Thinking around corners on UK rental market could transform life for the better June 1, 2021 With pubs and restaurants open across London once again, the capital’s young professionals can return to one of their favourite pastimes: gathering together over a drink to complain about the rental market. We all know the stereotypical ladder: you begin in a slightly shabby, probably shared flat, you move on to somewhere on your own [...]
Can you code? Now is your chance to rescue the planet May 31, 2021 It has never been so easy to build a technology product, raise capital, and bring it to thousands, even millions of people. And all in a matter of months. Consider Hopin; the London-based virtual events platform, founded in 2019, has grown from six employees to more than 400 and now boasts over 80,000 user organisations – a good [...]
City has lost a great green advocate but the fight will continue May 31, 2021 Last week the City of London, and dare I say the world, lost a key advocate of the role the financial sector plays in the fight against climate change. Sir Roger Gifford, Lord Mayor of the City of London in 2012-13 and Chair of the Green Finance Institute, was instrumental in driving forward the green [...]
Oatly has climbed to the top of the legion of alternative milks. Can it keep up the momentum? May 29, 2021 Oatly shares soared in its stock market debut last Wednesday and the alternative-milk giant was valued at a staggering $13bn, after its sales doubled in 2020 to $421m. The Swedish brand benefits from being born green; with dairy alternatives measurably better for the planet and far better tasting than a decade ago. Climate change concern and the [...]
Generous trade offer to Australia will allow Global Britain to demand the same elsewhere May 29, 2021 The free-traders in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet appear to have won the day: the Prime Minister has reportedly sided with Trade Secretary Liz Truss, his Brexit advisor Lord Frost and other Cabinet liberals to support a zero-tariff, zero-quota trade deal with Australia. The protectionists who wanted a watered-down deal – led by Environment Secretary George Eustice [...]
Can Britain keep expanding its playbook for tech regulation without strangling innovation? May 28, 2021 Europe has a reputation for heavy handed regulation. This is often blamed for putting the brakes on innovation and holding back tech businesses in the UK and across Europe. The arrival of GDPR rules, setting out a prescriptive approach for personal data, was a headline grabbing shift with hefty fines which caused reverberations across the [...]
Bitcoin buoyancy is driven by popular mass delusion but the madness will keep making money May 28, 2021 In 1841, the journalist Charles Mackay published Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, his masterpiece. In it, he chronicled the economic bubbles and mass delusions that have plagued mankind across the ages. “Men… go mad in herds,” he warned, “while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” The cryptocurrency Bitcoin [...]
A flood of investors into healthtech companies risks creating confusion for hospitals and care homes May 27, 2021 Increased consciousness around public health and the pandemic-driven demand for innovation saw the healthtech sector get a major cash injection of $750 million between 2019 and 2020. Traditional investors in healthtech have been joined by new entrants into the sector who rightly expect that the digitisation of the healthcare industry, which was accelerated by the [...]
Law is one of the last bastions of anti-innovation and must learn to confront digital efficiency May 27, 2021 Members of the legal profession have an unfortunate reputation. On-screen depictions of lawyers give us a sense of society’s perception towards them; from the impossibly stern Julius Hoffman in Netflix’s Trial of the Chicago 7, to Judge Rinder’s performative reality TV court cases, lawyers in popular culture get a bad rap. A reason why the [...]
Ex-Aston Martin CEO: Britain needs to fight for its place in the electric car industry or risk irrelevancy May 27, 2021 As a proud Brit walking into boardrooms in Tokyo, Chennai, Brussels or California, I was often aware of the preconceptions the natives sat around the table held. The British, of course, are known for being polite, humorous and big tea drinkers. I always viewed these stereotypes as nothing more than an innocent oversimplification. A little [...]