Weekend Read: Job market tension threatens to derail Britain’s economic recovery July 17, 2021 The UK labour market is roaring back to life. After months of being shuttered due to Covid, businesses are finally welcoming customers back through their doors – and ramping up hiring to cope with soaring demand. Companies added 356,000 workers to payrolls over the last month. Total weekly hours worked has reached its highest level [...]
Britain is running out of new ideas and it’s killing productivity July 16, 2021 It is no secret that Britain is in a productivity slump. The statistics should be familiar. In the decade before the pandemic, productivity grew at just 0.3 per cent per year. Before the financial crisis, it grew at 2 per cent. That might sound like an abstract or wonkish concern, but it is the difference [...]
Joe Biden’s executive order smoothing a transition to open-banking should inspire UK competition and innovation July 16, 2021 President Biden won a lot of praise when he issued a slew of consumer-friendly executive orders last week. One of them could have an impact here, an ocean away from the US consumers who’ll feel the direct benefit. The order aims to make it easier for US customers to access and share their banking data. [...]
Screenshot: Will a streaming overhaul tidy up the UK’s messy music sector? July 16, 2021 This week: **Media Moment of the Week: ‘Oh fiddlesticks’ **Could a streaming crackdown tidy up Britain’s messy music sector? Media Moment of the Week: ‘Oh fiddlesticks’ In a situation you wouldn’t have thought possible in 2021, the BBC somehow found a man in Nottingham on Monday morning who still didn’t know the result of the [...]
Arcane taxes on junk food is all pain with almost no benefit July 16, 2021 Some people are born lucky. They can eat junk food all day long without putting on any weight. Others develop rolls of fat after a few packets of crisps. The former can live blissfully without these concerns. The latter must struggle every day – either with obesity or self-control and exercise – to stay in [...]
Sketch: A step-by-step guide to levelling up and making sourdough by Boris Johnson July 15, 2021 We’re levelling up trains, we’re levelling up roads, we’re levelling up shires and towns, counties and cities. We’re levelling up our internet, our schools, and our clean energy infrastructure, Boris Johnson told a crowd yesterday in an attempt to flesh out and actually explain the phrase which has plagued British politics possibly even more than [...]
Gold has had a bad month, but bullish activity could suggest a bottom July 15, 2021 The price of gold has dropped 5 per cent since the end of May. The majority of this decline can be attributed to an increase in interest rates following a recent US Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting). As inflation concerns grew, the Fed signalled a more “hawkish” direction with an expected hike in [...]
DEBATE: Should we have ID verification for social media? July 15, 2021 England football stars Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancha were targeted with horrific racist abuse on social media after the team lost to Italy in the Euros 2020 final. The abuse was loudly condemned by all sides of politics, with Boris Johnson slamming the “disgusting” comments. It has prompted another disgusting: should there be [...]
Freedom Day is forcing an unnecessary burden on small businesses by removing all legal Covid rules July 15, 2021 July 19th is coming up fast. So-called “freedom day” is here, unburdening society from the constraints of the last sixteen months and opening up the gates to a wondrous new beginning. Except if you are a small business, that really is not the case at all. The concept of freedom day, is in itself, misleading. Many [...]
So we’re going back to the office – now we need to fix childcare July 14, 2021 As July 19th draws nearer, so too does the end of the official guidance to work from home if you can. The predicted move back to offices (for a few days a week at least) is much anticipated by central London’s shops and restaurants, desperate for footfall to increase. But for London’s working parents it [...]