UK retail sales outperform expectations ahead of second lockdown November 20, 2020 UK retail sales rose for the sixth consecutive month, smashing analysts’ expectations as Britons stocked up on goods ahead of new restrictions. In October UK retail sales volumes grew 1.2 per cent, well ahead of the 0.0 per cent expected, said the Office for National Statistics. Volumes are now 6.7 per cent higher than in [...]
MPs launch inquiry with eye to bolstering City after Brexit November 20, 2020 MPs have launched a major new inquiry aimed at strengthening the role of the City of London as a global financial hub after Britain leaves the EU’s trading arrangements in January. The Treasury Committee of MPs said it will dig into how financial services regulations should be set and scrutinised by lawmakers, and how regulators [...]
Is going to university actually worth it — and who should decide? November 20, 2020 What are universities for? It’s the sort of navel-gazing question that academics love to pose, and the sort of deep philosophical terrain that pragmatic policy people fear getting sucked too far into. But with the government and regulators looking at new ways to measure and compare the quality of different degrees, it is a conversation [...]
Singing of arms and the man: Behind the big Boris defence announcement November 20, 2020 The announcement was preceded, of course, by a leak to the media, so that it could make a splash in the morning press. Standard practice these days, unfortunately — but the story was still an impressive one: the Prime Minister was giving the Ministry of Defence an extra £4bn a year for the next four [...]
Chemistry won the vaccine battle, but logistics will win the Covid war November 20, 2020 We are in a global war with Covid-19. And as military wisdom has it, wars aren’t won with the best tactics but the best logistics. Media coverage around the two initial vaccines — from Pfizer and Moderna — has concentrated on their relative levels of effectiveness and the number of jabs on order. But positive [...]
DEBATE: Are fears about remote working’s damage to Britain’s creative potential overblown? November 20, 2020 Are fears about remote working’s damage to Britain’s creative potential overblown? Kristine Dahl Steidel, vice president EUC EMEA at VMware, says YES. The future of work has arrived in the form of distributed workforces, and businesses should not be using this as an excuse for stagnant growth. The facts speak for themselves: new research shows [...]
From hero to zero: How supermarkets became the villains of the pandemic November 20, 2020 The recent news from Public Health England (PHE) that supermarkets are the most frequent common exposure setting for those catching Covid-19 in England is both shocking and devastating. But should we really be too surprised? PHE used data collated from the NHS test and trace app during the lockdown in November when supermarkets, as in [...]
Aldi extends Deliveroo service across London November 20, 2020 Aldi has extended its trial with Deliveroo to 130 stores across the UK, including 16 London branches. The budget supermarket announced this morning that Londoners will be able to order groceries through the Deliveroo app, to be received in as little as 20 minutes. Orders within 6km of participating stores, which include Tooting, Camden and [...]
Little ‘Christmas cheer’ as UK consumer confidence falls November 20, 2020 New coronavirus restrictions and rising cases knocked UK consumer confidence in November, a survey has shown, as people became more gloomy about their future economic health. The closely watched consumer confidence index from researcher GfK fell two points to minus 33 in November, its lowest reading since June. Britain’s economy has been hit particularly hard [...]
Black Friday: Click and collect to boost retail park footfall as high streets suffer November 20, 2020 Retail footfall on Black Friday is forecast to plummet due to the closure of non-essential stores, but online stores, retail parks and shopping centres will benefit from click and collect services, according to the latest research. England is set to be the hardest hit, with footfall expected to plunge 61.7 per cent on Black Friday [...]
