All eyes on The Amazon June 8, 2018 All Eyes on the Amazon has been awarded £300,000in funding from players of People's Postcode Lottery. This funding will save one million hectares of Brazilian Amazon rainforest through an innovative training programme for local forest ranger teams. This will allow them to use drones, smartphones, and satellite-based monitoring systems to collect images, maps, and stories [...]
Britain risks losing its appeal to overseas investors, unless we settle on Brexit and make a confident pitch to the world May 17, 2018 Last week, I was in Delhi, testing the water on how Indian business felt the Heads of Commonwealth Summit in London had gone a few weeks ago. The answer, it seemed, was very well, and there was real enthusiasm for the quick follow up by the Culture Secretary, Matt Hancock, who wasted no time in [...]
Khan faces calls to make London third launch city of Uber’s flying taxi programme May 16, 2018 London mayor Sadiq Khan is being urged to nominate the capital as the third city in the world to take part in Uber’s eye-catching flying taxi programme. UberAIR, as it will be known, has already picked Dallas and Los Angeles as its first two potential launch cities, and now City Hall is under pressure to [...]
Moulton-backed litigation funder Manolete Partners lines up £100m London listing May 13, 2018 A litigation funder backed by private equity veteran Jon Moulton is planning an autumn listing in London that could value it at £100m. Manolete Partners, which was founded in 2009, focuses on buying legal claims from insolvent companies or providing litigation funding to help creditors to pursue claims themselves. Better Capital boss Moulton owns more [...]
Finding value in American growth May 11, 2018 Last year saw global growth accelerate at its fastest pace since the financial crisis as this long-running bull market defied expectations and found another gear. It was a period of synchronised global growth reminiscent of yesteryear – a brief boon for global stock market investors. But with growth inevitably cooling in 2018, the challenge now [...]
Irvine Welsh interview: Growing old disgracefully May 3, 2018 The image of a former enfant terrible growing up, moving to a big house by the ocean and living a life of manicured leisure is hardly novel. Even so, hearing Irvine Welsh – former heroin addict, guitarist with punk band The Pubic Lice, and author of Trainspotting – talk about his Miami pilates regime is [...]
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: Royal Mint releases special coin to commemorate the royal wedding May 1, 2018 Brits may not be getting a bank holiday for this year’s royal wedding, but that hasn’t stopped the Royal Mint from designing a special coin to “commemorate the momentous occasion”. The £5 coin will be available from 1 May in three versions to mark Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle on 19 May at Windsor [...]
Finally, we can all agree that the House of Lords makes no sense April 27, 2018 What’s the point of the House of Lords? The question is back in the news again, after the government was defeated for a sixth time by peers this week over its EU withdrawal bill. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. You can’t stack a chamber with unaccountable peers for life and then expect cast-iron discipline [...]
The Windrush crisis is cast-iron proof of Theresa May’s incompetence April 18, 2018 If there ever was a Prime Minister who has the knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it would have to be Theresa May. When it comes to set pieces, such as her Lancaster House speech or her handling of various terrorist atrocities in Manchester and London, she gives a reassuring sense of [...]
Post-Weinstein can the legal sector change its secretive cover up culture March 25, 2018 In the less than six months since Ronan Farrow published his explosive New Yorker expose on movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, behaviour that would previously have been hushed up or talked about in whispers in the media and business world is now being exposed to the cold light of day. The legal sector is no different [...]