The BBC keeps scoring own goals with its internal comms January 30, 2020 Like the perfect colour for a cup of tea (green, in my case), it seems that everyone in the UK must have an opinion on the BBC. Auntie, age 97, has become loathed in some quarters of the right-wing press, with omnipresent claims of BBC bias, and equally hated in sections of the left-wing media, [...]
The UK must show faith in the OECD, not go it alone with a digital services levy January 30, 2020 Following months of brewing trade tensions between France and the US, centred around President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to regulate big tech, headlines from last week showed a victory for an integrated approach, as France agreed to delay its digital tax. The country will postpone applying a three per cent levy on the likes of Google [...]
Buzz will not be enough to put Northern Rail back on track January 29, 2020 Following a year of cancellations and chaos across the network Northern Rail looks set to lose its franchise this week. With the least satisfied customers in the UK, the railway had a terrible 2019 — and its improved buzz scores (a net measure of whether consumers have heard anything good or bad about a brand [...]
DEBATE: Should the Bank of England cut interest rates this week? January 29, 2020 Should the Bank of England cut interest rates this week? Simon Ward, economic adviser at Janus Henderson Investors, says YES. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) keeps making mistakes because it ignores monetary trends. It hiked rates in August 2018 even though 12-month broad money growth (as measured by non-financial M4) had slumped from 6.5 per [...]
Has the business world found its purpose? Trust, but verify January 29, 2020 Last week’s Davos carnival was an orgy of virtue signalling. A group of senior executives flew in on private jets to talk about how to tackle climate change. Leaders of companies that have been highly active in lobbying for corporate tax breaks signed a letter calling for higher taxes on the rich if we are [...]
Want to level up the UK? Look at disparity within the regions, not just between them January 29, 2020 It is a truth which has rapidly become universally acknowledged (to borrow Jane Austen’s famous phrase) that the government must deliver for its new supporters in the regions. This is a massive challenge. The gap in income per head, for example, between London and other areas of the country is obviously large. But the firm [...]
Friday marks the end of the beginning of the Brexit battle January 29, 2020 One of Winston Churchill’s many gifts was his ability to summon the force of his rhetoric as a means of divining the feeling of the British nation. His passionate invocations in the dark days of the summer of 1940, when the UK stood alone against the Nazi menace, were masterpieces of fighting spirit, helping to [...]
Johnson’s Huawei gamble is exactly that January 29, 2020 So, they’re in. After all the hullaballoo of recent weeks, the actual announcement that Huawei will be granted access to the UK’s 5G infrastructure was something of a damp squib, slipped out in a press release that didn’t even dare mention the name of the Chinese company. This is Boris Johnson’s first major decision, and [...]
My data prophecy? More regulation is on the way January 29, 2020 In 2018, a new elephant entered the room. A giant EU elephant called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR and data privacy became, slightly bizarrely, a subject that was talked about in offices and in pubs. Even my proverbial aunty knew what it was. In corporate land, there was a frenzy of preparation ahead [...]
Management gurus drop the ball this time January 28, 2020 England’s cricketers haven’t made a recent habit of winning Test matches abroad, so the 3-1 series victory over South Africa is cause for celebration – not least due to the arrival on the international scene of Ollie Pope and a sign that we might just have found a pair of openers who can keep us [...]