Time for us all to get motoring on combatting climate change November 28, 2019 The polling firm YouGov has been tracking views on the environment for nearly a decade. For most of that time, the subject ranked pretty low in terms of voter priorities. But this election marks a big change. Figures from July show that more than one in four voters (27 per cent) rank the environment as [...]
The Tories are on track to win a majority — if only they knew what to do with it November 28, 2019 Much of this week’s election buzz has focused on the release of Wednesday night’s polling figures. The hotly-anticipated YouGov MRP model, which accurately predicted a huge parliament in 2017, is currently forecasting a majority for the Conservatives of nearly 70 seats. There has been a fair amount of commentary about the Conservatives’ nervousness over these [...]
After TSB’s outage, let’s force banks to ring fence an IT budget November 27, 2019 Banking outages cause unacceptable pain for customers and are occurring with increased regularity. Digital banking is essential to our economy and ongoing failures are both unacceptable and preventable. Last week an independent report concluded that the board of TSB “lacked common sense” when it moved 1.9m customers onto a new system in 2018 that had [...]
DEBATE: Is it viable to pay compensation to the 1950s-born women who lost out on their state pension? November 27, 2019 Is it viable to pay compensation to the 1950s-born women who lost out on their state pension, as Labour has proposed? YES, says Debbie de Spon, communications director for Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI). 1950s-born women are suffering severe injustice because of successive governments’ mismanagement of changes to the state pension age. This issue [...]
The cannabis conundrum risks causing investors to be accused of money laundering November 27, 2019 The overseas legalised cannabis industry is growing fast — estimates suggest that the US cannabis industry will be worth over $75bn by 2030. Investment firms in the UK are keen to take full advantage of this growing market, but have found unexpected hurdles in their way. For UK-based investors, investing in this industry carries the [...]
How the main political parties plan to help renters November 27, 2019 Wherever you stand on the recent debate about landlords putting thermostats in cages, many of us can agree that the rental system needs improving. This has become increasingly apparent as the number of people living in private rented accommodation has grown, doubling in the past three decades. Fortunately (and perhaps unsurprisingly), the main political parties [...]
Labour’s rejection of conventional economic theory ignores important insights November 27, 2019 One of the first tasks facing whoever becomes chancellor after the General Election will be choosing the next governor of the Bank of England. Getting to make this choice would be a key step in the plans of Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell to shake up the Bank of England, but his radicalism is not [...]
China’s human rights abuses should silence the declinists and self-haters in the west November 27, 2019 One of the most damaging tendencies of contemporary western modernity has been the growth of declinism and self-hatred within our societies. The declinists argue that the era of western leadership is over, and that the future belongs to the east. They are content to go quietly into the night, rather than recognise that the rise [...]
To be resilient in these tough times, leaders need to replace hubris with humility November 27, 2019 What does it take to succeed as a leader in today’s business environment? In a year which has already seen the demise of Thomas Cook and Mothercare, resilient leaders recognise the value of investing in a culture that instils a clear strategic purpose. It’s also about offering tactical freedom by teams with the trust and [...]
A second referendum would come at a cost November 27, 2019 Brexit is testing traditional party loyalties almost to destruction. According to pollster Peter Kellner, the Tories could grab more than 50 seats from Labour, largely in areas where it’s been assumed that people simply don’t vote Tory. At the other end of the debate, Brexit is leading people into uncomfortable compromises. People who never thought [...]