Cab Wars: Research shows Uber is growing despite negative headlines April 6, 2016 As the London mayoral election approaches, it seems like a good time to consider Uber, a company that has divided opinion in the capital. The black cab industry has suffered since the emergence of Uber and its online app. Rows have arisen over regulation, metres and customer safety. City streets have seen several gridlock-causing protests. [...]
Why the bank bailouts are no model to follow for the struggling UK steel industry April 6, 2016 The potential closure of the Tata steel plants and the plight of Port Talbot are tragedies for those directly affected. A key question is: if the banks could be saved, why not steel? From a purely political perspective, the topic has legs. Loyal, hard working Welshmen, fearful for their families’ futures, contrasted with arrogant pin [...]
Panama Papers: Indiscriminate attacks on offshore centres fail to recognise how essential they are April 6, 2016 Indignation and outrage. This has been the default response from people across the world to the allegations made in the so-called Panama Papers. I am not surprised. The claims made following analysis of the 11.5m leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca suggest that it might have been allowing its wealthy international clientele [...]
As a new poll shows the Remain camp pulling ahead, is Project Fear working? April 6, 2016 Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, says Yes. Despite the majority of the media tending to favour Brexit, and a more dynamic Leave campaign, the signs are that voters will choose to remain in the European Union on 23 June. The betting markets continue to think so. As with the Scottish Referendum, there will be [...]
Panama Papers: The fallout from the data leak has only just begun April 5, 2016 The Tory MP for Earlingford, James Conwyn, gave a lot of people what they were looking for yesterday morning when he tweeted his apparent ambivalence towards the leak of the so-called Panama Papers. The gist of his statement was that the story amounts to nothing more than a voyeuristic peak into the bank accounts of [...]
The UK: A place where everyone has an opinion about what everyone else should be paid April 5, 2016 "How much do you earn then?” You get asked this a lot when you do media work discussing pay. Last week the topic was the introduction of George Osborne’s National Living Wage – a 7.5 per cent increase in the minimum wage for over-25s from 1 April with significant hikes to 60 per cent of [...]
Britain’s membership of the EU is systematically undermining the foundations of the City’s success April 5, 2016 As summer made way to autumn last year, I stood on the roof terrace of a smart office block, 30 floors above Brussels, as a guest of the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). A young, charming Spanish lady who worked for the BBA explained to me that there would be no banks in London if the [...]
UK steel is globally insignificant and unviable: Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to shoulder its losses April 5, 2016 With the Port Talbot steelworks up for sale, Tata saying the value of its operations are “almost zero”, and a £485m pension deficit, prospects for the plant’s thousands of workers look grim. But while this is certainly a local tragedy, some perspective is needed. Globally, the UK is responsible for 0.7 per cent of crude [...]
Will the Panama Papers leak be the beginning of the end for offshore financial centres? April 5, 2016 Robert Palmer, head of the Global Witness Money Laundering Campaign, says Yes. The Panama Papers lay bare how corruption, tax evasion and a whole host of other crimes are made possible by offshore financial centres. And the UK is deeply involved. Over half the companies named in the leak are registered in the UK’s tax havens, [...]
EU referendum: Why I identified 23 May as the date of maximum pre-referendum fear – and why it offers a great opportunity to buy up commercial property April 4, 2016 It is often said that if you repeat something enough, you will eventually come to believe it, even if you have forgotten its underlying truth. Saying it presents the risk of being called to account – as has been aptly demonstrated recently in the EU referendum debate. One such statement that I have made repeatedly is that [...]