The coalition’s pension plan is an insult to private sector workers, not to the unions December 4, 2011 THE recent concessions by the coalition, in respect of the public sector pension negotiations, verge on an unconditional surrender to the unions, perhaps on a scale unprecedented in the history of public sector labour negotiations. The price will be paid by those who are not at the negotiating table: the private sector and the young. [...]
A warning from the future: Don’t bank on old ways December 4, 2011 FOR banks, the path of lowest possible risk is to continue doing what they’ve always done; however this would be a grave mistake, as Alan Hughes wrote in the Forum last week [The challenge to banks: Who will lead on service, Wednesday]. Not only is service important, as Hughes argues, but with technology shifting the [...]
Keep a new Heathrow runway on the table December 4, 2011 GRIDLOCK is often the outcome of public sector walkouts so we can be grateful that last week’s strikes did not, as feared, severely impact upon Heathrow. Civil servants and others stepped in to prevent the lengthy queues and angry scenes that would have damaged our international reputation with both tourists and businesses. As a world-leading [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 4, 2011 UnCommons sense As a tax-and-spend liberal who believes in big government I am confounded to find myself agreeing with Dr Tim Morgan [There’s one economic policy the coalition has yet to try, last Tuesday]. He points to some truths that have been forgotten by all parties in this debate: growth is unlikely to come from [...]
The sky is the limit December 4, 2011 HAVING condensed for 30 years in the mind of Goichi Hosoda, a Japanese journalist, ichimoku kinko hyo – which translates as “one glance balanced chart” – took Japanese traders by storm when it was unveiled in 1960. It’s now a stock indicator in Japan and has a scattered following in Europe and the US. This [...]
THE WEEK AHEAD December 4, 2011 COMPANY NEWS ● TUI Travel announces its preliminary results for the year today. The company is an international leisure travel agency that operates aircraft and retail outlets and services the European and North American markets. ● Northgate will announce its interim results tomorrow. A vehicle rental business, Northgate hopes the first half of its financial [...]
THE TIPSTER December 4, 2011 WHEN Victrex reports its earnings on Tuesday, analysts are expecting revenues of around £93m, up from £75m this time last year. The maker of polymers’s shares have slid 27 per cent from their highs in July of 1,600p, but it looks like it is on the way back from lows of 1,020p. Strong gains and [...]
WE MUST TURN ON THE PRESSES December 4, 2011 IN AN earlier article I said that I was disheartened by the chain of disappointments that are perpetuating the crisis of the Eurozone. Many analysts, and I among them, believe that the European Central Bank has the ability to change history, or is destined to repeat it. To quote the world renowned economist and Nobel [...]
X FACTOR JUDGE IS THE LAST MAN AT THE BAR AT IRELAND FUND BALL December 4, 2011 CITIGROUP managing director Basil Geoghegan proved his stamina when he became the eighteenth Irishman to successfully scale Mount Everest earlier this year. But even he is no match for X Factor judge Louis Walsh, who was the last man standing at the Ireland Fund of Great Britain’s tenth winter ball at The Savoy on Saturday [...]
BILL OF THE WEEK December 4, 2011 THIS week’s bill from Italian restaurant Bunga Bunga was so long this column had to cut it in half. So let’s just say that ten well-funded fund managers spent £116.50 on food when they visited the Battersea venue for lunch, before frittering away seven times that amount on the more “interesting” end of the menu. [...]
