Australian Dollar to GBP – Could this be one to watch? January 24, 2020 Singapore Dollar Fears of the coronavirus which has been spreading from China have affected global market sentiment. This week in Singapore December consumer price inflation results beat expectations; with food, transport, communication, and education costs the highlights. Beating November’s 0.6 per cent and the prediction of 0.7 per cent, December’s 0.8 per cent result is in line with the Monetary Authority of Singapore [...]
Coronavirus: China widens travel lockdown as death toll rises January 24, 2020 Fourteen people in the UK have been tested for a new strain of the coronavirus, with five testing negative as the others await results, Public Health England said today. An incident team has made a base in Scotland where five people were tested amid 830 confirmed cases of the virus across the world. The death [...]
Boris can lead a Conservative council housing revolution January 24, 2020 With Boris Johnson now undisputed world king of the post-Brexit scene, the only relevant policy debates are those going on inside the government itself. These are yielding unusual fruit. Esther McVey, a deep-dyed Thatcherite and an advocate of blue-collar Conservatism, has been arguing for more council housing. The housing minister wants to help those “left [...]
Barrelling towards conflict: How the oil market reacted to Iran-US tensions January 14, 2020 For good or ill, oil remains the lifeblood of the global economy. It is essential to industrial production, to how we transport goods (as well as ourselves) around the world, and how we heat our homes and generally go about our everyday lives. Rising oil prices can therefore act as a handbrake on global growth, [...]
The McLaren GT is a rambunctious beast with bountiful boot space January 9, 2020 Supercar reviews don’t usually begin by discussing boot space, but this isn’t a supercar. At least, not according to McLaren. The GT is a Gran Turismo – or perhaps the anglicised (and somewhat less exotic) ‘Grand Tourer’, given it hails from Woking. It’s designed for going far and fast, blatting across Europe on hedonistic weekends [...]
New government ‘must commit to flexible labour market’, say CBI December 19, 2019 Business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) today warned more than seven in ten businesses fear they won’t have access to skilled workers they need in the next year. Britain’s plans for a new post-Brexit immigration system risk the flexibility of the UK’s labour market, which could cause a shortage of skilled workers, [...]
Japan – with kids? Believe it or not, it works December 18, 2019 The looks of incomprehension became commonplace, from colleagues, friends, neighbours and, most severely, my mother-in-law. “You’re taking her… to Japan?” they asked, through a variety of similar rhetorical questions. A trip to Japan should surprise no one, these days. The island state is undergoing an eye-watering boom in tourism, with visitor numbers soaring from 13m [...]
General Election 2019: Boris Johnson urges UK to ‘let healing begin’ December 13, 2019 This was a live blog, thank you for following along Read more: UK stocks and sterling surge as Tories triumph at pollsRead more: Election live: Who were the big MP casualties?Read more: UK housebuilders rejoice as shares rise after Tory win 04.30pm: Over and out! That’s it for today – we’re off to get some [...]
Iain Duncan Smith: ‘We don’t have champagne socialists here’ December 4, 2019 On the campaign with… Iain Duncan Smith Labour has made no secret of its plan to unseat former Conservative leader and minister Iain Duncan Smith in favour of Corbynite candidate Faiza Shaheen. Hundreds of the hard-left Momentum group’s activists have been diverted into Chingford and Wood Green in the past few weeks in the hope [...]
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s British broadband speech in full November 15, 2019 Jeremy Corbyn has laid out plans to provide free full fibre broadband to every UK household and part-nationalise BT this morning. Labour said that the policy, the cost of which was estimated at £20bn, would be funded by taxing multinational tech giants. The policy announcement sent BT’s share price down over two per cent this [...]