Tesla’s short-selling critics do not have to be rewarded to be right February 17, 2020 Short-selling, or shorting, is the act of betting against a company’s stock. If the share price goes down, the short-seller makes money. If the share price goes up, they lose it. It is the most rhetorical of investments. A short position is a statement of a belief: a minority opinion held against the will of [...]
DEBATE: Does it make sense to run the Treasury out of Number 10? February 17, 2020 Does it make sense to run the Treasury out of Number 10? Will Tanner, director of Onward, says YES. Boris Johnson is not the first resident of Number 10 to want a closer hold on Number 11. Pitt the Younger, Peel, Disraeli, Gladstone and Baldwin all served as chancellor and Prime Minister concurrently. The two [...]
Both north and south of the border, Ireland’s financial centres are the City’s historic partners February 17, 2020 As the debate around our future relationship with the European Union continues, we at the City Corporation have been focusing on building even stronger ties with our closest neighbours. Over the past two weeks, I have visited Dublin, Belfast and Derry-Londonderry to do just that. Both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have long-standing [...]
Caroline Flack’s death shows ‘cancel culture’ has to stop – and it’s up to us to stop it February 16, 2020 I was shocked to hear of the death of television presenter Caroline Flack. I didn’t know her – but I didn’t have to. There were plenty of stories dissecting her relationships, her wardrobe and her career. She had 1.9m followers on Twitter and 2.4 on Instagram, but died alone, facing an assault trial that was [...]
Scrap the TV licence, the BBC should just stick to the national news February 15, 2020 It is good that the BBC model is being disrupted by social media — allowing isolated individuals threatened by brown envelopes and sinister demands to be united in their opposition to the multi-billion pound media enterprise. Essentially, the broadcaster needs to be radically stripped down to just one channel: BBC News and Weather. All other [...]
Reshuffling the deck: Loyalty, not merit, is the key to a promotion February 14, 2020 Politics may be show business for ugly people, but cabinet reshuffles have more of a feel of football’s transfer deadline day. Ambitious and hopeful MPs keep their phones close by, hoping to see a withheld number and hear the words “Downing Street for you”. Hacks and politicos watch on the sidelines, tracking who is in [...]
Sajid Javid opts to go down with the ship February 14, 2020 Just under three months ago, Boris Johnson promised a room full of business leaders that Sajid Javid was guaranteed to remain in office as chancellor. He praised Javid and gave a “categorical” commitment to the CBI conference that he will remain in post. Yesterday, Javid was told that if he wanted to keep his job [...]
It’s time to make space for cosmic investing February 14, 2020 Valentine’s Day 2020 will be about more than roses and chocolate. It marks the 30th anniversary of one of the most iconic images of all time: a parting photograph of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 space probe. This image became notorious as the Pale Blue Dot, a seemingly insignificant pixel against a vast black [...]
Is Valentine’s Day just a marketing gimmick? February 14, 2020 Is Valentine’s Day just a marketing gimmick? Nicholas Mazzei, a corporate social responsibility adviser, says YES. Love is a commodity in much demand, and there is little enough of it to go around. The decline in the amount of sex men in the US are having has been linked to the rise of popularism and [...]
Don’t frame it as a front in the culture war, BBC reform can be in everyone’s interests February 14, 2020 With the announcement last week of a consultation on decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee, ministers boycotting core programmes following accusations of bias, and veiled threats from the government about its potential demise, fans of the BBC would be forgiven for thinking that their treasured broadcaster is under attack. But by framing this as a [...]