Trump signs largest financial stimulus package in US history March 28, 2020 US President Donald Trump has signed the largest financial stimulus package in US history, worth a total of $2tn (£1.7tn). The cross-party bill was passed by the House of Representatives as the country attempts to control the fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The number of US citizens filing for unemployment reached record highs on [...]
Coronavirus and policymaking: Mario Draghi didn’t just say ‘whatever it takes’ March 24, 2020 These are unprecedented times. Our lives as we know them have been upended: the comforts of routine squarely thrown out of the window and replaced with a combination of anxiety and dread. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is a black swan that no one saw coming (though we should have been better equipped) and has [...]
Richard Branson pledges $250m to protect jobs from coronavirus March 22, 2020 Richard Branson has pledged that his Virgin empire will invest $250m over the next few months to protect jobs from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The entrepreneur, who owns the Virgin Atlantic airline, said many of his businesses in the travel and leisure sector were in a “massive battle” to survive as flights have [...]
Coronavirus will ‘accelerate the digital revolution’, says ad mogul Martin Sorrell March 19, 2020 The outbreak of coronavirus will “accelerate the digital revolution” as businesses and consumers become increasingly reliant on technology, ad boss Sir Martin Sorrell has said. Sorrell, who runs ad fim S4 Capital, today said the “bottom line” of the crisis was that digital transformation would move at a much greater pace. “Businesses that were probably [...]
It’s time to self-isolate from social media’s armchair experts March 19, 2020 You can tell whether a news story is really, properly serious by the degree to which people develop instant expertise. Back in 2008, all sorts of people who didn’t know an asset from a debt suddenly started holding forth confidently about balance sheet liabilities and CDO-Squareds. A few years later, in the wake of the [...]
Housing secretary Robert Jenrick slams Sadiq Khan’s London homes plan March 13, 2020 The housing secretary has slammed Sadiq Khan’s proposals for new London’s homes, saying a focus on small flats will push families out of the capital. Robert Jenrick MP has blocked the publication of the London mayor’s housing plan until “significant improvements” have been made. In a damning letter to Khan, Jenrick said housing delivery in [...]
Neil Woodford investors to share £141.7m payout March 12, 2020 Investors in Neil Woodford’s former flagship fund are in line to share a £141.7m payout as the liquidation of its assets continues. The capital distribution is the second since the process to wind up the Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF) began earlier this year. In January around £2.1bn was handed back to the 300,000 investors [...]
Level up: Boosting the regions might mean levelling down London March 12, 2020 Except for updates on the coronavirus, no ministerial appearance these days is complete without mention of the government’s professed intention to “level up”. This seems to mean a desire to do something — usually something to do with infrastructure spending — for the so-called “left-behind” places that voted Leave in 2016, and especially those “red [...]
Mind the gap: How to level up transport networks across south London March 9, 2020 It is widely acknowledged that south London’s transport links are inferior to those north of the river. By taking a cursory glance at the Tube map, it becomes blindingly obvious that there is a clear disparity between the two parts of our city, with several multi-coloured lines stretching well into the north in stark contrast [...]
Human ingenuity and working together will pull us through the coronavirus crisis March 9, 2020 Last week, Bank of England governor Mark Carney gave his economic view of the possible consequences of coronavirus: he expects it to cause “disruption” and not “destruction”. In saying this, he follows the measured words of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who made the point that preparing for the worst is the job at hand. [...]