Mike Lynch: Cass Business School’s new name is fitting tribute to information forefather Thomas Bayes April 23, 2021 It was encouraging to read the news Cass Business School has been renamed after the statistician Reverend Thomas Bayes who, unbeknownst to many of us, plays an important part in all our lives – including my own. Bayes deserves far more historical credit for the place he occupies among the forefathers of information theory. If [...]
Strong trade ties with India could put the UK in pole position to join the CPTPP and face up to China April 22, 2021 Boris Johnson has cancelled his planned visit to India after coronavirus cases spiralled out of control. Moving the conversation online, in the way many of us have done this past year, in no way diminishes the importance of the discussions he and Prime Minister Modi will have in the coming weeks. Their dialogue is occurring [...]
London Mayoral elections: Whoever wins, scratchy relations with Downing Street must be mended to fight for the capital April 22, 2021 The Covid crisis has laid bare some of the UK’s harshest inequalities, nowhere more starklythan in London. East London boroughs have seen some of the highest death rates in thecountry, and London’s unemployment rate has soared. But other boroughs have some ofthe country’s lowest death rates, and the city that has lost most jobs has [...]
Liz Truss must keep import tariffs on steel – or risk losing the industry in the UK for good April 22, 2021 In decades past, import tariffs were regarded as nothing but a protectionist relic of resistance to free trade. But in recent years, those of us who believe in fair competition have had to learn that tariffs are an essential safeguard in a global trading system where some countries will not play by the rules. The [...]
The Super League collapsed all by itself and Boris Johnson’s threats to intervene were badly misguided April 21, 2021 The Super League was a terrible idea. It inevitably fell apart before it even had a chance to begin. The owners of the dubiously self-titled Big Six exposed themselves as hopelessly out of touch with fans, players and their own managers. It became shamefully obvious to even the most fair-weather football fan that the format [...]
DEBATE: Should the government introduce legislation to ensure business is a force for good? April 21, 2021 Martin Bunch, Managing Partner at Bates Wells says Yes The Companies Act as it stands doesn’t get in the way of good corporate practice, but neither does it actively encourage corporations to embrace their responsibilities to wider society and the planet. The Better Business Act aims to amend the Companies Act and embed commitment to [...]
Unemployment has stabilised but there will be economic pain ahead April 21, 2021 There are high levels of business optimism. Survey after survey has told us this, from reports from Deloitte on large companies to evidence from the Federation of Small Businesses. Consumer savings are at an all-time high. People are itching to get out and spend the money they have been forced to accumulate. All in all, [...]
We must urgently solve the £15bn growth capital gap to keep innovation in the UK April 21, 2021 Cast your mind back to a decade ago, when the world of finance and banking was in disarray, and we were in midst of the worst economic disaster in generations. Trust in financial institutions was at an all-time low, and as so often happens, technology played a central role in restoring public faith and helped [...]
We need to keep a level head when we talk about new Covid variants April 20, 2021 Viruses mutate. Since Covid-19 first emerged, it has mutated thousands and thousands of times. Some of these changes are more concerning than others, but there must be a level-headed approach to this without a near-constant headline-grabbing hyperbole sowing fear every time a new variant emerges. Much of the recent coverage has been wildly unhelpful and [...]
No, minister, really: the David Cameron lobbying scandal and the death of advice in Whitehall April 20, 2021 The revelations of potentially undue influence on ministers over the past couple of weeks have been a happy hunting ground for purveyors of hyperbole and clutchers of pearls. A story which began with David Cameron texting the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, on behalf of a company which employed him has blossomed ferociously into a soup-to-nuts scandal [...]