Culture complements commerce, so let’s celebrate the City’s thriving artistic scene February 24, 2020 As lord mayor of the City of London, my role is primarily business-focused. But I am also passionate about arts and culture, and with so much of it on our doorstep, Londoners are truly fortunate. In fact, championing culture is a key part of my mayoral theme. And to underline its importance, I am looking [...]
Britain stands to lose more than its Marbles if it folds now February 21, 2020 There’s a new pawn in the game of Brexit chess — 17 pawns, in fact, life-size and made of marble, plus 247 feet of sculpted frieze. The EU sparked a panic this week, when its draft negotiating mandate revealed a clause concerning the need to address “issues relating to the return or restitution of unlawfully [...]
DEBATE: Should the government intervene to stop cash disappearing? February 21, 2020 Should the government intervene to stop cash disappearing, as the Access To Cash panel has urged? YES, says Andrew Martin, chief executive of Retail Financial Consulting. It’s essential that cash remains a staple of British society in order to maintain social inclusion and economic stability. One need only look at Sweden, which is on the [...]
The revolution is imminent, and big Telco needs to change February 21, 2020 Complex deals. High prices. Bad service. Guess which industry I am talking about? Four old incumbents own more than 90 per cent market share, nearly nine million people pay a loyalty tax every year, and yet “industry leaders” get invited to Downing Street for tea and biscuits. The answer is telecoms. It’s front-page news: 5G [...]
We’ve got the power: Decarbonising our transport on the road to a greener nation February 21, 2020 The government will soon publish its strategy on cutting emissions from cars, trains, boats and planes — and already the transport secretary has suggested that sales of combustion and hybrid vehicles could be banned from 2035. Change comes with questions. For example: how clean is our electricity? And can Britain’s energy infrastructure meet the demand [...]
The importance of being positive: How to build a resilient business mindset February 21, 2020 From my experience, entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch by nature. They see opportunity; they grasp it. Yet the not-so-simple journey from startup to growth requires relentless hard work and unshakable commitment. Of course, there will be high fives and heady moments of rapture in the bar. But the reality is that before we get to [...]
Barclays forgot about the humans in HR February 21, 2020 Barely a day goes by without a think tank, employers’ group or minister talking about the need to improve the productivity or British business, and while this generally conjures up images of factory floors it’s reassuring to know that investment banks are also searching for elusive gains. How else to explain the decision by Barclays [...]
Pension funds usher in new voting climate February 21, 2020 Libor settlements, the use of Mervyn King’s eyebrow to fire a chief executive, a boss embroiled in a whistleblowing scandal: Barclays is used to finding itself cast as the City’s guinea pig. Shareaction’s climate change resolution, to be voted on at the bank’s annual general meeting in May, is the latest example. The pressure group [...]
The end of cash cannot come at the expense of the unbanked February 20, 2020 Today marks the launch of the new £20 note. With so much of the financial services sector switching to digital, could this be the last new £20 we get? In the future, financial services will be entirely digital — and we are already well on the way towards that reality. A quarter of us in [...]
How to break up big tech? Regulating technology companies is more easily said than done February 20, 2020 Over the last few years, the public perception of technology companies has shifted quite dramatically. Large tech firms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon are no longer the darlings of the world. They are attracting the same kind of ire that financiers attracted a decade ago. At the political level, this translates into a broad [...]