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 [...]
Letters: Inflation puts us back on the brink April 14, 2022 [Re: Inflation reaches 7 per cent as Brits fear cost of living crisis, April 13] The fact that inflation has reached a thirty-year high is a reminder of the huge disparity between the needs of businesses facing financial difficulties and the lack of support from the Government in addressing these challenges. Britain has not seen [...]
How accountancy can help advance the global economies of tomorrow April 14, 2022 Society’s expectations of business and governments have shifted with speed and intensity. This has been driven by the profound impacts of Covid-19, compounded by deeply alarming threats to peace and prosperity from the war in Ukraine and conflict elsewhere. The humanitarian cost is devastating, while economic growth, public debt and wellbeing have all been adversely [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Safety in numbers lures Nordics to Nato April 14, 2022 Finland’s Prime Minister said yesterday the country would decide “within weeks, not months” if the nation would apply for Nato membership. Sweden is expected to follow swiftly as the war in Ukraine forces the Nordics to look at their allies. In Finland, a margin of six to one voters backed membership of the defensive alliance. [...]
Musk’s anarchic vision won’t help Twitter but a subscription model might April 14, 2022 In late January, an unknown investor began quietly building a stake in Twitter. A little over two months later, Elon Musk breached the surface. On April 4th, he revealed a 9.2 per cent stake. Though two days later an official filing corrected that to 9.1 per cent, Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder. Poor arithmetic [...]
Gove has signed a cladding deal – but it could kickstart a fight over affordable homes April 14, 2022 Political tensions enmeshed in the cladding crisis have raised their ugly heads again this week, as developers have come out and argued they won’t be able to build enough affordable homes if they’re made to pay even more for cladding remediation. Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has secured his first real win, with a deal [...]
If the FCA stays stuck in the past, London will lose capital to European competitors April 14, 2022 Sometimes, when things are not working fully, you have to start from the beginning. Perhaps it was this rationale driving Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, when he made several promises in the regulator’s “three year strategy” almost identical to those made by George Osborne in 2011 when the body was set [...]
Letters: New rules for a new age? April 13, 2022 [Re: Police training documents suggest the force are unequipped to investigate Big Tech, 11 April] Matthew Lesh’s comment that the Online Safety Bill is “draconian”, and the government’s focus on it means it is “failing to educate and resource the police to tackle real crime”, fails to acknowledge the crux of the bill and what [...]