Investor relief at Dutch election: what next for stock markets? March 16, 2017 | City Talk European stock markets have expressed relief at the Dutch election result. Traders had been anxious and share prices put under pressure in the run up to polling day yesterday. But centre-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte saw off a challenge from the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by anti-immigration nationalist Geert Wilders. The election had been [...]
Theresa May: “Now is not the time” for a new Scottish independence vote March 16, 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May has given her clearest indication yet that she will block plans for a new Scottish independence referendum in the next two years. May has said that "now is not the time" for a second vote, despite Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon's call for a ballot to take place between Autumn 2018 and Spring [...]
Article 50 Brexit Bill has been made law after Queen grants royal assent March 16, 2017 Article 50, which will give Theresa May the power to begin the process of leaving the EU, has been granted royal assent. This means the Queen has formally approved the Brexit bill and has made it law. Following the announcement that Article 50 is now law, sterling fell against the dollar, and is now down [...]
Business Committee launches inquiry into electric vehicles to assess concerns over stalling sales March 16, 2017 The role of electric vehicles as part of the government's industrial strategy will be investigated by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee. The BEIS Committee has launched an inquiry today to scope out the barriers to the market's development and look into concerns that sales and take-up haven't been "as advanced as they [...]
More than 150,000 people have signed a petition to block a second Scottish independence vote March 16, 2017 MPs are to consider a debate on a second Scottish independence referendum after 150,000 people signed a petition calling for the vote to be stopped. All petitions gaining more than 100,000 signatures have to be considered for a debate, and parliament's petitions committee will on Tuesday afternoon decide whether to schedule a debate. Holding a debate [...]
Tories electoral commission fine: The official responses from the Conservative party and Ukip March 16, 2017 The Electoral Commission announced this morning that it has fined the Tories £70,000 over missing and unreported payments The sanction relates to the Conservative party's campaign spending ahead of the 2015 General Election. The commission opened an investigation last February, after the Kent Police decided not to pursue an investigation into allegations regarding the Conservative [...]
Electoral Commission fines the Tories £70,000 over missing and unreported payments March 16, 2017 The Electoral Commission has fined the Tories £70,000 over missing and unreported payments, it announced this morning. An investigation, which was opened in February 2016, concluded that there were significant failures by the Conservative party to report accurately on how much it spent on campaigning at three by-elections in 2014 and at the 2015 UK Parliamentary [...]
Netherlands rejects Geert Wilders’ PVV as incumbent Mark Rutte’s VVD seeks to form coalition March 16, 2017 Voters in the Netherlands have rejected far-right candidate Geert Wilders, returning current Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the leader of the biggest party. Under the Netherlands’ proportional representation system Rutte will now try to form a coalition with his VVD party as leaders, in which Wilders will almost certainly not feature. The Amsterdam-based NRC Handelsblad [...]
It’s time for the Prime Minister to do a U-turn of her own on students being included in the net migration target March 16, 2017 “You turn if you want to,” Margaret Thatcher famously told her critics, nearly 37 years ago. “The lady is not for turning.” The quotation has gone down in political folklore, an encapsulation of the former Prime Minister’s uncompromising and determined approach to government. Number 10 Downing Street’s current incumbent was compared to the late Baroness Thatcher [...]
Fintechs have a solution post-Brexit – now we must embrace the uncertainty March 16, 2017 With Article 50 set to be triggered imminently, the process of Britain leaving the EU is finally about to begin, with all that entails. Theresa May has set out plans for a Brexit that looks on the harder side of “hard”, worrying bankers and entrepreneurs alike. While fintech firms don’t welcome the prospect of regulatory [...]