After a year in the job, Boris Johnson is a disappointment to even his biggest fans July 24, 2020 On the Institute of Economic Affairs’ Live With Littlewood show this week, I was asked to score Boris Johnson’s first year as Tory leader. I am accustomed to being the token left-winger (relatively speaking) on the IEA’s show, which tends to feature economists and journalists who identify firmly on the Conservative right. I was therefore [...]
Counting the human cost of Covid — and of leaving small business owners behind July 23, 2020 The daily lists of cases, tests and R numbers tell a tale of the scale of the Covid-19 crisis, but they don’t always explain the full story of the cost on people’s lives. ACCA and the Corporate Finance Network (CFN) are running a tracker poll among accountancy firms representing more than 22,000 small businesses to [...]
BBC reaches record global audience in 2020 despite cash crunch July 23, 2020 The BBC reached its highest ever audience in 2020, the broadcaster announced today, as it faces the most serious financial difficulty in its 97-year history amid the coronavirus pandemic. The public service broadcaster announced it reached 468.2m people a week in 2020, with BBC News scooping up the bulk of the share with 438.3m weekly [...]
Time for an energy revolution? Creating opportunity after a crisis July 16, 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragic event we hopefully will not see again in our lifetime. The human destruction and the strain on global healthcare systems have been devastating. There are no winners from this crisis. Still, it was Winston Churchill who said “never let a good crisis go to waste”. That certainly rings true [...]
BBC to make 520 job cuts in news department July 15, 2020 The BBC has said it will axe 520 jobs in its news department as a result of the coronavirus crisis, marking 70 more redundancies than the broadcaster had originally planned. The BBC said in January that it intended to axe 450 jobs within its news department, but plans were put on hold due to the [...]
Guardian to axe 180 jobs as revenue plunges July 15, 2020 The Guardian has announced plans to cut 180 jobs in both its editorial and commercial departments, after revenue plunged more than £25m during the coronavirus crisis. The newspaper group said the job cuts will mostly affect its advertising, Guardian Jobs, marketing and Guardian Live departments, with 70 additional redundancies in its editorial unit. The job [...]
Dixons Carphone kills dividend as mobile pushes it to loss July 15, 2020 Dixons Carphone has cancelled its dividend as poor mobile sales during lockdown pushed it to another annual loss, prompting its share price to sink today. Shares sank 7.8 per cent in early trading as a jump in online sales failed to offset a 20 per cent plunge in mobile sales during lockdown. The figures Dixons [...]
Businesses must find their purpose, or risk becoming the next corporate scandal July 14, 2020 In the midst of a pandemic, the corporate scandals keep coming. The most recent is Boohoo, a previously admired brand in the fashion industry that has been accused of sourcing clothes from a Leicester factory where workers were paid as little as £3.50 an hour. For many in the fashion industry, the darker side of [...]
Revenue soars at Ocado during lockdown July 14, 2020 Retail sales for the first half of 2020 for online grocer Ocado jumped 27 per cent to £1bn, as Brits did their supermarket shopping from home. The group reported a loss before tax of £40.6m in the six months to the end of May, citing an increase in investment to handle increased demand as a [...]
My son needs medical cannabis — but the UK approach remains a national disgrace July 14, 2020 For any parent to hear a child’s horrific scream as they have a seizure, not breathing or responding, is a rude wakeup call that life will be far from normal. Alfie was just eight months old and diagnosed as suffering from a rare form of epilepsy. For us as a family, every day became crisis [...]