Saga takes £4m hit from Thomas Cook collapse January 28, 2020 Over-50s insurer Saga has said underlying profit before tax will meet expectations despite the company taking a £4m hit from the administration of Thomas Cook. However, it warned home and motor insurance policies will pull in revenue three per cent lower than the previous year. But margins will still hit the higher end of Saga’s [...]
City Moves for 28 January – Who’s switching jobs at BGF, Waverton and the Money and Pensions Service? January 28, 2020 Today’s City Moves includes BGF, Waverton and the Money and Pensions Service BGF Active investor group BGF has announced the appointment of Stephen Welton as executive chairman. Stephen currently serves as the chief executive officer of BGF, having founded the company in 2011. Since then, Stephen has been responsible for the management and strategic direction [...]
Year of the Rat: How China’s coronavirus outbreak is spreading tremors through world markets January 28, 2020 Saturday marked the beginning of the Year of the Rat. This animal — representing the first of the 12 signs of the zodiac — is associated with wealth and prosperity in China. In other cultures, the rat is more often associated with plague and disease. It is unfortunate, then, that the dominant Chinese story this [...]
Big tech’s calls for more regulation offers them a chance to increase their power January 28, 2020 At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, “tech for good” was one of the key themes on the agenda. The big tech companies like Microsoft and Google used their airtime to call for more regulation, particularly in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s a broad term that applies to a set of [...]
DEBATE: Does it make sense to ban Huawei from access to the UK 5G network? January 28, 2020 Does it make sense to ban Huawei from access to the UK 5G network? Matt Kilcoyne, deputy director of the Adam Smith Institute, says YES. Chinese state-owned enterprises are accused by our Five Eyes intelligence partners in Australia and the US of keeping extensive databases on foreign individuals. That’s everything from who you’ve rung, when [...]
It’s not just Whitehall that needs a Dominic Cummings January 28, 2020 The topic of Whitehall reform has never exactly been sexy. No list of “Moments that Made the Modern World” would ever include, let alone kick off with, the publication of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report in 1854. Even many who work in Westminster would be unable to pick the cabinet secretary out of a line-up, even though [...]
We’ve got online shopping and internet banking, now it’s time for digital voting January 28, 2020 On 12 December, 24m of us trudged to polling stations — many braving wind and rain. Another eight million cast postal votes or had proxies. But about 20m UK adults did not vote at all. Some probably really did not want to, but for many others, it was just too inconvenient. A General Election costs [...]
From climate change to the Iran crisis, we need to bring back the experts January 28, 2020 The EU Referendum set in motion a debate the nation had rarely seen before. Among the first casualties of the divisive and brutal campaign were the “experts”. As Michael Gove famously said, the country had had enough of experts getting it wrong. The public rejected advice from academics, business leaders and prominent politicians, and voted [...]
With 100 days to go, can Sadiq Khan lose the 2020 London mayoral election? January 28, 2020 Even Sadiq Khan’s biggest critics would acknowledge his skill in working a crowd. The mayor of London glides from person to person, selfie to selfie, handshake to handshake. At a time when politicians are not exactly enjoying public favour, he seems to have plenty of Londoners firmly on his side. The response toward Khan by [...]
City must fix training and culture to beat skills crisis, says report January 28, 2020 Financial services firms face a staffing crisis if they do not improve workplace culture, purpose and diversity and better train their existing employees, a Treasury-commissioned report has found. The City has been left struggling to adapt as the top graduates are increasingly choosing the tech sector over financial services and the changing nature of the [...]