Skyscanner acquired by Chinese travel giant Ctrip in a £1.4 billion deal September 19, 2016 Edinburgh-based travel search company Skyscanner has been acquired by Chinese travel giant Ctrip in a £1.4 billion deal. Ctrip, a Chinese online travel agent, claims two thirds share of the market in China. Headquartered in Shanghai, it was founded in 1999 and began life as a review site, then branched to hotel business and across [...]
Here’s the magic age parents think their kids finally become financial adults September 19, 2016 Parents and kids should prepare themselves for a long old ride when it comes to forking out financially. Mum, Dad, and their bank, expect to be supporting their offspring until the ripe old age of 29, new research reveals. Parents say they're likely to splashing out on the usual markers of their child entering adulthood, [...]
How to build a hipster housing development in ten days September 19, 2016 Mike, 32, works as an accountant for an international development charity, but, despite having a healthy salary, he cannot afford a house in London. His story is unremarkable. Londoners have come to accept that owning a home is an ambition for later in life if they don't have help from relatives. Millennials like Mike aren't in desperate circumstances, but [...]
These are the cities with the biggest generational divide September 18, 2016 The gap between the old and young is growing across the country as the high cost of buying a home divides the generations – literally. The generations are becoming increasingly segregated, a new study has found, with Cardiff and Brighton named the cities with the biggest divide between young adults and retirees. London was ranked the sixteenth [...]
Five things we learned about Mark Carney when schoolchildren grilled him on live TV September 16, 2016 Bank of England governor Mark Carney is used to being grilled by journalists, but today he faced questions from schoolchildren and they didn't pull their punches. The children were putting the Canadian on the spot as part of a Q&A session hosted on the BBC. Jay, 13, went straight for the jugular, asking Carney: "Who is easier to work [...]
The Beatles: Eight Days A Week review: Ron Howard has made the definitive Beatles documentary September 16, 2016 Eight Days A Week is a fascinating look at a vital few years in the story of The Fab Four, covering their initial success, Beatlemania, and the unprecedented American success that caught a country unawares. Films about The Beatles often struggle to capture why they made such an impact. In Ron Howard's film archive footage [...]
Ozwald Boateng’s guide to success and being the best-dressed man in London September 15, 2016 The designer’s rise to the top of the fashion world is a true rags to riches tale, writes Helen Cahill If you measure a man by the cut of his suit, then Ozwald Boateng is the most successful man in London. Boateng started making suits at the age of 16. He was the first black tailor [...]
Is Twitter becoming a broadcaster? September 15, 2016 Twitter is moving heavily into the broadcast space, making a bet that its strength lies in real-time news. The joy of Twitter has always been its stream of pithy commentary around current events, with Twitter Moments the latest attempt to curate and editorialise those stories. Certainly, Twitter has always been able to break and spread [...]
Shooting the messenger: Rent controls have always and everywhere ended in failure September 14, 2016 Rent controls are back on the political agenda. Their reintroduction is now official Labour Party policy, and the Conservatives will probably follow with a somewhat milder version in due course. It is easy to see why: according to a recent Survation poll, two thirds of the public support rent controls, with most of the remaining [...]
The Green Belt is standing between young people and the homes they need September 14, 2016 Imagine a race in which the finishing line moved further away, faster than you could run. Rigged against you, no matter how hard you tried, the finish line would always move faster. That’s the housing market in London and the South East for most young people, where the dream of homeownership remains just that, a [...]