The minefield of virtual court hearings and delays put victims at greater risk November 11, 2021 Family court hearings are being pushed back until Spring 2023 as the court system falters under the weight of the backlogs. Covid has been a driving force – but the judicial process has been fraught with delays long before the pandemic. Any court appearance is sensitive but the emotional nature of the family courts adds [...]
Just-in-time Sleaze buster: Boris Johnson, the part-time prime minister November 10, 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson has finally plucked up the courage to speak about the sleaze row that has shaken through Parliament. Unfortunately, he hasn’t said much. Johnson commented on the poor performance of Sir Geoffrey Cox, who has spent most of last year advising the British Virgin Island for the modest sum of £1m. The [...]
You Meta believe it: we need to figure out how to regulate the metaverse before we’re inside it November 10, 2021 The metaverse has been on everyone’s lips after Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of Facebook, now made fresh into Meta. “All of our products, including our apps, now share a new vision: to help bring the metaverse to life”, said Zuckerberg in his melodramatic Founder’s letter. Almost two weeks have gone by since the announcement, [...]
Meta exec: Interacting in (not on) the internet will transform our society November 10, 2021 There’s a poster on the wall of our offices which asks the question “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” It’s a brilliant question which encourages us to think bravely and confidently about the future. Last month, Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage virtually at Facebook’s annual conference to answer that question. He unveiled [...]
Britons squeamish to spend their savings are jeopardising our economic recovery November 10, 2021 The economic recovery is under threat. British consumers are saving and not spending. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that during lockdown, households accumulated a massive £180bn of so-called “excess savings”. Earlier in the year, most economic forecasts assumed that these would be run down. Lockdown had constrained people’s normal behaviour and with the [...]
If billionaires can decide to pay tax with a Twitter poll, something is badly wrong November 10, 2021 There’s something darkly amusing about one of the richest men in the world using Twitter to poll his 60 million followers about whether he should pay tax. It wasn’t just the flippant way Tesla’s Elon Musk (@edgeLorde) asked his followers to vote on whether he should sell $21bn of stock and in doing so pay [...]
Forget second jobs, ministers should do start with the grunt work of their first ones November 9, 2021 In a storm of sleaze allegations, it was an unfortunate day for Sir Geoffrey Cox to publish details of his £400,000 a year job at Withers LLP. For the pleasure of being paid almost half a million pounds, he offers “international legal services”. Sir Geoffrey, is, after all, a QC. To borrow a lawyer’s phrase, [...]
A bird? A plane? It’s time to turn to railways to solve fraught supply chains November 9, 2021 Last month, shipping giant Maersk was forced to divert container ships from Felixstowe because of backlogs caused by the HGV driver shortage. It reignited fierce debates around Brexit, Covid and other woes. But the truth is Britain’s freight infrastructure has long faced such problems – and this was just another symptom of a wider malaise. [...]
Plans to shift GPs around the country will do little to restore the health of the NHS November 9, 2021 Fresh proposals to relocate GPs to poorer areas have added further fuel to the ongoing political controversy about patient access to medical care. It sounds radical and could well be necessary – but it’s only a short term solution for the “levelling up” agenda, which should mean wholesale transformation for the entire country rather than [...]
International trade should be a friend -not a foe- to the UK’s green ambitions November 8, 2021 Considered by many as the enemy of environmental action, international trade is often vilified as the polar opposite of buying local and reducing one’s carbon footprint. Yet, although the movement of goods and services around the globe can be a significant contributor to environmental degradation, it also holds the key to its protection. As the [...]