Boris Johnson’s political survival could come at the cost of Britain’s rule of law April 20, 2022 Last week epitomised a favourite phrase of political pundits: it was a “bruising week” for the government. This one, so far, isn’t shaping up to be much better, after the Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis compared fines handed out to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to speeding tickets. The partygate fines have been fraught [...]
Letters: Traders, what’s up with WhatsApp? April 19, 2022 [Re: Whatsppp messages expose “Essex Boys” traders to multi-million US lawsuit, April 14] The lawsuit against eight “Essex Boys” traders”, accused of colluding to drive the price of oil down in order to make huge profits selling futures contracts, reinforces how it is possible for any message to get out over Whatsapp. All recorded in [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Johnson gets his own version of Denmark’s Aliens Act April 19, 2022 Last week, Boris Johnson unveiled a deal with Rwanda on migration. People coming to the UK to claim asylum can now be relocated there while their request is processed. The UK is not the first country to do this. Last summer, Denmark passed the controversial Bill L 226 – the “Aliens Act” – that allows [...]
Could the NHS lose its halo as waitlists push people towards private practice? April 19, 2022 Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS waiting times have increased sharply. In early 2020, there were about 4.4 million people on some kind of NHS waiting list. In early 2022, that figure had soared to 6.1 million. In early 2020, fewer than one in five patients waited for longer than 18 weeks. Now, [...]
A Welsh dream: we can fight international competition with more regional investment April 19, 2022 The City holds the crown as the world’s leading international financial centre. Yet, we can do more to power the UK’s regional commercial hubs. London attracts a diverse pool of financial and professional services talent from all around the globe, and provides unrivalled UK business access to world markets. Its natural impulse for collaboration is [...]
Companies relieved at unions waning power face a revived challenge in ERGs (no, not the Brexit kind) April 19, 2022 Companies are in the firing line for the way they treat their workers. The latest in the long list of companies who are experiencing the sharp end of worker anger is gaming giant Activision Blizzard whose workers are staging a virtual walkout in protest of the lifting of the vaccine mandate, which workers claim creates [...]
Easter Reads part two: the best in our opinion pages on politics, the economy and Ukraine April 18, 2022 The much debated Online Safety Bill was introduced on March 17. It means US tech giants finally have a set of standards to adhere to, to safeguard online communities. The piece of legislation, however, is a behemoth bill of confusion, writes Leah Montebello. It’s not clear yet what content counts as “harmful”, and who should [...]
In order to succeed, today’s entrepreneurs must be able to tell their story April 18, 2022 I have a great story to tell, I’ll admit it. I came to the UK as part of the Windrush generation. I landed in Birmingham with nothing: my four brothers and I lived in poverty, and I had to scrap for everything. I worked on my father’s allotment from the age of five; I dropped [...]
Easter Reads part one: the best in our opinion pages on politics, the economy and Ukraine April 16, 2022 Back when partygate was “seemingly” subsiding, Giles Kenningham looked at another political headache for Johnson, one with a much longer legacy: the future of the Union. The pandemic gave a taste of greater independence to the devolved nations, and now some want to keep it – surely, that’s the case with Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon. To [...]
Online booking agents have been behaving like kings – it’s time to topple them April 16, 2022 As the nation begins to plan summer breaks, following a tortuous two pandemic-fuelled years, a collective sigh of relief should be heard from Somerset to Stoke. But there’s little relief to be had when a broken system is driving a false market of competition. For years, the travel industry network titans have been able to [...]