Renegade wine made in Bethnal Green – with YOUR face on it June 24, 2021 Warwick Smith is Bethnal Green’s first and so far only winemaker, and probably the only one that puts his customers’ faces on the bottle. “We ask people to put themselves forward every year and we pick a selection. The idea is that the wines stay with the people. If we make the same wine in [...]
Channel 4 privatisation risks pulling the plug on UK production June 23, 2021 When Thatcher’s government set up Channel 4 back in 1982 as the boisterous youth-focused challenger to the BBC behemoth, it was a radical shake-up of Britain’s fusty broadcasting landscape. Now, almost four decades later, that same landscape is unrecognisable, its skyline dominated by the giants of the internet and streaming age. It’s in this context [...]
Property transactions fall in May as end of stamp duty holiday cools market June 22, 2021 UK residential property transactions fell in May, with buying and selling in the coming months likely to reduce further as the stamp duty holiday ends. There were 114,940 residential property transactions in May, according to ONS figures, some 3.9 per cent lower than in April 2021. House prices have boomed in the last year due [...]
Rosé Prosecco: Why this once-banned drink was the star of 2020 June 18, 2021 I think we can all agree that 2020 had few highlights but let me put this forward as a big hitter… Pink Prosecco. Yes, you heard correctly, rosé Prosecco was only legalised in 2020 which means last year marks the first harvest and creation of an entirely new type of wine. History was made and [...]
New Porsche 911 GT3 Touring is a more subtle supercar June 17, 2021 Out goes the gigantic rear wing, in comes a leather-lined interior – meet the new Porsche 911 GT3 Touring Pack. We want one already.
The vaccine rollout has been a success but it has still fallen prey to Whitehall inefficiency June 17, 2021 Dominic Cummings has yet again attempted a forced exorcism of Matt Hancock from the government. To the ex-special adviser, the Health Secretary represents everything wrong with Whitehall and its bureaucracy: a failure to innovate, to find creative solutions or to ensure pinch points of stasis in existing symptoms do not become endemic. In this, at [...]
City Moves: Who’s switching jobs in the Square Mile this week? June 16, 2021 City A.M.‘s Millie Turner provides a roundup of the most important hires and job moves across the City, every Wednesday afternoon. Email citymoves@cityam.com to be featured. CBRE board bags ex-BlackRock real estate lead A former head of global real estate at investment heavyweight BlackRock is set to join real estate services firm CBRE in June. Marcus Sperber [...]
Pandemic pressures leave would-be first-time buyers further from homeownership June 16, 2021 The impact of the pandemic, both on the property market and on personal finances, has left a gulf between struggling would-be first-time buyers and those already on the ladder. More than four-in-10 first-time buyers delayed plans to buy a home in 2020, with the majority saying raising a deposit is the biggest barrier to homeownership, [...]
Inflation might be the only cure for our bubbly housing market June 8, 2021 House prices in the UK (and many other parts of the world) are soaring, squeezing affordability yet further. Rising inflation looks like the most obvious candidate to prick this bubble. House prices in the UK rose by 10.9% in the year to May. That’s the most rapid growth seen in almost seven years, according to [...]
MiCA: A ‘beta version’ of crypto-assets regulation in the EU June 8, 2021 Alexander Prognimak, CFA from the CFA UK Future of Money Working Group, looks at European Union plans for crypto-assets. Gone are the days when London’s famous red buses would be carrying adverts promoting the dream of a shiny post-Brexit future for the NHS. As one ad (that has attracted the advertising regulator’s attention) read: ‘If [...]