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 [...]
The idea that London will be replaced as Europe’s financial centre is completely potty March 16, 2017 It's now almost nine months since the referendum, and Article 50 is about to be invoked. Readers of this column will be familiar with my arguments as to why a unilateral free trade Brexit is the optimal exit strategy, because of the gain to consumers in the short term and to consumers and producers in the [...]
A trio of challenger energy firms have come out in favour of a new price cap March 16, 2017 A trio of challengers to the Big Six energy firms have come out in favour of new pricing restrictions as parliament debates market reform. The House of Commons will spend six hours debating the energy market today, with a former Tory minister leading the calls for an intervention. Ex-cabinet office minister John Penrose is calling on [...]
The UK’s former EU commissioner says businesses should be able to contribute more to Brexit plans March 16, 2017 The UK’s former European Commissioner has called on employers to do more to support the development of Brexit plans ahead of the formal launch of negotiations. Lord Hill, who resigned after the referendum, is hosting a London conference for firms next month alongside Sir Paul Marshall, chairman of City hedge fund Marshall Wace. Speaking to City [...]
MPs are demanding an investigation of trading patterns around ONS data March 16, 2017 MPs are demanding the City watchdog probes suspicious market movements around the release of official government statistics. Reports this week have highlighted unusual fluctuations in both foreign exchange and bond markets around the release of economic data, such as that relating to retail sales. One analysis found eight occasions over the last year in which the [...]
Conservative election spending is under investigation by prosecutors March 15, 2017 Files from 12 police forces relating to allegations of electoral fraud have been handed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Prosecutors are investigating claims that more than 20 Conservative MPs broke stringent spending limits during the 2015 general election. If charged, they could be challenged by their political opponents to a rerun. Read more: By-election results: [...]
Donald Trump’s second travel ban has been blocked nationwide March 15, 2017 A federal judge in Hawaii has blocked Donald Trump's second travel ban nationwide with a temporary restraining order. The last-minute order put an emergency hold on the US President's ban, which was meant to take effect tomorrow. Trump's revised executive order removed Iraq from the list of countries barred from entering the US, among other changes. The new measures were designed [...]