Grenfell should stand as a reminder that we have a long way to go on housing October 6, 2021 Housing is at the centre of today’s political conversation. The electorate is acutely aware of the housing crisis, and is demanding sincere policies to solve it. At the Conservative Party Conference this week, Michael Gove talked about raising living standards and making homes a safe and decent place to live in this country. Gove has [...]
Editorial: The City’s values endure in its buildings – old and new October 6, 2021 If we have learnt one thing from the last year, it’s that the City of London is perhaps a more fragile thing than some of us thought. Resilient, yes; able to bounce-back, that too. But nonetheless, as a community, as a place dripping with both history and innovation, we can never take it for granted [...]
Scantily clad CMA guidelines will do little to fend off greenwashing on our high streets and in our banks October 5, 2021 restore it. The term greenwashing wasn’t invented by the environmentally active Gen Z or even the older cohort of millenials. It dates back to 1986 when American environmentalist Jay Westerveld used it to describe hotels asking their customers to reuse towels to limit water usage while they abused neighbouring nature areas for their premises. Washing [...]
Save Bevis Marks: Skyscraper plans are a menace to the City’s heritage October 5, 2021 The business of London is business. So it has always been. The earliest surviving piece of writing from the city, inscribed on a wooden tablet barely a decade after its foundation by the Romans in AD 43, is an IOU. For two millennia, people have been coming to London to make money. It is the [...]
Britain’s pay gap standards are outdated and threaten an equal future October 5, 2021 The continual disparity between men’s and women’s pay remains the starkest illustration of gender inequality in the UK. For several years now, we’ve had the data showing the harsh reality that female workers are valued less – but simply shining a light on a problem is not always enough to fix it. We only know [...]
Editorial: Crisis? What crisis? Sunak and his party would be wise to avoid complacency October 5, 2021 The year is 1979, and rubbish bags are piling up in Leicester Square. Lorry drivers are striking leading to queues at fuel pumps, and Brits are panic-buying bread. Prime Minister Jim Callaghan returns to Britain from a conference in Guadeloupe and declares airily that “I don’t think other people in the world would share the [...]
Time to fly: our space highways are just as important for security as those on the ground October 5, 2021 Much has been said about the poor timing of Government announcements, and the launch of the National Space Strategy last week was no exception. As Britain sent the first satellites from European soil in 2022 the country was grappling with fuel shortages and fears of a “winter of discontent”. However, the criticism is little in [...]
Michael Gove vows to enact ‘real change’ on a local level to fulfil levelling up agenda October 4, 2021 Michael Gove, the newly appointed Housing Secretary, attempted to finally add flesh to the bones of the levelling up agenda at Conservative Party Conference yesterday. In his keynote speech in Manchester, Gove, the head of the freshly renamed department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities vowed to provide “real change” for downtrodden regions of the [...]
Opinion-in-brief: A real Australian-style points system would fill the gaps October 4, 2021 The shortage of HGV drivers has led to chaos at petrol stations, empty supermarket shelves and McDonald’s running out of milkshakes. Now, animals are being culled because of a lack of butchers and care homes are struggling to fill vacancies. Christmas, once again, is in peril. Britain voted to leave the European Union to “take [...]
Keir Starmer’s bid for Red Wall voters will leave the young out in the cold October 4, 2021 No one wants to hear a longer speech from Keir Starmer after his first performance in front of live crowds at Labour conference last week. The ninety minute monologue on his vision for the party’s future was, in short, a lot. But even in the midst of winding journeys through his personal history, segues on [...]