Our regulators can protect high standards and deliver strong competition in the UK February 7, 2022 The UK’s banking and finance markets are fiercely competitive, with firms fighting for business and customers every single day. At the same time, the UK competes with financial centres around the world to secure business and attract new investment and talent. Late last year, the Treasury set out a range of proposals to help ensure [...]
Rowing a very long way: meet the two entrepreneurs who crossed the Atlantic for charity February 5, 2022 Among all the noble ways to raise money for a charitable cause, Guy Rigby and David Murray chose an unconventional one – to say the least. The two businessmen rowed across the Atlantic for seven weeks, breaking the world record as the oldest couple to ever row across any ocean. Indeed Guy is 68 and [...]
New Zealand’s exit from isolation is only the first test February 4, 2022 After two years of harsh and emotionally devastating border controls, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced the country will finally relax expensive hotel quarantine requirements for returning Kiwis. It will happen in stages, starting with New Zealand citizens coming from Australia; international students will be barred until April. But the test won’t be [...]
New York Times’ pursuit of subscribers over profit buys into a Big Tech delusion February 4, 2022 Those five, elusive letters. Only when I have found them can my day begin. Alas, they may soon become more elusive still. This week, the New York Times bought Wordle for an undisclosed, seven-figure fee. Ominously, the “Gray Lady” has promised only that Wordle will “initially remain free”. The New York Times has been unusually [...]
Council tax will cushion the cost of living crisis, but it accepts an outdated policy February 4, 2022 With inflation soaring, people are becoming increasingly desperate. Inflation is at record levels, sitting at 4.8 per cent in December and expected to soar as high as 7 per cent by April. The repercussions of this will be particularly strenuous on the most vulnerable. Indeed, the price of essential items that make up a larger [...]
London’s status as a safe haven for dirty foreign money relies on our own complicity February 4, 2022 For a decade, Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of a jailed Azerbaijani banker, spent an average of £4,000 a day in Harrods. It was only in 2019 that the law finally caught up with her £16m Harrods bill. Her unexplained wealth – including a £12m Knightsbridge house – are set to be seized. Hajiyeva is a [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Kyiv on the brink February 3, 2022 Yesterday, US President Joe Biden announced he would send 2,000 more troops to Europe to countenance Russian aggression in Ukraine. Britain has pledged £88m following a meeting between Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday. But the UK is struggling to get itself taken seriously by Russia after Foreign Secretary Liz Truss mixed [...]
Letters: A smart way to slice the cake February 3, 2022 [Re: Cake Box shares recovering after plummeting when blogger found accounts errors, Jan 22] Ever noticed a correlation between high profile “accounting errors” and the reality of a firm’s financial performance? Cake Box recently lost almost a fifth of its market value after “inconsistencies” in its annual report were spotted by a blogger, including an [...]
The rallying cry of levelling up has been cash-strapped and watered down February 3, 2022 People deserve to live in a country where life is not a postcode lottery, says Michael Gove in the foreword of the much awaited flagship plan for levelling up unveiled yesterday. This is one of those recycled truisms we hear again and again in politics. The same could be said for much of the white [...]
As Johnson and Starmer dance to the same tune, politics will look for an outsider February 3, 2022 THIS week, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has invoked Margaret Thatcher in an effort to skewer Boris Johnson for ignoring Covid rules and attacked the Prime Minister for presiding over a policy of “low growth and high taxes”. It’s a strong position for Starmer to be in, as support for Johnson groans under the [...]