Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is that no-one tries to scrap what the Iron Lady achieved January 5, 2012 THIS isn’t a review of The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher and on general release in cinemas this week [For this, see p. 18]. I’m sure it’s a fine film and I’ll see it once I can scrape together the money from my dwindling pension for a pair of tickets and some [...]
Regulation can’t wipe out the risk of another Enron January 5, 2012 MOST of us don’t need reminding about the 2001 accounting fraud that became known as the Enron scandal – $11bn of value wiped out in what was at the time the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy ever – and which also brought down Arthur Andersen. On 17 December last year, Enron’s chief financial officer Andrew Fastow [...]
A Victorian star which should shine Brighter January 5, 2012 IN MY brief visit to last October’s Conservative conference, while the Tory elite partied inside their secure zone, my wife and I found ourselves alone as we made the brief pilgrimage to a statue on Albert Square. The small huddle of protestors nearby weren’t paying the Victorian stone figure any attention either, nor were the [...]
RAPID RESPONSES January 5, 2012 Shorn in the USA No other developed country permits such neutering of individual shareholder rights? [True owners bear risks and rewards, yesterday] Try the USA. While there are many imperfections in the UK system, in the USA you can have 75 per cent of shareholders vote against a director and they can still go to [...]
True owners bear risks and rewards – UK shareholders should not be any different January 4, 2012 IT IS early in the life of Professor John Kay’s review into the operation of UK equity markets, commissioned by Vince Cable. But it is already clear both from the responses to the first call for evidence and from John Kay’s reputation that it is going to shine an uncomfortable light on one of the [...]
Going green isn’t easy when we’re so far in the red January 4, 2012 GOING green is important. But costs matter too, and never more so than at present. Household incomes are going through a decade of stagnation and businesses and jobs face a big hit this year if the euro crisis is not resolved. The potential consequences, positive and negative, of British energy policy are huge, but right [...]
Our hunt for beauty is costing women dearly January 4, 2012 GIVING up alcohol is not going to happen. But there is one new year’s resolution that I’m going to try to stick to this year. It is to find self-validation in my achievements – professional, moral, intellectual – not in my appearance. As up to 50,000 British women face the risk of their PIP silicone [...]
RAPID RESPONSES January 4, 2012 Wellbeing matters While some workplaces may now have strategies aimed at improving staff wellbeing [2012 should be the year we get off the couch and make companies more productive, Tuesday], few yet have addressed the more significant need to support the one in six of the working population who will be at risk of a [...]
Politicians have been thumb twiddling over care reforms for 15 years. It’s time to act January 3, 2012 AN OPEN letter to the Prime Minister argued for reform of social care funding yesterday. But we have been here before. Fifteen years ago the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published the results of their Inquiry into the Costs of Continuing Care. The 1997 Labour government made reforming the funding of care a priority. A Royal [...]
Why dot London is a capital plan for a digital age January 3, 2012 ICANN, the governing body for internet web addresses, last year gave the green light to the most significant shake-up to the domain name structure in 25 years. The decision to widen the current system of internet domain names means that from 12 January until 12 April this year, organisations can apply for the domain name [...]