Emily Thornberry announces Labour leadership bid December 18, 2019 Emily Thornberry has all but confirmed she will run for the leadership of the Labour Party. Thornberry criticised her party’s decision to agree to an election, which she said was always going to be about Brexit. Read more: ‘You can’t make s**t up about me’: Emily Thornberry launches legal action against ex-Labour MP She said [...]
Queen’s Speech: Everything you need to know December 18, 2019 Queen Elizabeth II will make the trip from the palace to Westminster tomorrow to deliver her second Queen’s Speech in less than three months. She will lay out the new government’s agenda in the speech, while also officially opening parliament for a new term. Read more: Queen’s Speech plots path for pensions dashboards and new [...]
After a decade of paralysis, at last the direction ahead for Britain is clear December 18, 2019 What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, as we prepared to ring out the noughties, Britain was in the grip of a financial crisis after an excess of good living had turned sour. Gordon Brown’s government was in its death throes, its desperate economic position highlighted the following year by the outgoing chief [...]
A lesson in cognitive dissonance for the Corbynites December 18, 2019 Behavioural economics — which extends the ability of economics to explain the world — has become very fashionable. Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize winner for his work in this area, observed that most of the time, the rational choice model of standard economics works well. People gather information on the various alternatives open to them, and [...]
Funds need to get smart: Why the future is in residential, not retail, assets December 17, 2019 Austrian-born architect Victor Gruen is widely recognised as the father of the modern shopping centre, designing the first purpose-built outside shopping mall called Northland Mall near Detroit in 1954. The post-war economic boom allied to the rapid rise in consumerism saw shopping centres become a global phenomenon. Such was the success of the Austrian-designed, American-born [...]
A no-deal EU exit is still an unlikely outcome December 17, 2019 Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few days after Boris Johnson’s thumping majority sent sterling up to pre-referendum highs, his flirtation with a no-deal exit brought it back down to earth yesterday. Read more: CBI welcomes Prime Minister’s Brexit trade deal deadline But are the markets (heaven forbid) missing something? The government is embarking [...]
Bojo issues snow-go order after banning ministers from Davos December 17, 2019 BORIS Johnson has taken the surprise step of boycotting Davos next year, banning his ministers from attending the annual World Economic Forum jamboree. Buoyed by his thumping new majority in Parliament, the Prime Minister has decided to turn his back on the Swiss resort, which has become the premier networking event on the global calendar for the [...]
CBI welcomes Prime Minister’s Brexit trade deal deadline December 17, 2019 The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has thrown its support behind Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to leave the EU with or without a Brexit trade deal come December 2020. Often vocal in its opposition to the government’s stance on a no-deal Brexit, the CBI today welcomed Johnson’s decision to block any further Brexit delay, [...]
CBI: UK manufacturers end 2019 under a cloud of worry December 17, 2019 The CBI has warned UK manufacturers are set to end the year on a low note. Manufacturing output volumes in the three months to December fell at the quickest rate since the financial crisis as output expanded in only six of 17 sub-sectors, CBI Industrial Trends data revealed today. The survey of 289 manufacturers showed [...]
No-deal Brexit fears trigger sell-off of Barclays, Lloyds and RBS shares December 17, 2019 Shares in Barclays, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) all slumped in early trading after Boris Johnson brought back the spectre of a no-deal Brexit today. The trio failed to impress in yesterday’s Bank of England stress tests, where analysts warned that a strategy to double a 100-basis point capital buffer designed to protect [...]