General Election 2015: A Labour-SNP alliance could be a fillip for markets – but not for long April 7, 2015 Of all the possible outcomes of the General Election, one scenario in particular has concerned segments of the business and investor communities. A minority Labour government supported by SNP MPs is seen by some investment commentators as a challenging combination. Although Labour has ruled out a formal coalition, there may still be the possibility of [...]
Mutuals will now be able to issue shares – transforming competition in finance April 7, 2015 The Mutuals’ Deferred Shares Bill received Royal Assent last month. The Act will give mutual businesses a new option to raise tier one capital in the form of deferred shares. This is good news for leading mutuals like LV=, but what will this mean in practice and does it change the competitiveness of mutuals in [...]
Capitalism isn’t a recipe for perpetual crisis: It’s both stable and resilient April 7, 2015 The financial crisis did succeed in creating at least one dynamic new industry. Since the late 2000s, there has been a massive upsurge in op-ed pieces, books and even artistic performances offering a critique of capitalism. A founder member of the Monty Python team, Terry Jones, is the latest to get in on the act [...]
General Election 2015: As Tony Blair says he’s “100 per cent” behind Ed Miliband, will this prove positive for Labour? April 7, 2015 Chris Rumfitt, founder and chief executive of Corporate Reputation Consulting, says Yes Tony Blair remains the last politician to really connect with the British people. Indeed, he’s the only man in the last 20 years to win an election outright. So his “100 per cent backing” for Ed Miliband has got to help the Labour [...]
Obama should listen to the people in pushing through his Iran nuclear deal April 6, 2015 Foreign policy analysis in any country tends to be the preserve of a tiny elite: a small number of people practise it, and generally a miniscule section of society follows it. In the UK, to all our shame, a far greater percentage of the population watches The X Factor than exhibits a healthy understanding [...]
Welfare of Nations: Our debate about the future of the state is worryingly parochial April 6, 2015 In the aftermath of the Cold War, we were told that capitalism had won. Communism had been defeated, and we were entering Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” – with capitalist liberal democracies the highest, and final, form of human government. But what if “capitalism” versus “communism” was always a false dichotomy? What if the truly [...]
Mythbusting Nigel Farage: Why immigration doesn’t erode social cohesion and trust April 6, 2015 The political scientist Robert Putnam famously found that Americans “hunker down” in the face of social diversity, doing less in the community and trusting people less – even their own compatriots. When Nigel Farage suggested that one reason kids tend not to play on the street nowadays was immigration, he was voicing a common concern: [...]
Have brands “hijacked” Easter? I’d say it’s an egg-cellent idea April 5, 2015 It’s funny how we so often link food to religious events: hot-cross buns on Good Friday; Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and Simnel cake during Lent. So who could blame brands trying to do the same thing: Coco-Cola’s land-grab for the Christmas holidays – and, more relevant to this time of year, Cadburys' chocolate egg-gifting [...]
General Election 2015: The leaders’ TV debate Achilles heels April 2, 2015 No-one's perfect – and all seven of the party leaders in this week's TV debate are no exception. These are the chinks in their armour. David Cameron: A tense prime minister After doing his best to avoid the debates altogether, the Prime Minister must work hard to convince viewers he really wants to be there. [...]
HSBC’s next headache is relocation, relocation, relocation April 1, 2015 If Douglas Flint had a tenner for every time he had been asked about the future location of HSBC’s headquarters, he’d have almost enough to pay its contribution to the bank levy by himself. Flint has many other things on his mind right now: the reputational fallout from the Swiss tax evasion affair, sluggish returns [...]