Trump demands US-backed insurance as firms suspend cover in Persian Gulf
Donald Trump calls for a US-backed insurance following news that most of the world’s largest maritime insurance firms are set to cease covering war risks for ships entering the Persian Gulf.
On 5 March, various members of the London-based International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs will automatically terminate war-risk cover if vessels enter the Persian Gulf.
Those include Gard AS, NorthStandard, Steamship Mutual Underwriting Association, Assuranceforeningen Skuld, American Steamship Owners Mutual Protection and Indemnity Association, The Swedish Club, and the London P&I Club.
Lloyd’s of London, the insurance marketplace, is the largest supplier of war insurance, writing between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of the world’s war business.
But many insurers are pulling back due to risks around threats of vessel boarding and seizure by Iranian forces, as well as missile and drone strikes. There are already reports of vessels being attacked in the Strait of Hormuz and off Oman, resulting in damage and loss of life.
Strait of Hormuz crucial for natural gas and oil trade
Earlier this week, Dylan Mortimer, marine hull UK war leader at Marsh said: “It is very early to tell at this point, but we would estimate that near-term rate increases for marine hull insurance in the Gulf could range from 25 to 50 per cent, barring any direct attack on merchant shipping, which could have major repercussions across war insurance rates.”
However, in a post to Truth Social on Tuesday, the US President said he has ordered the Development Finance Corporation, a federal loan agency, to provide “at a very reasonable price” political risk insurance and guarantees for “ALL Maritime Trade, especially energy”, travelling through the Gulf.
“If necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible. No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD,” he added.
The Persian Gulf is critically important for global trade as it is the primary route for over 20 per cent of the world’s total oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) consumption through the Strait of Hormuz.
The cost of a barrel of oil, as measured by Brent crude, the international benchmark, stands at over $83, its highest level since July 2024.
Autonomous vehicle firm Oxa taps BP, Nvidia in $103m funding round
British autonomous vehicle firm Oxa has raised $103m (£77m) in a fresh funding round after attracting support from the world’s most valuable tech firm, Nvidia.
The Oxford-based business, formerly known as Oxbotica, completed the Series D raise with backing from the government’s National Wealth Fund as well as from the venture arm of energy giant BP alongside London-listed early stage science and technology investor IP Group.
Founded in 2014, Oxa develops autonomous vehicle software for industrial applications such as in warehouses, airports and shipping ports.
“We believe Oxa’s ‘universal AI driver’ approach positions it to scale autonomy across industrial vehicles and environments as adoption accelerates,” said IP Group chief executive Greg Smith.
Oxa did not disclose its new valuation following the funding round, which is likely in the region of $500m. Existing shareholders in the Oxford University spinout including IP Group and Ocado recently wrote down the value of their stakes in the business amid persistent losses.
In its latest accounts filed with Companies House, Oxa posted a loss of £68.9m, an increase of more than 90 per cent on the previous year, with turnover of just £3.1m.
“The increase in loss in the period is due to the continued investment in its software
product development together with a significant charge in connection with the group’s shore incentive plan,” Oxa, which has around 400 staff, said in a statement.
Nvidia invests again
The funding round marks the latest investment from Nvidia’s venture capital arm, Nventures, into a British autonomous vehicle startup following the firm’s investment into self-driving car company Wayve last month.
The $1.2bn (£950m) round takes Wayve’s valuation up to $8.6bn and marks one of the largest capital raises for a UK AI startup.
The funding round was led by Eclipse, Balderton and Softbank Vision Fund 2, with new backing from investors like Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, the British Business Bank and Schroders Capital.
Tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Uber also participated, alongside carmakers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis.
Uber has separately contributed additional milestone-based funding to support years worth of deployments of Wayve-powered robotaxis on its platform, beginning in London next year.
The fundraise comes as the capital prepares to become a litmus test for driverless taxis under the UK government’s new regulatory framework, where Wayve will compete against Alphabet-owned Waymo and Baidu’s Apollo Go in pilot schemes expected this spring.
Vistry: Housebuilder boss quits as output falls
The boss of the UK’s second-biggest housebuilder has quit as the company battles with falling revenue and output caused by the uncertainty around last year’s November Budget.
The news spooked investors as Vistry Group’s share price nosedived on Wednesday, down as much as 22 per cent to 490p.
Vistry’s chief executive Greg Fitzgerald said he will retire in May and blamed the speculation leading up to the Budget for slowed performance in the second half of the year.
Pre-tax profit jumped slightly – in line with Vistry’s forecasts – by two per cent to £269m, while revenue fell by four per cent to £4.2bn for the year to December 2025.
Fitzgerald said the firm’s financials were “in line with guidance…despite continued challenges in the Open Market and the uncertainty created by the November Budget.”
The group, which is listed on the FTSE 250, built 15,658 homes last year, a drop of nine per cent from 2024.
Housebuilding market ‘challenging’
The firm performed worse than expected in the third and fourth quarters of last year due to the delays to the Budget, its results said.
But Vistry said it welcomes the government’s reforms to the planning system, which it said will allow housebuilders to meet Labour’s target of building 1.5m homes by the next election.
While the firm said market conditions are “challenging” and geopolitical events may bring “uncertainty”, it claimed to be “cautiously optimistic” about growth this year.
Announcing his retirement, Fitzgerald said: “It is an exciting time for Vistry as it focuses on addressing the chronic affordable housing shortage.
“After over 45 years in the sector, it is the right time for me to retire and I am confident that Vistry will go from strength to strength well into the future.”
Discussing the group’s performance last year, he said: “Vistry delivered one in seven of the country’s affordable homes last year, which demonstrates the crucial role the business plays, and will continue to play, in building the homes the UK so desperately needs.”
Anthony Codling, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, described Fitzgerald as one of the “most charismatic and entertaining” bosses in the housing market and questioned whether his departure was premature.
Codling said: “The need for social and affordable housing remains acute, and we may look back with hindsight and conclude that Mr Fitzgerald’s move, unlike his comic timing, was a little early.”
Speaking to analysts on Wednesday, Fitzgerald insisted his retirement was taken for personal reasons and had been planned long in advance: “It is the right time to go,” he said.
Vistry’s competitor Barratt Redrow, which is the UK’s most productive housebuilder, appointed a new boss on Wednesday.
The blue-chip firm announced former infrastructure boss Dean Banks will be taking the reins as chief executive, as the housebuilder battles to regain investor confidence after a dividend cut last month prompted its share price to stumble.
On Tuesday, a leading construction firm said the sector is in gradual recovery but warned hikes to minimum wages and planning delays risk hampering housebuilding projects.
City watchdog plots streamlined motor finance scheme after backlash
The UK’s financial watchdog is looking to “streamline” its long-anticipated motor finance compensation scheme following widespread backlash across the industry.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) provided a fresh update to markets on Wednesday, stating it was considering over 1,000 responses to its proposals for the industry-wide redress scheme.
It added “if” it was to proceed with a scheme, the regulator was “likely to make several changes”.
In its update on Wednesday, the FCA said it would streamline the process for consumers and firms through removing the opt out options and replacing it with a three month deadline for lenders to tell consumers what they are owed and how much.
Consumers receiving an offer would also be able to accept it immediately, as opposed to waiting for the final determination.
Firms would also be no longer required to write to customers via recorded delivery, which the regulator said would open fresh avenues of communication to best meet a consumers’ needs.
The FCA said: “If we do go ahead [with the scheme], we expect to publish final rules in late March.”
Britain’s top banks were thought to have been granted some reprieve earlier this year after the Supreme Court sided with upheld two out of three appeals from lenders in the landmark car finance scandal.
But the second half of the year brought a series of sharp turns in the saga, with the FCA unveiling plans for a contentious redress scheme that led to banks dramatically hiking their provisions for payouts.
“The FCA says it will be making operational changes to the scheme, but reading between the lines it seems unlikely that the FCA will be willing to make material changes to the substance of the scheme that would reduce its scope and cost for lenders,” said Tom Dane, a financial services Partner at law firm CMS.
“Given concerns with the legality of the scheme in its originally proposed form, there remains the prospect of further legal challenge to the rules once they are published.”
Banks and consumers plead their motor finance case
One of the key area’s of criticism for the FCA’s scheme rests on the assessment of “unfair” – the criteria the Supreme Court upheld in the one successful claimant’s case.
The top Court ruled in favour of one of three claimants after finding their outsize commission of 55 per cent was “unfair”.
However, the FCA has said the threshold for its redress – where 14.2m agreements are estimated to be eligible – will be 35 per cent.
The scheme as it stands hands lenders a bill of around £11bn – still a hefty sum but far below previous estimates of £44bn once feared by the City. Around 14.2m agreements will be eligible for the scheme, dating back to 2007 – a timeframe which has faced fierce opposition from the industry.
The watchdog was forced to push back the deadline for submitting feedback for motor finance redress scheme last year as backlash from the both consumer and lending sides mounted.
Lloyds Banking Group – which owns the UK’s largest car finance provider Black Horse – was forced to hike provisions to £2bn from £1.2bn after details of the scheme emerged in October.
While FTSE 250 lender Close Brothers near-doubled its funds set aside to £300m and Barclays almost quadrupled its provisions to £325m.
Santander UK pulled the plug on its third-quarter results in October, citing uncertainty in the motor finance sector, as bank chief Mike Regnier called for the government to consider stepping in to help mediate.
He warned if the government does not intervene “the unintended consequences for the car finance market, the supply of credit and the resulting negative impact on the automotive industry and its supply chain could significantly impact jobs, growth and the broader UK economy.”
There has also been equal backlash on the consumer front, with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fair Banking blasting the City watchdog for a “£4.4bn gap” in the proposed scheme.
The group accused the regulator of being “influenced by the profit margins of the lenders”.
Spring Statement: Rachel Reeves ‘in denial’ as growth slumps
Rachel Reeves has been accused of being “in denial” as she insisted that her economic plan was working even as growth forecasts were slashed and unemployment was predicted to surpass pandemic-era highs.
Responding to yesterday’s Spring Statement, shadow chancellor Mel Stride said Labour’s economic agenda, which has raised the tax burden to a post-war high, had damaged the jobs market and hit “entire sectors of our economy”.
In her statement to the House of Commons, Reeves said updated forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) showed her decisions as Chancellor were “starting to pay off.”
However, despite the bullish tone, the UK economy is forecast to grow at a slower pace than previously expected, with growth now forecast to come in at 1.1 per cent this year compared to a previous prediction of 1.4 per cent.
The OBR also said unemployment would peak later this year, with the rate currently standing at 5.2 per cent.
The watchdog said unemployment would fall to 4.1 per cent by the end of the parliament, an assessment dismissed as “markedly optimistic” by Fergus Jimenez-England, associate economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
The OBR slightly revised up its growth forecasts for 2027 and 2028, to 1.6 per cent, while inflation was projected to fall at a faster pace this year than pencilled in at the Budget in November.
Forecasts made before conflict in Iran
However, analysts have been quick to caution that an energy price spike could derail inflation’s downward trajectory. Reeves also revealed that, as a result of changes in calculations around government borrowing, the level of headroom had increased from £21.7bn to £23.6bn.
Analysts at Capital Economics warned this “could be swamped by events in the Middle East,” adding that “the conflict…has changed the outlook and the risks are that the leap in energy prices will mean UK inflation and interest rates are higher than the OBR is forecasting and real GDP growth will be lower.”
They warned that “come the Budget, there is a real risk that government borrowing will be higher and the Chancellor’s headroom will be lower.”
Reeves insisted that “borrowing is down, living standards are up, and the economy is growing,” while economists at Mizuho said some of the OBR’s predictions risk being “obsolete” and “irrelevant” given the escalating crisis in the Middle East.
Hours before Reeves took to her feet the cost of government borrowing rose in response to the dampening of interest rate cut expectations this month, from a 90 per cent chance to 30 per cent.
The Chancellor concluded her speech by claiming that “every pound that we have invested, every pound in the pockets of working people, every pound that we have secured in the forecast today, can be wiped out by a change of course.”
But Mitchell Palmer, economist at the Adam Smith Institute, said “the priority now must be to raise the economy’s growth potential [by] accelerating planning reform, reducing the cost of employing people, setting Britain’s nuclear and gas sectors free, and reforming taxes to encourage work and investment.”
Harrison.ai Continues to Grow Open Platform Ecosystem, Welcomes Four New AI Partners
Following the launch of its Open Platform last year, Harrison.ai today announced that four additional AI companies — AIRAmed, Koios Medical, Lunit and Nanox AI — would join the Harrison.ai Open Platform.
This expansion reflects the platform’s ongoing mission to give healthcare organisations flexible access to high-quality AI solutions that meet their clinical and operational needs without traditional marketplace mark-ups and fees.
The Open Platform was created to provide greater choice and transparency in medical imaging AI adoption. With these new partners, the platform now offers a wide spectrum of AI solutions for X-rays, CTs, MRIs, mammography and ultrasound for customers to choose from, in addition to Harrison.ai’s native solutions.
Each partner brings expertise across different imaging domains, helping healthcare organisations evaluate AI tools that align with their specific workflows, priorities, and patient populations.
Dr. Tobias Lindig CEO, Neurologist & Neuroradiologist, AIRAmed said, “Open ecosystems are essential for the scalable and responsible adoption of medical AI. Healthcare providers should have the flexibility to select best-in-class solutions without commercial barriers or mark-ups. With the emergence of disease-modifying Alzheimer’s therapies, quantitative MR volumetry of the brain is becoming an increasingly important component of patient stratification and treatment planning. Early detection and reliable differential diagnosis are critical, as subtle neurodegenerative changes are often not visible through visual assessment alone. Through our partnership with Harrison.ai, we are expanding access to objective, reproducible brain imaging biomarkers that integrate seamlessly into clinical workflows and support informed, data-driven treatment decisions.”
“On behalf of Team Koios, we could not be happier to be working closely and aligned with our friends and colleagues at Harrison AI. Having known and watched Dr. Aengus and Dimitry Tran since the early years, there is no doubt we are like-minded in terms of our commitment to patient care, provider access to proven solutions and delivering excellent patient and customer experiences,” said Chad McClennan, President & CEO, Koios Medical.
“We are delighted to establish this partnership with Harrison.ai, which reflects our shared ambition to advance the adoption of AI in healthcare,” said Brandon Suh, Chief Executive Officer of Lunit. “The Harrison Open Platform offers an exceptional foundation for Lunit’s solutions to be surfaced to customers in key markets, and we look forward to collaborating closely — including on joint enterprise opportunities — as we continue to expand our global presence.”
“Through our collaboration with Harrison.ai, we are expanding Nanox’s commercial footprint by bringing AI solutions with demonstrated real‑world value to healthcare providers at scale, supported by Harrison.ai’s deployment across more than 1,000 healthcare sites worldwide,” said Erez Meltzer, Chief Executive Officer and Acting Chairman of Nanox.
The Open Platform operates on an open architecture model with a customer ROI-first approach and zero mark-ups to the vendors. Harrison.ai provides the infrastructure that enables healthcare providers to build an AI ecosystem tailored to their needs, with clarity around pricing and value. The platform does not block competing applications that meet industry-standard containerization specifications, even those that compete directly with Harrison.ai’s own solutions. Healthcare organizations integrate once through vendor-neutral interfaces to their PACS, RIS, and EHR systems, then have the option to access a full catalog of AI applications.
As global adoption of medical imaging AI continues to grow, the Harrison.ai Open Platform is designed to evolve alongside customer requirements, supporting collaboration across the ecosystem and helping healthcare organisations select the algorithms that best fit their needs.
About Harrison.ai
Harrison.ai is a global healthcare technology company that enhances clinician capacity and patient care through AI automation. Clinician-led and patient-first, our suite of solutions supports earlier, more accurate diagnoses and seamlessly integrates into clinical workflows.
Harrison.ai solutions are available in 40+ countries and to half of all Australian radiologists. They are clinically deployed at 1,000+ customer sites globally, including 40+ NHS Trusts and all public emergency departments in Hong Kong. With 3,400+ clinicians using our tools, Harrison.ai has impacted more than 7 million patients’ lives to date.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260303839130/en/
Contact
Media Contact: Reena Rajan; reena.rajan@harrison.ai
Abstract
Harrison.ai today announced that four additional AI companies — AIRAmed, Koios Medical, Lunit and Nanox AI — would join the Harrison.ai Open Platform.
FTSE 100 Live: Stocks inch back up; UK faces energy bills warning
Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog.
Yesterday, Rachel Reeves delivered her Spring Statement.
The Chancellor wheeled out new forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility that cut growth for 2026 but – albeit modestly – upgraded it for the years to come.
But forecasts were quickly labelled out of date by economists in the City as the backdrop of the war in the Middle East threatened to wreck inflation estimates and send the FTSE 100 tumbling.
The UK gas price surged to its highest level in three-years on Tuesday after nearly doubling in the space of two days to highs of 165p a therm. It later gave up some gains but finished at 138p a therm – over a fifth higher than Monday’s price.
Meanwhile, oil briefly rose above $85 a barrel for the first time since July 2024.
The frenzy has economists sounding the alarm on inflation.
“A prolonged conflict in the Middle East could trigger a steep rise in UK industrial and residential energy bills when the new energy price is announced on July 1, suggesting headline inflation could rise sharply in the second half of this year,” Raj Badiani, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:
And it’s this uncertainty that but bond markets on alert, with the UK’s 10-year gilt yield – a key metric indicating the government’s cost of borrowing – rose around 20 basis points at a peak before falling to finish the day around 10 basis points higher.
We’ll be bringing you the latest as the situation continues to unfold.
Here’s a few of our top stories yesterday:
- Greggs profit flakes as baker faces lukewarm start to year
- Reeves delivers Spring Statement as war rages and markets tremble
- Greens close gap with Labour in polls after historic by-election win
- AI-fuelled plumbing boom is luring in private equity
- Meet Reeves’ outsider tasked with steering the City to growth
- Cadillac to leverage US identity to grow F1 sponsorship portfolio
- Reeves to deliver ‘stability’ Spring Statement amid turmoil in Iran
This is low-key the best place to drink Italian wine in London…
Please put that Pinot Grigio down. I know you think this Italian wine is a safe bet, but you are missing out. Italian cooking traditions were recently added to the UNESCO World Heritage list and they deserve a more interesting dining companion.
Sale e Pepe Mare is the most anticipated opening this week, with the original restaurant being a locally adored Knightsbridge gem. Its parmigiana di melanzane is so good our waitress said it was better than her Nonna’s (which is as close to Italian familial treachery as one can get) but with this weighty slice of saucy satisfaction it is probably justified.
Don’t miss their spigola al sale, a whole sea bass baked in salt then flambéed tableside. The result is so good even the fish must agree it was an honour to be served thus. Michele Orbolato, the restaurant’s head of wine, recommends a Soave to pair, which “enhances the delicacy of the fish without overpowering it”.
Throw all thoughts of boring, generic Soaves from the 1990s out of your head; this is the good stuff, especially the superb “La Rocca” by producer Pieropan.
If you are lucky enough to get a seat at Sale e Pepe Mare then order the bluefin tuna otoro with crispy brioche and devour it with a glass of Friulano. Friulano is dry and fresh like a Pinot Grigio but has more weight and a delicate nuttiness. “It’s elegant, with subtle notes of white flowers and almond, perfectly complementing the richness and delicacy of the dish,” says Orbolato.
The most fascinating and fabulously food friendly wine I discovered is at 2Veneti, a beloved Marylebone institution celebrating 20 years serving up exquisite Venetian cuisine. Led by gregarious owner Simon Piovesan’s passion for wine, its list of over 200 Italian wines has both classics and curiosities.
I tried a Trentodoc traditional method sparkling wine, a voluptuous Piave (Piovesan tells me this is made by only three producers in Italy) and a ‘Roncaja’.
This last bottle, also known as Colli Pesaresi Roncaglia DOC, is the best Italian wine you have never heard of. A blend of rare native grape Albanella (a relation of Albarino) and Pinot Noir, this white wine has it all: freshness and versatility with citrus, salinity and structure. It can handle even the trickiest of dishes.
The 2Veneti smoked burrata with radicchio and blood oranges? Done. The creaminess of traditional baccala’ mantecato (whipped salt cod that is 100 per cent more delicious than it sounds)? Nailed it. A simple pasta pepped up with anchovies and onion? Perfection. 2 Veneti is a place to embrace and enjoy the best Northern Italy has to offer.
The Italian job: Three top Italian wines
Pasqua Hey French! You Could Have Made This But You Didn’t, £38, Majestic
I love this wine’s playful confidence in breaking the rules to create a multi-vintage blend of Garganega, Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. Complex, silky, cool stone with tropical fruits and whispers of chamomile. A beguiling bottle.
L’Ornato Custoza, £13.99, Virgin Wines
A crisp, easy-drinking white created from a unique blend of Cortese, Garganega, Trebbiano Toscano and Incrocio Manzoni. Ripe orchard fruits, sun-warmed citrus and delicate blossoms send you straight to an Italian summer.
The Society’s Exhibition Barolo, £29, The Wine Society
The Exhibition range offers exceptional quality and here Silvano Bolmida has produced a finely honed example of the intriguing Nebbiolo grape. Refined, powerful and full of vitality. Enjoy with game or truffle pasta.
The Debate: Was a ‘quiet’ Spring Statement what businesses needed?
It was good for the Chancellor’s blood pressure, but was it good for business? We hear the case for and against the “boring” Spring Statement in this week’s Debate
YES: The global backdrop hardly encourages risk-taking. For now, stability is a virtue
This week’s Spring Statement was a rare and welcome moment of calm. In business, we reforecast constantly, but we agree a budget once a year. That budget sets investor expectations, shapes compensation programmes and becomes the north star for the months ahead. We live and die by it.
In government, however, the Spring Statement has too often drifted into a second Budget by another name. In four of the last 10 years, it has carried material fiscal changes. The weeks and months leading up to recent Budgets have been fraught: blame games, talk of black holes and radical shifts in employer taxation. Businesses and households alike have been left needing less drama and more certainty, less rhetoric and more security.
Yesterday was different. No material fiscal surprises. No sudden tax changes. No confidence-sapping measures slipped in under the guise of an update. For once, a Spring Statement did what it said on the tin. I welcome the return to a steadier narrative and a measure of fiscal discipline – and I know other business leaders feel the same.
The global backdrop hardly encourages risk-taking. Conflict involving Iran, tension between Pakistan and India and four grinding years of war in Ukraine weigh heavily on markets and minds alike. Against that backdrop, the government’s decision last November to keep this March event deliberately light looks prudent, particularly at a time of polling pressure and noisy opposition.
We cannot plan too far ahead; uncertainty remains a stubborn companion. But for now, stability is a virtue. Let’s get our heads down growing businesses, governing responsibly, and getting on with the work of the day.
Steve Rigby is CEO of Rigby Group
NO: The government is in danger of making itself irrelevant. Growth demands action
The Chancellor had every excuse she needed to play it safe with yesterday’s Spring Statement.
Borrowing and inflation forecasts were forcecast to be (and have been) revised down, while a steady drumbeat of interest rate cuts are finally starting to be felt in people’s pockets. Flaring conflict in the Middle East and uncertainty about its implications for the global markets served only to reinforce a cautious sentiment in the Treasury.
But – after 18 months of stumbling from crisis to catastrophe with no clear direction or coherent strategy – the luxury of steadying the ship is no longer afforded to this government.
Last week’s historic defeat to the Green Party in the Gorton and Denton by-election should be a wake-up call. The electoral threat – so long embodied by the rise of Reform UK on the right of British politics – is now all around. For traditional political parties, it could prove existential.
Through indecision and inaction, the government is in danger of making itself irrelevant. If tackling the cost of living and delivering economic growth that reaches ordinary working people is to be achieved, it demands bold and decisive action. The Chancellor may have committed to limiting the Treasury to a single annual fiscal event, but opportunities to radically shift the dial are fast running out.
For the Labour Party to stand any chance of winning the next General Election, its only option is to choose a path and pursue it with unwavering focus. The days of half-measures, triangulated policy and tinkering around the edges are long gone. If they can’t, the lifespan of this government will be measured not in months and years, but in days and weeks.
Luke Francis is a partner at Pagefield and former Labour Party adviser
THE VERDICT
Ahead of yesterday’s Spring Statement, there was one thing the government took great pains to emphasise: it would be boring. No drama, no policy announcements, and certainly no rabbits. And they stayed true to their word. Heading to the dispatch box, Chancellor Reeves was uncharacteristically relaxed, smiling as she left Downing Street and comfortably cracking jokes in the commons. A boring Budget, then, was certainly to the benefit of Ms Reeves’s blood pressure, but what about businesses?
Mr Francis is right that Labour is in crisis, and bold action is needed to save the party. However they also need to stick to their word, and having just one fiscal event a year was a flagship commitment that they would have been remiss to abandon. What’s more, what’s good for the party is different to what’s good for business, and, as illustrated by Mr Rigby, business has been loud and clear on what it wants: stability.
The verdict: in a world of turmoil, ‘dull’, ‘boring’ and ‘uneventful’ are about the best words a government can hope for.
Why you should put your CEO on Tiktok (from someone who’s done it)
After a viral Tiktok video led to a spike in business enquiries, Riannon Palmer tells us about the power of founder-led storytelling on social media in today’s Notebook
The viral Tiktok that boosted my business
People buy from people. Research consistently shows that audiences trust individuals more than logos, and Linkedin has reported that content shared by employees gets eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels alone. Recently, I discovered this myself.
I’ve consistently shown up on Linkedin for years, but only recently started appearing personally on Tiktok and Instagram. At first, the views were low, and it felt frustrating. But a few weeks ago, one of my videos about our positive work policies (‘Things I do as a female entrepreneur that tech bro CEOs like Elon Musk would hate’) went viral. Within days of posting, I had received hundreds of CVs and direct messages from professionals asking about roles. Traffic to the company’s website also surged 534 per cent, with a 1,032 per cent rise in visits to the team and career page.
From that single post, we had job enquiries, newsletter sign-ups and even a new business call booked, all from something that cost nothing but consistency and showing up as the face of the brand. If, as a business, you’re not investing in your visibility on social media and putting your leaders at the forefront, you’re missing a major opportunity.
Social media isn’t just for product-led businesses. Whether you sell services, experiences or ideas, people connect with people first. For founders and leaders, building a visible personal brand is no longer optional; it’s a core channel for business growth.
In a world where everyone craves authenticity, organic marketing lets you build and mould your public perception. Many businesses are moving away from driving all of their investment in paid ads and realising the power of building out organic methods, which will grow community and compound returns over time. Founder-led visibility builds familiarity, trust and, ultimately, commercial impact.
Happier people deliver better work
Happier people deliver better work, and that belief is why I quit my job five years ago to start Lem-uhn. Working in PR, like 91 per cent of PR professionals, I struggled with my mental health. I wanted to work for a company that genuinely cared about its employees and worked with better brands, but that environment didn’t exist, so I built it myself.
At my agency, we’ve introduced positive policies including work-from-anywhere, menstrual leave, flexible hours and time in lieu for overtime worked. These initiatives don’t require huge budgets, but they do create happier, more loyal and more productive teams. Research consistently links employee wellbeing to increased creativity, retention and performance, yet too many large organisations still treat wellbeing as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a commercial strategy.
If a small business can implement these policies, larger companies certainly can. Especially in a market facing high staff turnover, investing in employee happiness isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s good for business.
Anything can be PR
Anything can be PR. Too many founders think PR only means big announcements or traditional press coverage, but the reality is that timely, creative commentary is what secures attention. Take the launch of the new series of Bridgerton. While obvious angles focus on costumes or TV production, brands could also comment on workplace romance policies, historical etiquette in modern leadership, colour psychology in branding or even the economics of fandom-driven consumer spending. PR is about relevance and perspective. If you can connect your expertise to what people are already talking about, you create commentary that journalists actually want to include.
What I’ve been reading: The Rise Report
Last week, The Rise Report by Female Founders Rise launched the largest grassroots study of female entrepreneurship ever conducted in the UK. It reveals the change needed to happen to unlock the £250bn that closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship could add to the UK economy, underlining just how significant female-led growth could be.
One thing that resonated with me was how one of the top reasons women start companies is because of a passion and personal interest. I see time and time again women starting companies to solve a problem they have seen. We are natural problem solvers, and this is true in the business world, too.
Riannon Palmer is the founder and managing director of Lem-uhn