Editorial: From fireworks to business rates, it’s time to move forward October 15, 2021 On the face of it, whether or not a fabulous yellow roman candle explodes like a spider across the stars for London’s New Year’s Eve celebrations is not the world’s most pressing issue. But in its own luminous way, the decision by the Mayor to cancel the capital’s midnight show for the second time in [...]
To fix the NHS, we must look at what went wrong, but also use what went right October 15, 2021 As we continue to rebuild from the effects of the pandemic, it is important to look at what went wrong, to take stock. We also need to look at what worked and where this can be applied elsewhere. This will not only help us to prepare for future pandemics, but in the shorter term will [...]
To see the vaccine in action, we need to stop counting Covid deaths October 15, 2021 In the late 1940s, Austin Bradford Hill and Richard Doll began interviewing hundreds of hospital patients, half of whom had lung cancer while the other half had various other diseases. Their research, published in 1950, showed that 99.7 per cent of the male lung cancer patients had a history of smoking. Out of 649 patients, [...]
Opinion-in-brief: Bridging the digital divide is key to solve the wealth gap October 14, 2021 When operating in an online world feels as natural as it does to many of us, those who face digital exclusion are easy to miss. We often think about the digital divide in relation to older people who grew up without computers, or those who live in rural areas with poor internet connections. But new [...]
Letters: FCDO, get a grip on green aid October 14, 2021 [Re: ICAI aid report release, yesterday] Yesterday’s report by ICAI – the government’s independent aid watchdog – on UK aid’s alignment with the Paris Agreement of “making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development” shows that the FCDO has a long way to go to ensure that aid [...]
Full fibre broadband is the next gold rush to get Britain connected October 14, 2021 There is a gold rush taking place in the UK right now. Private equity barons and telecoms cowboys are pouring money into BT Openreach challengers. Last month Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company and the IKEA holding company Intergogo injected over £1bn in CityFibre. It was the largest single round of funding into a UK full [...]
London has been resuscitated post-Covid and ambition will always keep cities alive October 14, 2021 The rumours of London’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. The pandemic has been linked to the decline, if not the death, of cities. This seemed practically inevitable as we were ordered to “stay at home” and city centres turned into glass and concrete ghost towns. Bans on socialising and the closure of businesses led many [...]
Editorial: Here’s to the billionaires heading for the final frontier October 14, 2021 So it’s beam me up, Bezos, as Captain Kirk almost said. Yesterday William Shatner became the oldest man to see space, sent off to near-orbit by Amazon’s Jeff on Blue Origin. To some, the competition between Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and no doubt other soon-to-emerge billionaires is a sign of the worst of [...]
Letters: the many trains of Scotland October 13, 2021 [Re: Sturgeon’s dismal domestic record has derailed the SNP’s train of separatism, 8th October] It was an odd choice of metaphor with the “derailed train of separatism” for Nicola Sturgeon. Whatever the Scottish government’s other successes and failures, railways, and especially electrifying the Central Belt, are its crowning triumph. From just one rather indirect route [...]
Opinion-in-brief: Don’t judge a city by its WeWork offices October 13, 2021 WeWork’s failings, including expected losses of £1.1bn this year, should not distract from the vitality of the City of London’s office market, which is showing that the office is far from dead. It should come as little surprise that WeWork has suffered from its own high-risk strategy. Its long-term lease commitments made for a brittle [...]