Remain campaign advertising boss condemns Project Fear approach as M&C Saatchi reports benefit from Brexit September 22, 2016 The boss of the Remain campaign’s chosen advertising company has condemned its Project Fear approach and backed UK business to succeed after the Brexit vote. M&C Saatchi today reported 15 per cent revenue growth to £100.2m and a 19 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £11.4m in the first half of the year. It [...]
Theresa May has axed an advisory panel of some of Britain’s top bosses September 22, 2016 Theresa May has axed an advisory panel established by her predecessor to generate feedback from some of the UK's top bosses. May has scrapped the Business Advisory Group launched by David Cameron in July 2015. The news – first revealed by Sky News – comes just over a year after Cameron launched the group in the [...]
S&P downgrades EDF after UK government greenlights Hinkley Point C September 22, 2016 Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded French utility giant EDF despite the UK government giving the green light to the £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant. It said construction risks linked to the project are high and that the large investments associated with it will weigh on EDF's already pinched cash flow. There have long [...]
Bank of England cites huge financial stability risks from Brexit vote September 22, 2016 The Bank of England has issued a sobering analysis of the state of the UK's financial system in the wake of the EU referendum. Threadneedle Street's Financial Policy Committee (FPC), which is designed to look after the health of the UK's money markets and protect the financial system from bringing down the UK, cited a string [...]
Twitter explodes as David Miliband says Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable September 22, 2016 True love will never die. David Miliband wrenched himself out of the political shadows today to defend Labour's centre-left values, and Twitter lost it. Writing in the New Statesman, Miliband wrote: "The main charge against Jeremy Corbyn is not just that his strategy is undesirable because it makes the party unelectable. That is only half the [...]
The City is mobilising itself for Brexit talks to safeguard the future of the capital September 22, 2016 One of the more memorable lines from the referendum campaign came courtesy of Leave campaigner Michael Gove. In front of a live audience, Faisal Islam of Sky News reeled off a list of experts who had made dire economic predictions regarding the implications of a vote to Leave. “The IMF, the IFS, the CBI… why [...]
City Leavers and Remainers must now unite to ensure the best Brexit deal for UK business September 22, 2016 There is no doubt that the referendum aroused strong feelings and caused division across the UK – and it continues to do so. However, the electorate has delivered a clear mandate to the UK government for the UK to leave the EU. For its part, the government has made it clear it intends to give [...]
Business has a responsibility to ensure a generation is not lost. It’s time to make real investments September 22, 2016 At the UN General Assembly this week, Syria and the plight of its refugee citizens are top of the agenda. In the face of challenges that will be felt for years to come, what kind of future should the rest of the world aspire to help them achieve? Three weeks ago, I visited the Za’atari [...]
There are plenty of lessons the German Chancellor can learn from yesterday’s men September 22, 2016 What is it about the rule of 10? Ten years at the top in European politics is more than enough. This month Angela Merkel celebrates her eleventh anniversary as Chancellor of Germany. She now has to decide whether to go on and on and seek another four years in the federal elections in September 2017. [...]
Scotland may be split on independence – but the future looks fixed in one direction September 22, 2016 As if Brexit wasn’t complicated enough, the Prime Minister also needs to keep an eye on developments north of the border, in Scotland. Many nationalists argue that the 2014 referendum was about being in a very different UK (i.e. inside the EU as well), and that, if the referendum was to be repeated now, the vote [...]