalisation August 10, 2016 There is no general upsurge of industrial militancy in the UK: the latest figures show both numbers of stoppages and days lost to strikes remain low. The cluster of RMT actions – against Southern Railway/Govia Thameslink (now suspended), Virgin East Coast and Eurostar – will not be a harbinger of a new wave of damaging [...]