Self-employed people’s isolation and lack of interaction with colleagues is worrying – luckily there seems to be a growing appetite for collaborative entrepreneurship February 17, 2016 Britain’s ever-expanding army of self-employed workers should be given additional employment rights and need help getting mortgages, loans and pensions. That was the big take-out from the latest government-commissioned review into self-employment and entrepreneurship in the UK, carried out by Cambridge Satchel Company founder, Julie Deane The number of people choosing to start a business [...]
Budget coach service Megabus is making the best of high train fares as customers abandon rail travel over ticket prices February 17, 2016 Megabus, the low-cost coach service, appears to be benefiting from high train prices. With a model based on long-distance coach journeys, sold at low prices – even as low as £1 for less popular routes – Megabus serves more than 120 destinations in the UK and Europe. Passengers willing to put up with sometimes gruelling [...]
Why Croydon Tech City’s model is now a “blueprint for the future” February 16, 2016 Last month, minister for the cabinet office Matthew Hancock visited Croydon Tech City and described it as a “blueprint for the future”. Three years ago, the idea of such a thing being said about a borough famous for the 2011 riots and its unflattering haircuts (“The Croydon facelift”), would have been unimaginable. Now, Croydon is London’s [...]
US Presidential Election 2016: Sanders is repeating Corbyn’s success by attracting “young idealists and working class left-wingers” February 16, 2016 Senator Bernie Sanders is closing in on his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the US presidential candidate nominations, propelled by a new coalition of young idealists and working class left-wingers – the same people who propelled Jeremy Corbyn to victory, according to new research. Research by YouGov has found the demographic which carried Corbyn to leader of the Labour [...]
George Osborne’s National Living Wage is a tax on employers hiring low-skilled workers February 16, 2016 A tip for the chancellor: if you want to save some easy money, slash your own propaganda budget. In London, we seem to be inundated with bus station ads championing what many consider to be misguided housing policies and by others highlighting the introduction of the new “National Living Wage” of £7.20 from April. It [...]
HSBC isn’t leaving – but London can’t be complacent if it’s to stay the world’s best city for business February 16, 2016 No doubt there was much relief in the Treasury when HSBC announced that it will be keeping its international HQ in London. And the news gave everyone reassurance that London still has what it takes to house the headquarters – European or global – of international companies. Undoubtedly, centuries of stable, democratic government and the [...]
Upmarket hostel owner Safestay says it is on track to hit forecasts as visitor numbers rise February 15, 2016 Safestay, the Aim-listed property developer of upmarket hostels, said its performance for the year was on track after increasing the number of beds in its portfolio by over 1,000 during the past year. The company, which was founded five years ago with the idea of sprucing up the hostel market, added a fourth hostel to its portfolio in September after [...]
Home ownership is becoming a pipe dream for younger workers, think tank warns February 13, 2016 Owning a home is set to become a pipe dream for young workers on modest incomes, according to new research. Data from the Resolution Foundation found it is becoming increasingly difficult for young people on modest incomes to get onto the housing ladder, with just one in 10 set to be a homeowner by 2025. [...]
Battlefield at the Young Vic draws effective parallels between Syria and the Mahabharata February 11, 2016 Young Vic | ★★★☆☆ Can a 2,500-year old story tell us something new about the human condition? That was presumably one of the considerations of 90-year old playwright Peter Brook and his long time collaborator Marie-Helene Estienne when they returned to an Indian epic, the Mahabharata. Having already told the story through their nine-hour 1989 [...]
Is socialist Bernie Sanders the most dangerous man in the United States? February 11, 2016 Chad Wilcox, chief operating officer at the IEA, says Yes. You’d be forgiven for mistaking the US presidential race for a reality TV contest to find the most absurd candidate able to dupe the masses into electing them. But absurd does not equal dangerous. On the latter metric, look no further than senator Bernie Sanders, uniquely [...]