MPs’ recess shows how little dialogue goes on normally – and we’re all the poorer for it February 16, 2018 Parliament was on one of its many breaks this week, although some news still emerged from a sleepy Westminster. Boris Johnson popped up to provide some light relief and a smidgen of Brexit policy hints, while Jeremy Corbyn was the subject of two high profile stories – an expose of his historical Soviet connections and [...]
Property of the Week: The former Johnson family home has been done up and is now on the market for £11.25m February 1, 2018 Looking for a home that’s fit for a foreign secretary? This five storey Victorian townhouse on Regent’s Park Road was the childhood home of Boris, Rachel and a whole host of Johnsons, including jungle-botherer and father of the thatched brood, Stanley. 60 Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill, £11.25m Legend has it that he lived in [...]
Sorry, homeowners: London is now officially a “buyer’s market” January 30, 2018 London’s housing market is at a critical point, new figures have revealed, with heavy discounting by homeowners desperate to sell their properties tipping the capital into a buyer’s market. The average home in London is now sold at four per cent below its original asking price, up from just 0.5 per cent in 2014, the [...]
Focus On Deptford: We delve into the housing market in the Help to Buy capital of London January 26, 2018 Since Help to Buy, the government’s equity scheme to help first time buyers on to the property ladder, was announced in 2013, it’s created thousands of new home owners. And nowhere has benefited more from this than Deptford. This once run down part of south east London is now the Help to Buy capital of [...]
More and more pets are taking to the skies to join us abroad, but what happens to our four-legged friends when they fly? January 25, 2018 Air travel, it’s easy to forget, is arcane magic. We strap ourselves into big metal tubes to be voluntarily catapulted thousands of feet into the sky, a place where there’s free sour cream and onion flavoured pretzels and tiny bottles of vodka, and where we’re furious when the wifi doesn’t work. It is only the [...]
Former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg to be knighted in New Year Honours December 26, 2017 Former deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg will receive a knighthood in the New Year Honours, according to reports. The honour will be announced on Saturday, according to senior Lib Dem sources cited by the Daily Mail. Clegg, who led his party into coalition government with the Conservatives from 2010 [...]
City A.M.’s Devilishly Difficult 2017 Sports Quiz Part 1: The good and the bad of the sporting year December 21, 2017 It has been another vintage year of sporting drama, from the triumphs of Anthony Joshua and Lewis Hamilton to the disappointments of England’s failed Ashes defence and Usain Bolt’s anticlimactic farewell. But as the dust settles on 2017, how much have you remembered about those defining moments, or the storylines playing out off the field, [...]
Focus On Dulwich: Forget the new shiny skyscrapers, this London village attracts well-heeled families with good schools, period houses and bags of charm December 15, 2017 A Tube stop is usually the making of a neighbourhood in London. But in the case of Dulwich in south east London, the absence of a London Underground station may have been an advantage. Left to its own devices and hardly a tourist hotspot, some say this has allowed Dulwich to develop a character all [...]
The investment lesson from Nike’s humble start – and the ‘$35’ swoosh logo December 13, 2017 Most books about successful businesses or entrepreneur’s autobiographies follow a pattern. There will be stumbles along the way but there is almost always a sense of inevitability, the feeling that everything is going to turn out fine. Read Shoe Dog, however, and you will be continually amazed that, most days, entrepreneur Phil Knight was able [...]
Investors not convinced by Electra Private Equity’s new strategy as the firm releases first results since booting its investment manager December 7, 2017 Listed private equity firm Electra Private Equity said today that it had generated a strong return for shareholders and slashed management fees, in its first year-end results since showing its investment manager the door. Under the leadership of activist investor Edward Bramson earlier this year, Electra tore up its agreement with longstanding investment manager Electra [...]