Uber’s back and its rivals will just have to deal with it September 30, 2020 Having scraped by on short-term “emergency licences” for about two years, Uber, the California-based ride-sharing app provider, has been given a “proper” licence to operate in London again, after winning in a crucial appeals case this week. For now, this marks the end of two years of legal limbo. In 2017, Transport for London (TfL) [...]
And this week’s winner for the Stupid Scientist award is… September 30, 2020 Scepticism about the advice given by government scientists about Covid-19 is rising sharply. In areas like Bolton infections are high. Interviews with the locals reveal that so, too, is disbelief in the veracity of the statements made by members of SAGE, the government science advisory group. The scientists, rational beings themselves, may ascribe this to [...]
Measures to suppress Covid-19 are causing untold damage to students and young people September 30, 2020 The motto of the Young Money Blog is “don’t get mad — get informed”. But in recent weeks and months, I’ve found it hard not to get mad. As we try to head into an uncertain and bleak winter, emergency laws designed to curb the spread of Covid-19 are fast becoming a moral and economic [...]
Sunak’s subsidy scheme will save just one job per company in the business travel sector September 30, 2020 Last week, the chancellor outlined his Winter Economy Plan — trying to balance the needs of the economy with our health and wellbeing. No enviable task. Listening to his polished performance in the Commons, it would be easy to conclude that the chancellor’s new approach — underpinned by a Job Support Scheme and extended tax [...]
The clock is ticking for Oracle to make sense of the TikTok deal September 29, 2020 What does the world’s largest enterprise software firm see in a Chinese video-sharing social networking app? Putting the intense political pressure by the US government to make this deal work to one side, the two businesses seem like chalk and cheese to hard-nosed City investors. One company is a behemoth known for serving the corporate [...]
MPs are refusing unconscious bias training. Perhaps there’s a real reason why September 29, 2020 When 40 Conservative MPs recently refused unconscious bias training — one anonymous dissenter even called it “Marxist, snake oil crap”, others “patronising” — it was clear that, as a population, we still don’t really know how to tackle unconscious bias. And that’s for two main reasons. The first is ignorance. Not as a pejorative, but [...]
The government’s short-term ‘cures’ are doing far more damage than the virus itself September 29, 2020 For the best part of this year, our societies have been torn apart by this Covid-19 pandemic. It has thrown challenges to all businesses and all people in almost every country around the world. My home country, Italy, was the first in Europe to see how devastating this virus could be. We all remember those [...]
Accountancy and finance teams must learn to embrace analytics September 29, 2020 The global pandemic has cast a new light on priorities across many different industries. Suddenly, the most important asset a pub can have is a large open garden. Low wooden beams and small rooms seem dangerous rather than charming and characterful. Public transport systems that offered efficient mass transit across cities are being shunned by [...]
Brand Trump is keeping Candidate Trump in the race for the White House September 29, 2020 Scandals and appalling press are usually bad news for politicians. Before the presidential era of Donald Trump, it was a given that major missteps, major insults to large groups of the population (especially the military), breaking the law, or being impeached were close to terminal for US presidents. It’s fair to say that President Clinton [...]
There’s no place like work: Office spaces still have a future September 28, 2020 There is talk that working from home has become so ingrained and that the old working arrangements are so untenable in this new socially distanced and digitally enhanced world, that it will force city centre offices to be entirely repurposed — and perhaps turned into vertical rabbit hutch towers of studio flats. This debate is [...]