Chinese interference has no place in the City November 6, 2019 On Monday night MPs elected from among themselves a new Speaker of the House of Commons. Labour’s Lindsay Hoyle prevailed, but all candidates spoke about the vital importance and sanctity of our democratic system of government. That democracy will now burst into life in the form of a General Election campaign which formally gets underway [...]
Not all engineers wear hard hats and high-vis jackets November 6, 2019 What do prosthetic limbs, cosmetics, clean water, YouTube, and biodegradable plastic alternatives have in common? None of them would exist without engineers – but that would likely come as a surprise to most people. Unfortunately, we suffer from narrow and outdated stereotypes of what engineers do and the role they play in society. And this [...]
The Berlin Wall is not just a piece of history – the manner of its crumbling contains lessons for the present November 6, 2019 Thirty years ago this Saturday, on 9 November 1989, one of the greatest symbols of oppression the world has ever known began to be dismantled. The Berlin Wall had stood since 1961, built by its East German masters to encircle Allied-controlled West Berlin. But it was much more than simply a barricade. It became the [...]
DEBATE: Was MacDonald’s right to sack its chief executive for a consensual relationship with an employee? November 6, 2019 Was MacDonald’s right to sack its chief executive for a consensual relationship with an employee? Martin Townsend, a partner at communications consultancy Pagefield, says YES. “You can’t help who you fall in love with” is one of the great romantic clichés. Unfortunately, if you are the £12.3m-per-year boss of McDonald’s, this is not an excuse [...]
If you were chancellor, what would be in your Budget? November 6, 2019 Today was scheduled to be the first Budget of Boris Johnson’s premiership. The chancellor announced the Budget last month, saying: “This is the right and responsible thing to do – we must get on with governing.” Unfortunately, to misquote a phrase, the best-laid plans of chancellors and Prime Ministers often go awry. The Budget has [...]
Is the concept of the ethical CEO too good to be true? November 6, 2019 “A fish rots from the head down.” It’s a worn cliché, perhaps, but one that resonates strongly in a world where increasing scrutiny is being placed on those at the helm of global companies. Investors, customers, governments, and even chief executives themselves, are finally starting to take real action based on the idea that unethical [...]
From World War II to the financial crisis, our institutional memory is fading fast November 6, 2019 The young contestants on Lord Sugar’s reality TV show The Apprentice sparked outrage last week. They appeared to have virtually no knowledge about the Second World War. The online clips of the sequence capture to perfection their expressions of bovine outrage at even being expected to know such an esoteric thing as how long the [...]
A mountain out of a McFlurry? November 5, 2019 The discussion surrounding the departure of McDonald’s former CEO, Steve Easterbrook, has revealed a nuanced landscape. In such a space, sweeping conclusions aren’t always illustrative. The fact remains, we don’t yet know any details of Easterbrook’s relationship with a colleague beyond that is was consensual. Was it a one-off fling? Are they in love? We [...]
Boardrooms are snoozing on the UK’s sleep crisis November 5, 2019 Britain’s productivity has long been the bane of the economy. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that UK output has declined year-on-year since 2014 and lags behind the rest of Europe. Clearly, there’s no silver-bullet solution to turning the tide – it will take a mix of tried-and-tested measures, like application of [...]
Saudi Aramco IPO: The pros and cons November 5, 2019 Saudi Aramco is the mother of all oil companies, and the most profitable business in the world. Last year, its net income stood at $111bn, dwarfing the earnings of other oil giants. So the announcement on Sunday that the state-owned Saudi Arabian company will finally go public is massive news for investors, and marks the [...]