Meet the 33 tech startups set for stardom January 26, 2017 More than 30 companies have been identified as the most promising tech startups in the country and will be mentored by top entrepreneurs to help create the next wave of top British tech stars. Challenger bank Monzo, online shopping site Trouva and digital mortgage adviser Trussle are among the startups who will be mentored by Lastminute.com [...]
Back to life, back to virtual reality: Xiaomi’s international boss Hugo Barra joins Facebook’s VR unit Oculus January 26, 2017 Hugo Barra announced he was leaving Xiaomi to make a Silicon Valley return a few days ago and now we know where he was headed: Facebook. The ex-Google executive who led international expansion at Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has left the company to take up a role as vice president of virtual reality at Facebook's VR [...]
Professionals with working class backgrounds are being hit by a class earnings penalty, warns government’s social mobility tsar January 26, 2017 Professionals from working class backgrounds are being punished by a "class pay gap", according to new research from the government's Social Mobility Commission. They are paid an average of 17 per cent less (£6,800) each year, than colleagues from more affluent backgrounds. The report, compiled by academics from the LSE and UCL using data from the [...]
Ad industry sets out Brexit demands as 2016 spend figures beat expectations January 26, 2017 The advertising industry has today set out its Brexit demands as new data shows it contributes £120bn annually to the UK economy. The Advertising Association (AA), which has also published figures showing ad spend survived the Brexit vote last year, wants the UK’s strength to be preserved and also for EU red tape to be scrapped. [...]
Donald Trump has come at just the right time for Theresa May January 26, 2017 Tomorrow, Theresa May will become the first world leader to meet President Donald Trump. It is unlikely to be a meeting of minds, but it will certainly be a meeting of huge significance. Both the President and the PM have spoken in recent weeks about the importance of the special relationship and of their desire [...]
Politics dictates a quick-fire Brexit – but a compromise is more likely than you think January 26, 2017 Let's show some ambition and optimism! There really is a deal to be done with the EU27 that works in our mutual interest as we head for the exit. Not that this will be easy. I have been struck by the unity of purpose expressed at the highest level by our continental counterparties. Michel Barnier, [...]
I can’t help but worry about the potential for the mother of all house price crashes January 26, 2017 The year opened with alarming newspaper headlines in The Daily Telegraph on the risk of a global property price crash. How worried should we be in the UK? The ratio of house prices to incomes in the UK is close to the all-time high it reached before the financial crisis. If that ratio mean reverts over [...]
Business needs more leaders like George Soros – to fearlessly speak out against Trump’s bullying January 26, 2017 There was something odd about the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos this year, and it wasn’t only that the typical Davos-attendee (pro-trade, pro-global) felt he was under attack because of the wave of populism that crashed through the US and the UK in 2016. There was also the odd moment when the President [...]
Retailers slash 84,000 jobs amid storm of rising costs and fierce competition January 26, 2017 Retailer shed an estimated 84,000 jobs in the final quarter of 2016 as the industry heads for what could be a “more profound” shake-out than it experienced after the financial crisis. New figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) show the number of jobs in the sector fell three per cent year-on-year in the final [...]
Government to consult on ways to make sure new mothers have “sufficient protection” from redundancy January 26, 2017 The government has pledged to protect working mothers from redundancy in its response to a report on maternity discrimination. A report carried out by the Women and Equalities Select Committee last year, found the number of new mothers forced to leave their jobs had almost doubled to 54,000 since 2005. It recommended protections similar to [...]