Analysis: Scholz’s orange light for Nord Stream 2 February 23, 2022 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s decision to suspend the approval process for Nord Stream 2 following Russia’s decision to instigate conflict in Ukraine was both an emphatic display of solidarity with the West, and also a canny political move, reflecting the savviness of Angela Merkel’s successor. The choice allowed him to present a united front with [...]
Ukraine is the victim of Europe’s refusal to wean itself off of Russian gas February 23, 2022 Either you master history or history masters you. Decades worth of political risk analysis can almost always be boiled down to this aphorism. In the case of Europe’s dealings with Valdimir Putin, rather than mastering history, Europe has vainly tried to take a holiday from it; we’re now watching the doleful results. First, let’s dispense [...]
Britain’s life sciences industry is on the cusp of revolution if it can rebuild faith in data February 23, 2022 Across life sciences, the need to develop treatments and vaccines for Covid-19 has been driving collaboration – bringing private, public and third sectors together. In Rishi Sunak’s spending review last year, he pledged to grow the UK public sector investment in research and development from £14.8bn to £22bn. To compete internationally, by 2024 the UK [...]
A four day week must withstand the productivity test to be worth the gamble February 23, 2022 Durham based challenger bank Atom has announced a four day working week for all of its 430 employees as more and more people debate the number of days we should be working. For SMEs in the services sector, a four day week is an attractive bandwagon to jump on. It is commonly given credit for [...]
Russia is overplaying its hand to try and force the West to give concessions February 22, 2022 AS world leaders plunge into an eleventh hour bid to talk Vladimir Putin down from the edge of a war with Ukraine, the fundamental misconceptions at the heart of Russia’s objectives in Ukraine must be dispelled in order to calibrate the right response. Russia wants a pro-Moscow administration in Ukraine without having to undertake a [...]
Johnson has called time on Covid-19 laws but it will come at employers’ expense February 22, 2022 Yesterday, Boris Johnson set out the government’s vision on “living with Covid-19”. The main announcement was the end of the legal requirement to self-isolate if positive. By the end of this week, people will only be “advised” not to leave home if they have the virus. This signals a shift from “state mandated” rules to [...]
Behind the story: Sajid vs Rishi and the cost of test and trace February 22, 2022 In May 2020, NHS test and trace was set up with a budget of £22bn. A year later, they had been given an extra £15bn, totalling £37bn over two years. This astronomical scale of money ploughed into the contact tracing regime has been blasted from all sides of politics, especially after it largely failed to [...]
The demand for renewable energy investment will survive the cost crunch February 22, 2022 Earlier this month, Ofgem announced they would raise their consumer price cap by 54 per cent as global gas prices continued to jump. Against this backdrop, it’s easy to dismiss the strength of the appetite for investment in UK renewables. The value of “green” energy projects started in 2021 and was on track to exceed [...]
Exclusive: Good Energy chief slams poorly run companies in worsening market crisis February 22, 2022 The energy crisis has been worsened by poorly managed energy firms and price competition, argues Good Energy boss Nigel Pocklington.
Opinion-in-brief: Is Big Jet TV Guy the new Francis Bourgeois? February 21, 2022 When Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web in 1989, he probably didn’t envisage that on a windy day in the UK, more than 100,000 people would tune in to watch planes land at Heathrow. Part of the fascination with Big Jet TV, the youtube channel dedicated to plan landings, was the host’s excitement. It [...]