The City View: January 18: A bumper tech deal and aviation January 18, 2022 Today Andy Silvester is joined by Skytra’s Co-Founder and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Elise Weber, and by City A.M.’s Leah Montebello for news about a mega-deal struck between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. Andy also takes us through the headlines, including news about the impact inflation is having on Britons’ wallets and a warning by [...]
A lack of direction at the top has left Boris vulnerable to scandal January 14, 2022 Since being elected in 2019 on a new brand of Conservative politics, Johnson has completely failed to add meat to the bones of precisely what this means. Without a safety net of coherent politics, a checklist of achievements to wave at his many critics, Johnson is more in danger of being waylaid by scandals than [...]
Terry Smith has a point – and the rest of the City should listen too January 13, 2022 Earlier this week we called for more plain speaking in the business world. Terry Smith, the legendary fund manager, has rarely needed such a nudge. Unilever, he said in his letter to investors this week, has “clearly lost the plot.” Smith’s beef was an effort to define the purpose of Hellmann’s mayonnaise. Regardless of whether [...]
Fintech fail: Home Office bars start-ups banked with Revolut from visa sponsorship licence January 11, 2022 The fintech revolution is sweeping through Government – but it appears it hasn’t yet hit the Home Office, which bars start-ups who bank from Revolut from acquiring a vital visa sponsorship licence. Recently-founded businesses looking to gain a licence to “sponsor” foreign workers through the government’s new visa system must submit evidence of a corporate [...]
Britain’s financial future needs catch-up plan for young workers January 10, 2022 If lockdowns have taught us anything, it’s not to underestimate the power of a holiday. Two weeks on the beach feels like a valuable reward after two years of mentally draining restrictions. It is not surprising that travel companies are reporting an uptick in the booking of ‘big’ holidays. Part of that, of course, is [...]
‘New Hubble’ telescope lifts off December 25, 2021 The $10bn successor to the Hubble telescope has successfully launched into space today. The James Webb telescope launched from French Guiana after years of work which, scientists believe, will make it around a hundred times more powerful than its famous predecessor. It is hoped the telescope will be able to pick up images of the [...]
Lack of support is untenable, and the Chancellor must know it December 17, 2021 The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has played a bad hand very well since taking the job in February 2020, just as news of a strange and mysterious virus was beginning to bother the front pages. It has helped that he has been playing with the equivalent of house money – borrowing huge sums in what became, [...]
Believe it or not, there are still reasons to be cheerful for 2022 December 16, 2021 There are, it is fair to say, many reasons to feel a tad disheartened at the minute. Yesterday’s record number of Omicron cases was hardly cheering. Neither is the sight of empty streets and shuttered businesses on a quick stroll around the City. But, believe it or not, there are reasons to be cheerful. Plenty, [...]
Some rationality called for amidst the drumbeat to restrictions December 14, 2021 Who would have thought that just five years after the Brexit referendum, Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin and the CBI would be back on the same side. Truly, Covid-19 has made for the strangest of bedfellows. Both have railed, reasonably, against the new Plan B restrictions which are well on their way to being passed into [...]
City Hall warns failure to fund TfL will leave £2.1bn hole in Treasury’s finances December 14, 2021 A failure to strike a long-term funding deal for TfL would result in a £12bn hit to the capital’s economy, according to new City Hall analysis.
