The Apprentice: Is the Trump biopic fake news? October 24, 2024 The Apprentice, a film directed by Iranian-Danish Ali Abbasi out last week in the UK, constitutes a brutal character assassination against presidential candidate Donald Trump. Focusing on the years 1973 to the early 1980s, it tracks Trump’s rise from real estate mogul’s awkward son (he’s literally knocking on doors collecting rents) to the man liberals [...]
Labour activists are right to campaign for Harris October 24, 2024 It’s easy to laugh at try-hard Labour staffers wanting to get involved in US politics by campaigning for Kamala Harris, but what happens in America matters to us all, says Will Cooling We’ve all experienced the horror of returning from holiday to a massive backlog of work emails and urgent tasks, but few have experienced [...]
Column: Water, water everywhere… October 23, 2024 Or why the latest twist in the sewage tale suggests a rebalancing of Labour’s priorities England’s water system made a splash again this week, hitting the headlines as the government announced their latest move to – as they put it – clean up the industry. An independent review, led by none other than the former [...]
WPP: New deals with Amazon and Unilever drive growth October 23, 2024 Like-for-like revenue at advertising giant WPP ticked up 4.1 per cent in the quarter to 30 September, despite a decline in business outside of the US and Europe. However, net new billings declined year-to-date. The figure came in at $3.2bn (£2.5bn) compared to $3.4bn (£2.6bn) in 2023. However, other regions struggled. Revenue in the UK [...]
This Budget looks set to be more car park than roadmap October 23, 2024 You have probably read at least two dozen columns speculating on where those tax rises of doom are going to land in next week’s budget, so I’m not sure there is much more to say on the big topics of contention. We’ll find out soon enough whether employers’ National insurance (NI) really will go up, [...]
The FII Institute’s PRIORITY Compass Global Citizen Survey: A Blueprint For Tomorrow October 22, 2024 In 2022, the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute embarked on a mission to collate data on what are the most pressing concerns of the majority of the world’s population through the inception of the FII PRIORITY Compass, its global citizen survey. The survey’s role is to help world leaders and decision-makers identify and thereby address these concerns. [...]
Starmer should make trade with Saudi Arabia a top priority October 22, 2024 The UK and Saudi Arabia have long cultivated strong ties. A bilateral trade relationship represents trade in goods and services between the two of a significant £17.6 billion for the 12 months to the end of Q1 of 2024.* Crucially, the Saudi government is investing billions into the UK economy through the Saudi sovereign wealth [...]
Dawn French: I’m not ready to write about my body October 22, 2024 Dawn French on overcoming shame, belly laughter with Jennifer Saunders and her new book
School smartphone ban is legislative overreach at its most unnecessary October 21, 2024 Schools already have the power to ban smartphones, adding pointless new laws to the statute book is bad for business and bad for democracy, says Eliot Wilson Parliament should never make law lightly. To legislate is to bring the coercive power of the state to bear in regulating conduct and behaviour as well as maintaining [...]
The rise of the celebrity scammers October 21, 2024 What’s the fastest route from a jail cell to celebrity? For Anna Sorokin, it’s the quick-step. Upon her release in 2021, after serving just two years of an originally four-to-12-year sentence for posing as an heiress to extort $275,000 from her victims, how did Sorokin (better known by her con artist alias ‘Anna Delvey’) celebrate? [...]