Financial services have an incredible power to improve social mobility – but it’s been left behind in ‘levelling up’ July 2, 2021 Levelling up has become the watchword for Boris Johnson’s political agenda. It has been used as an umbrella term for investment across the country where growth has traditionally been slower than that in the South East and London. Its focus, however, has overwhelmingly been for sectors such as manufacturing. We have seen dozens of pictures [...]
Facebook’s antitrust victory could be the inspiration Joe Biden needs to serve Big Tech a fatal blow July 2, 2021 When Charles Dickens’s Mr Bumble is confronted with the assumption that his overbearing wife “acts under his direction,” he responds with an argument for the ages: “If the law supposes that… the law is an ass.” Though Bumble’s argument might hold little water in a court of law, it isn’t an altogether bad one. It [...]
City leaders are constantly proposing ‘green initiatives’ but is the Square Mile really doing everything it can for climate change? July 2, 2021 During London Climate Action Week, a series of sustainability initiatives are capturing airtime. The City of London’s ‘Climate Action Strategy’ aims to make the Square Mile net-zero in its carbon emissions by 2040. A group of law firms has adopted a ‘greener litigation pledge’. And financial services, which form the backbone of the City, are keen to [...]
CEOs who weighed into GB News learnt a valuable lesson on the power of politics July 1, 2021 If CEOs learn anything from the campaign to boycott GB News and the fallout generated by companies’ responses, it is that they ignore politics at their peril. Over the last half-century, one of the most important shifts in the business world has been corporate leaders recognising they have wider responsibilities to society as well as [...]
From junk food ad bans to new smoking bans: the UK is in an age of state intervention July 1, 2021 We have slipped into a new age of state intervention. Even after a year of unprecedented interference in our everyday lives, attacks on personal freedoms are emerging from every quarter. Take gambling, for example. The government’s review of the Gambling Act looks set to introduce new spend limits to dictate what people can and can’t [...]
The end of the furlough scheme must be the beginning of a renewed focus on London’s recovery July 1, 2021 The furlough scheme has been a lifeline for London workers. At its peak, as many as one million Londoners were furloughed – from builders to bakers, coders to café owners (and many of my team at Centre for London). We all know someone who has depended on and can be grateful for the government’s support to see [...]
Editorial: Quarantine exemptions for CEOs must be part of wider travel plans to fulfil the Global Britain promise June 30, 2021 In December 2019, Boris Johnson vowed to fight for a Global Britain as the nation prepared to leave the European Union. He promised to ensure the United Kingdom would remain a hub for international business and would be even more attractive on the world stage once it was unshackled from the bureaucracy of Brexit. Over [...]
Matt Hancock was stung by his own Covid sex bans but we should be wary of a world watching our every move June 30, 2021 Matt Hancock’s resignation over the weekend shows it just takes embarrassing photos to bring down a “hopeless” minister in Britain today. The real public interest story of Gina Coladangelo’s appointment last year was broken by The Times with barely a murmur. The people behind the cameras weren’t looking for corruption, they were looking for “kompromat.” And [...]
A truly Global Britain must slash bureaucracy to draw in international investment June 30, 2021 Not that long ago there was an assumption that globalisation was inevitable – writers from Fukayama to Friedman were anticipating the victory of liberal capitalism and a “flat world” in which capital, people and trade flowed freely, driven by the power of big business to knock down national barriers to their pan-national corporate interests. That [...]
Sajid Javid’s sensible instincts to stop lockdowns must stay firm against the pessimists of Sage June 29, 2021 So farewell then, Matt Hancock, as Private Eye’s fictitious poet in residence, EJ Thribb, would have put it. The former Health Secretary seemed to relish relaying the doom laden projections of the epidemiologists’ worst case scenarios throughout the pandemic. There will be many within the Conservative back-benches who will welcome him into their ranks only [...]