‘A horror story’: Brexit and Covid halt international trade for UK SMEs November 11, 2020 Already suffering from the impact of a domestic lockdown, the UK’s SMEs have also been forced to halt international trade this year. The dual hit of Brexit and Covid uncertainty has seen 1.5m small businesses pause international imports and exports in 2020, according to research by fintech Currensea. For many SMEs international trade is the [...]
Barclays fossil fuel financing increases despite ‘net zero’ pledge November 11, 2020 Barclays has increased its financing of fossil fuel firms despite setting a ‘net zero’ goal for itself earlier this year following investor pressure, according to a new report. The bank, which is Europe’s largest fossil fuel financer, provided $24.58bn (£18.55bn) in underwriting and lending to major fossil fuel companies between January and September this year. [...]
Gender pension gap narrows but women still lag behind November 11, 2020 Women will need to work beyond 100 to match men’s pension pots even as the gender pension gap narrows. More women are putting money aside for retirement, with the pension gap closing to just one per cent, the narrowest on record according to pension provider Scottish Widows. Despite this, the gender pay gap and part-time [...]
DEBATE: Should NHS staff be given a pay rise? November 11, 2020 Anthony Johnson, a nurse and an organiser with Nurses United, says YES. The Covid crisis has shown like never before just how central the NHS is to everyone’s wellbeing and safety. From our cleaners to our GPs, the entire team is essential. And if we don’t pay people fairly, they will be forced to find [...]
Leaders in Lockdown: Eyes on the road ahead, there’s no going back November 11, 2020 The hope this week of a Covid-19 vaccine has already got people talking of “going back to normal” — perhaps even by spring. But there will be no going back for British business. The events of the last eight months have changed things forever. In March, as Covid spread from mainland Europe to the City [...]
What next for one-term President Donald Trump? November 11, 2020 There perhaps nothing that will hurt Donald Trump more than being a one-term wonder. Politics is a cruel game, there is no second place, and falling short is both brutal and public. For a man with an ego that the world has come to know, the last six weeks as a caretaker President will rankle. [...]
The public are not to blame for the second lockdown November 11, 2020 Justice secretary Robert Buckland last week blamed the public for England’s new lockdown. In particular, the fault was with people failing to self-isolate properly. Of course, in a purely technical sense Buckland is right. The virus spreads by contact with an infected person. If people do not self-isolate, Covid-19 will continue to percolate across the [...]
Five ways the travel industry can save itself November 11, 2020 Covid-19 has absolutely hammered the travel industry. The UN World Tourism Organisation predicts a fall in international travel spending of $910bn–1.2 trillion this year, and that arrivals will tumble by up to 80 per cent. This constitutes an extinction level threat for many businesses in the industry, and has prompted an array of existential reflections, [...]
Pandemic leads UK consumers to cut carbon emissions in 2020 November 11, 2020 Carbon emissions from six key consumer spending categories were 12% lower at the end of October than they were the year before, according to analysis from Lloyds Banking Group and the Carbon Trust. Despite the overall fall the analysis found emissions rose 26% between the second and third quarter of the year as spending increased [...]
Biden dubs Trump’s refusal to concede the election ‘an embarrassment’ November 10, 2020 President-elect Joe Biden has described Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 presidential election as an “embarrassment”. Speaking at an event in Delaware this evening, Biden said nothing is going to stop the US transfer of power after his election victory. Joe Biden secured some 75 million votes in the race for the presidency – [...]
