Explainer-in-brief: All time high migration, but do we want more? November 29, 2022 Last week Keir Starmer came out saying that British businesses should cease their “immigration dependency” and source more of their workforce in the UK. Labour has always had a more centrist stance on immigration, but Sir Keir is keen to make clear he’s not going to unravel Brexit if he is elected. His stance echoes [...]
China has become a bio-police state, but finally its citizens have had enough November 29, 2022 The Chinese authorities have created an intractable dilemma for themselves.
From bookings to refunds, we’re all losing money to junk fees – including our economy November 29, 2022 America is hardly a country without crises. President Biden’s democrats only just scraped through a victory in the Senate earlier this year. And yet, with precious little time, the US leader has chosen to add another priority to his list: scrapping “junk fees”. If you’ve ever bought a ticket, booked a flight or sent money [...]
Open banking should be a blueprint to create more competition across sectors November 29, 2022 When Transport for London opened up their data, it enabled the creation of Citymapper.
Letters: End substandard housing – now November 29, 2022 [Re: Housing Associations have no accountability and a 2-year-old has paid the price, Nov 23] In London the homelessness total stands at 56,500 currently, with 75 per cent of this number families with young children. Over the next 12 months thanks to the rising cost of living and the falling number of available and fit-for-purpose [...]
Explainer-in-briefs: Finding the energy for a fight over energy November 28, 2022 After housing, the next cause of rebellion for Conservative MPs seems to be energy. Last week ex-prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss joined the rebellion on onshore wind, siding with those who want to see the ban on new planning permissions removed. It is interesting, given that Johnson wasn’t a fan of onshore wind [...]
Farage wants to reawaken the Brexit mob with a ragbag of populist policies November 28, 2022 The veteran political journalist Michael Crick recently described Nigel Farage as “the most significant politician of the century so far”. This might seem like a blatant piece of liberal-baiting clickbait, given that Farage has stood for election to the House of Commons no fewer than seven times without success, but Crick is neither a fool [...]
Terrible at times tables? Our reliance on fintechs doing our maths dents our income November 28, 2022 Londoners are the most “maths anxious” people in the UK. If reading this sentence sends a chill down your spine, then you’re probably one of the maths anxious people. The term is a little puzzling – do we mean people who are actually scared of numbers? After all, people seem to be scared of anything [...]
Optimism abounds in OBR forecasts, but just how feasible are they? November 28, 2022 When former Tory chancellor George Osborne created the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in 2010, he was unlikely to have envisioned it would become the source of financial market turmoil. But, that upheaval was not the budget watchdog’s fault. Instead, it was former prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Number 11 incumbent Kwasi Kwarteng’s disdain toward [...]
Stabilising the economy depends upon ensuring new start ups stay in our shores November 28, 2022 Tonight I will welcome the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and guests from across the City – and beyond – to Guildhall for the annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet. While the worst of the pandemic is behind us, we are facing the bleakest economic outlook that we [...]