Why the housing crisis is fast becoming a threat to London’s businesses September 25, 2014 LONDON is a magnet for talent – there is little doubting that. But it is also a city with an underlying weakness that should be recognised as a danger to the capital’s competitiveness. That Achilles’ heel is London’s chronic housing shortage, an issue that is all too rarely framed in terms of business and competitiveness. [...]
As BlackRock sells Tesco shares, has the grocer been permanently damaged by recent events? September 25, 2014 James McGregor, director of Retail Remedy, says Yes. Tesco’s admission this week that it had overstated its declining profits by £250m was one hell of a story. But the accounting cock-up and subsequent dumping of Tesco shares by BlackRock are really only footnotes in the protracted obituary of this once all-conquering retailer. The hegemonic Tesco [...]
Why Sir Richard Broadbent could be next to checkout at Tesco after £250m profit overstatement debacle September 24, 2014 Things are always unnoticed until they’re noticed.” Those seven Rumsfeld-esque words could seal Sir Richard Broadbent’s fate as Tesco chairman. Responding to questions about the accounting debacle at Britain’s biggest retailer, Broadbent offered a painful reminder of how quickly events can spiral out of the control of even the grandest of grandees. The [...]
Britain’s Mittelstand: Stop overlooking the squeezed middle of UK business September 24, 2014 PARTY conference season is in full swing, with politicians honing their soundbites for the coming general election. Many will have heard of “the squeezed middle”, used to refer to the middle classes who have been caught by the rising cost of living and stagnant wage growth. But the term could apply equally to the business [...]
Change or we’ll go: Why threatening to leave the EU is a win-win for Britain September 24, 2014 WHEN the Prime Minister promised an EU referendum in January 2013, the idea that the UK might be better off outside the EU was unfathomable for many, an idea relegated to the fringes of political discussion. But in the space of 18 months, senior government figures are now on the record saying they would vote [...]
Our housing crisis will become a catastrophe without a national crusade to fix it September 24, 2014 HOUSING is a basic human right, and we are denying it to our children. If current house price rises continue, babies born today will pay £6.3m in 2048 for a one bedroom London flat. Already, at around £428,000, the average London house price is over 16 times the average national salary. There is a vast [...]
As Cameron recalls Parliament, should Britain join an open-ended campaign against the IS? September 24, 2014 Hannah Stuart, research fellow at The Henry Jackson Society, says Yes. Suggestions from the Pentagon that military action against the Islamic State (IS) could take years should not deter the UK. Neither should they come as a surprise – the fight against global jihadists is already a generational struggle. For years, militant Islamist groups have [...]
Labour’s misdiagnosis: A larger state is not the way to raise living standards September 23, 2014 To paraphrase the economist John Maynard Keynes, Ed Miliband’s speech yesterday to the Labour Party conference was an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end in Bedlam. For Miliband, the market has failed to deliver rising prosperity, and it is now time for big government to get back in [...]
Low inflation isn’t abnormal: It’s a feature of a competitive market economy September 23, 2014 FEARS of deflation are rising across Europe, as inflation keeps edging down to lower and lower rates. Eurostat estimates the rate of inflation in the Eurozone in the year to August to be only 0.4 per cent, compared to 1.3 per cent in the year to August 2013. Negative rates were observed in eight EU [...]
Name-dropping won’t cut it: Miliband must do more to rouse his party September 23, 2014 Colin, Gareth, Elizabeth, the two young women in the local park… it sounds like the beginning of that song by The Beautiful South, which is apt, given the track was called Song for Whoever. Instead, the names were part of a list of people Ed Miliband has recently met in the street, trotted out yesterday [...]