Opinion-in-brief: Instagram and TikTok outlawed on the roads – finally March 25, 2022 From today, people driving and using their phones for any activity will be breaking the law. Reckless drivers could face a fine of up to £1,000, 6 points on their licence or a full ban. “I will do everything in my power to keep road-users safe”, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps proudly announced. The new measures, [...]
Letters: A return to the City streets March 25, 2022 [Re: £5bn investment turnover for central London office market since start of 2022] Post-Omicron optimism has helped refuel confidence in London’s office market to the tune of £5bn since the turn of the year – and rightly so. Investors have correctly identified the underlying fundamentals of the City. The offices that will continue to attract [...]
Sunak wants to be a low-tax Tory but instead he’s following the US and picking winners March 25, 2022 When Frank Sinatra first uttered the words “the best is yet to come”, the UK’s fiscal strategy probably couldn’t have been further from his mind. But the words ring true after a spring statement that did little to make life any easier for those of us who make a living trying to read the Chancellor’s [...]
An Evergreen gift: supply chain plans need to move from the Dark Ages onto our screen March 25, 2022 In March last year, the plight of a ship, stuck in the Suez canal became a fixation for people across the world. The Ever Given became grounded and caused reverberations to global supply chains for weeks. The latest misadventure is that of the ironically named Ever Forward, which grounded in Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore, Maryland. [...]
The public shaming of P&O won’t help us give up the habit of exploitation for good March 25, 2022 We all know the playbook by now. Big corporation does something immoral or illegal, often both. Cue public outcry and calls for “something to be done”. The chief exec is hauled before a parliamentary committee to account for himself (it’s usually a man) and then, well … that’s often where things end. But this time, [...]
Editorial: P&O boss’s performance is a slow motion ferry crash into reputational damage March 25, 2022 If one of London’s esteemed public relations agencies was involved in the briefing of P&O boss Peter Hebblethwaite before his appearance in front of a parliamentary committee yesterday, it would perhaps be wise for said firm not to put it in their next pitch document. In the annals of disastrous select committee hearings, this was [...]
Rishi Sunak has shown his true colours by hiding stealth tax rises in the detail March 24, 2022 Don’t be fooled, Rishi Sunak is a fiscal conservative first, and a low-tax conservative second. This was a tax-cutting spring statement, but as the Office Budget Responsibility (OBR) pointed out, on balance Sunak has been a tax-hiking Chancellor. In fact, the net cut to personal taxes introduced at the Spring Statement offsets “just over a [...]
Potatoes are off the table with higher gas bills March 24, 2022 Yesterday, after the Chancellor unveiled his spending review, food banks pushed back as grim figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility warned of the biggest fall in household’s disposable incomes since records began. Richard Walker, the Managing Director of Iceland, gave a stark warning. He told the BBC that some food bank users were declining [...]
Britain’s birth rates put our economy at risk and men need to see the real problem March 24, 2022 This year, the ONS announced that for the first time, half of UK women were childless by their 30th birthday. As women leave it later and later to have children, the Great Baby Bust spells trouble for the UK. An ageing society brings serious problems, from falling standards of living to a slower rate of [...]
As inflation pushes hospitality prices up, customers’ patience will also start to wane March 24, 2022 Last week I had the painful, and for many people, familiar experience of trying to contact an airline to redeem evouchers. Mine was a simple request but not one I felt an online chat would resolve. After navigating a tortuous route through a myriad of menus, I was informed that they were too busy to [...]