Explainer-in-brief: Two years on, Brexit is still creating hurdles for businesses December 23, 2022 Brexit is again in the spotlight – is anyone surprised? – as a new survey published this week found that more than three quarters of companies doing business with the EU think the deal is of no help in growing their economic activity. More than half of the British Chambers of Commerce members said they [...]
Despite its glitches and quirks, we would all be better off not dismissing artificial intelligence December 23, 2022 After years of being told that powerful artificial intelligence technology with jaw-dropping capabilities is just about to barrel into our lives, this may be remembered as the year that it finally did. But instead of busting down humanity’s front door with medical nanorobots or job-stealing automatons, AI has quietly become mainstream in the disarming guise [...]
The government’s inconsistent approach to net zero is confusing businesses ready for a change December 23, 2022 Faced with labour shortages, rising costs and falling consumer spending, business confidence has dropped to levels not seen since the financial crisis of 2008. The government isn’t doing enough to restore this confidence. And it isn’t preparing businesses for a net zero economy either – which would be the only enduring route to prosperity. A [...]
Opinion-in-brief: The government can’t get a grip on migration December 22, 2022 Yesterday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman had the chance to reiterate her commitment to protecting the country’s borders while reducing the asylum applications backlog in front of the Lords justice and home affairs committee. She was grilled about the avenues available to Afghan refugees, particularly women. The questioning was all the more poignant given that on [...]
As winter tightens its grip, businesses can’t afford to ignore the disability pay gap a second longer December 22, 2022 If a job description had mentioned that you would have had to work the final 54 days of this year unpaid, you would have likely turned it down. But this is the reality that people with disabilities in the UK have been facing in 2022. The disability pay gap works out to the equivalent of [...]
Sometimes, size matters: what smaller cities can learn from London’s ever-expanding infrastructure December 22, 2022 I’m not saying news travels slowly up North, but it took me until this week to finally travel on The Elizabeth Line. The train was noticeably cleaner and nicer than the older trains that I had been on for the first part of my journey, and the sheer breadth of stations that the line serves [...]
Explainer-in-brief: The infamous Twitter poll on Elon Musk December 21, 2022 This week started with Elon Musk creating a Twitter poll on whether he should step down as Twitter chief, following all the controversy of the past months. The poll closed with 57.5 per cent of users saying “yes”, and 42.5 per cent saying “no”. As one could have expected, Musk subsequently brought the poll into [...]
This Christmas, let’s all reconsider how we think about innovation, jobs and wages December 21, 2022 There is still time to have a last minute Christmas present delivered. No, of course not by Royal Mail; but one of its enthusiastic competitors will do the job. Given the impact which technology in general and the internet in particular has had on postal service, it is hard to imagine a more pointless strike [...]
A muddled India trade deal will show how this government is negotiating our future without public scrutiny December 21, 2022 Earlier this month, trade secretary Kemi Badenoch flew to India for the latest round of talks on a new trade deal. A few days previously, a leaked chapter of the deal made it into the press, showing the British government pushing India to apply harder patent standards. Various groups, including the British Medical Association, expressed [...]
Explainer-in-brief: High Court gives the green light to the Rwanda asylum plan December 20, 2022 Yesterday, the High Court ruled that the controversial policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was legal. But the judges also said that the Home Office had failed to properly consider the circumstances of the eight people it was trying to deport back in June, and invited the department to consider them once more. The [...]