Rapid responses November 25, 2012 House of cards [Re:Why Britain’s housing market has escaped the disasters of the 1990s, Friday] Although Ruth Lea’s article is interesting, I’m concerned that a similar housing disaster to that of 1990s has simply been postponed by our unnaturally low interest rates. The problem that Britain’s housing market faces is that a huge number of [...]
High childcare costs needn’t give you a case of baby blues November 25, 2012 RISING childcare costs are deterring British mothers from returning to work. According to a 2011 Eurostat survey, 48.8 per cent of women with three or more children are in employment in the UK, compared with 71.3 per cent in the Netherlands and 68.2 in Finland. But family formation patterns have changed over the past few [...]
Trust a trust to protect your child’s education November 25, 2012 SINCE 2002, private school fees have risen at 1.8 times the rate of inflation. The average cost today is £11,500 per year, up from £6,800 in 2002. Private education is becoming more of a luxury, and it may be a good idea to find a more innovative solution than relying on your Christmas bonus. A [...]
Prepare for a brave new world of more investment choices November 25, 2012 NEW rules from the Financial Services Authority – the retail distribution review (RDR), which comes into effect on 1 January – intend to empower consumers by making investing more transparent. The idea is to help retail investing work more effectively. But investors will also face greater choice in how they buy their investments, and this [...]
A technology revolution is empowering investors November 25, 2012 EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, GEKKO INVESTMENT platforms came about because switched-on providers realised that the more choice investors were given, and the more they understood the wisdom of diversifying their investments, something needed to be done to simplify the whole investment process. More choice and greater diversification meant investors had to deal with a host of detailed [...]
Find sanctuary from the Indian bustle November 25, 2012 ENSCONCED in a luxury yoga hotel in the Himalayas, or in a resort matrix like Goa, you might just be able to avoid the clanging, overwhelming reality of India as you go about your daily business. Not in the cities. No matter how luxurious your hotel, enclave, or colony (as certain leafy districts are known), [...]
Fans will see that they are wrong to boo me – Rafa November 25, 2012 CHELSEA 0 vs MANCHESTER CITY 0 CHELSEA’S Rafael Benitez insisted last night that the fans who gave him a hellish reception will come to see the error of their ways, after the new manager failed to end the Blues’ month-long wait for a Premier League win. A torrent of verbal abuse was aimed by the [...]
Pietersen and Cook hit record equalling tons November 25, 2012 ENGLAND’S mercurial batsman Kevin Pietersen poured praise on his captain Alastair Cook yesterday after the pair stormed their way to record-equalling centuries in the second Test against India. Cook and Pietersen both hit the 22nd tons of their Test careers, the equal highest number in the team’s history alongside Geoffrey Boycott, Wally Hammond and Colin [...]
Let’s help fourth officials stamp out thugs November 25, 2012 ON Friday evening the great Welsh scrum-half Clive Rowlands was speaking at a dinner in Cardiff on the eve of the Wales v New Zealand Test, remembering his part in changing the laws of rugby union. In 1963, he had almost singlehandedly been responsible for perhaps the most remarkable statistic in the history of the [...]
Anti-Semitism mustn’t detract from Spurs win, says Villas-Boas November 25, 2012 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 3 vs WEST HAM UNITED 1 TOTTENHAM manager Andre Villas-Boas refused to dwell on apparent anti-Semitic chanting from West Ham fans after Jermain Defoe’s brace sunk the striker’s old club at White Hart Lane. Winger Gareth Bale scored in between Defoe’s goals, while a late Andy Carroll header for the visitors could not [...]
