While MPs argue, fintech must take the lead on driving growth September 10, 2019 Political discord, uncertainty, rapid change to the country’s prospects every day – this is the present state of Britain. To top it all off, the latest survey from IHS Markit suggests that a new recession is possible, with economic growth slipping over the recent period. The UK is at a crucial point. How we respond [...]
Cruz control has not been smooth sailing for British Airways September 10, 2019 To fly. To serve. It may be the tagline of one of the UK’s best known brands, but passengers of British Airways can be forgiven for grimacing at what has been dished out to them recently. In the past two years, BA customers have endured data leaks affecting more than 550,000, an IT meltdown which [...]
What fears would Pennywise use to terrify you and your office? September 10, 2019 With the final instalment of Stephen King’s epic horror tale It now in cinemas, offices will be buzzing with talk of Pennywise and the various monsters the character transforms into. But what if the dancing clown decided to leave the fictional town of Derry and pay a visit to the modern workplace? In honour of [...]
Think Brexit is a mess? Imagine what Remain would look like now September 10, 2019 Stop Brexit. For those working in Westminster, this has become the song of the summer, chanted by the throng of ultra-Remainers who have pitched camp next to the media gazebos on College Green. It is the – intensely irritating – evidence of what the polls increasingly tell us. Just as Leavers are coalescing around a [...]
Ignore Elon Musk’s doom-mongering – AI will strengthen our society, not break it September 10, 2019 In Elon Musk’s mind, the dystopian thriller Ex Machina is forecast, not fiction. Debating Alibaba’s Jack Ma at the World AI Conference at the end of August, Musk claimed that humanity was directly threatened by the development of artificial intelligence, and that human beings were simply a “biological boot loader for digital super-intelligence”. The billionaire [...]
Keep the customer satisfied September 9, 2019 Everyone is looking for the secret to success in business. Perhaps they always have been; Dale Carnegie was writing self-help books for what we’d now call entrepreneurs in the 1930s. There’s an inevitable tension between the idea that there are universal lessons or tips, and that each business venture is unique and entirely of its [...]
As politicians argue over the EU, the City is poised and ready to trade with the world September 9, 2019 It has now been more than 1,150 days since the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Many in the Square Mile have understandably found this period of such prolonged uncertainty frustrating. While there have been many twists and turns in Westminster over the past week, it remains far from clear what will [...]
Doritos joins the ranks of the name-dropping brands September 9, 2019 The anti-marketing revolution continues. The latest move is from Doritos, which has dropped the name from its advertising. With “no logos, no jingles, no gimmicks”, we’re told that this is a product “so iconic, we don’t need to name it”. In its place, a new ad campaign called Another Level gives us lots of different [...]
DEBATE: Should capital gains tax be raised and aligned with income tax? September 9, 2019 Should capital gains tax be raised and aligned with income tax, as it was under Margaret Thatcher? YES, says Robert Palmer, executive director of Tax Justice UK Why should someone who goes out to work for a living pay a higher rate of tax than someone living off their wealth? It’s an important question, especially [...]
Only an election can sail the ship of state through the Brexit storms September 9, 2019 “The world is not interested in the storms you encountered, but did you bring in the ship?” So wrote the twentieth-century writer of sea stories, William McFee. While the quote has some of the barnacles of age, it’s a good challenge to those seeking to steer the ship of state. For the briefly-abated Brexit hurricane [...]