David Cameron and George Osborne give Aldi thumbs up after 35,000 jobs pledge November 10, 2014 It's not just bargain hunting shoppers and those looking for the best tipple who love Aldi – now the Prime Minister and chancellor have told the world of their love for the German grocer. David Cameron and George Osborne today welcomed the news that Aldi has pledged to create 35,000 new jobs in the [...]
Singles’ Day 2014: China’s retail giants set for sales windfall during world’s biggest online shopping day November 10, 2014 China's biggest online retailers, including the recently floated Alibaba, are set for the biggest online shopping day in the world tomorrow. Last year, Singles’ Day was responsible for $5.8bn (£3.6bn) worth of orders for Alibaba alone. This year that figure is expected to grow by 42 per cent to around $8.2bn, according to market [...]
UK construction boom close to pre-crisis level November 9, 2014 THE CONSTRUCTION industry continues to make impressive headway as the sector soars towards pre-crisis levels of output, a set of data shows today. The majority of firms are reporting rising output. The net balance – the per cent of survey respondents answering positively minus those answering negatively – of building contractors that said output rose [...]
Fall of the Berlin Wall: The weary West has forgotten how it won the Cold War November 9, 2014 “Right Here, Right Now, There is no other place that I want to be, Right Here, Right Now, Watching the world wake up from history” – Jesus Jones, Right Here, Right Now Experiencing the fall of the Berlin Wall – whose twenty-fifth anniversary just passed this weekend – is one of those historical events (a [...]
RateSetter founders Peter Behrens and Rhydian Lewis talk banks, Australia and dwarves November 9, 2014 Ask the founders of a business if they’ve got a good setback story, and they’ll usually give you something fairly typecast. Not in the case of RateSetter. “Pete the painter,” answers Peter Behrens firmly, looking over to co-founder Rhydian Lewis. It seems completely off piste, but it actually shows that rumbling the status quo, [...]
Premier League: Wenger dismay as Arsenal blow another victory November 9, 2014 SWANSEA CITY 2 ARSENAL 1 EXASPERATED Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger blasted his team for throwing away a lead for the second time in a week after they allowed Swansea to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat yesterday. The Gunners looked on course to return to the Premier League’s top four when forward Alexis [...]
Burrell ruled out of Springboks clash November 9, 2014 ENGLAND centre Luther Burrell has been ruled out of Saturday’s clash with South Africa at Twickenham after failing to recover from the hand injury which denied him a place in Stuart Lancaster’s squad against world champions New Zealand at the weekend. Second row Courtney Lawes is a major doubt to face the Springboks after suffering [...]
Why the relentless pursuit of youth is a terrible recruitment strategy November 8, 2014 As a culture we celebrate the ideal of youth. We invent names by which to define it – we talk about ‘millennials’ or ‘Gen x/y/z’ – and as employers we court it, using recruitment initiatives designed to vacuum up new talent. And, perhaps most visibly, we celebrate it in popular culture and politics. Of course [...]
John Lewis, M&S, Debenhams – the best Christmas TV adverts of 2014 November 7, 2014 Alright, so there's still a month and a half until the big day – but settle in, because Christmas ads have begun to grace our screens, and they're going to be around for the next 47 evenings in. You might as well become acquainted. First up, we had the big one: John Lewis' much-awaited Christmas [...]
It’s about time November 6, 2014 A crop of new collections prove that Switzerland is finally making watches for women with both beauty and brains. What took them so long Bellwethers pop up in the strangest of places. Last week, sandwiched between a Radio 4 discussion on the appeal of ghost stories and an item on people living with dementia was [...]