Are politicians tech-savvy enough to tackle social media giants? February 22, 2021 The news has been full of tech stories in what little we’ve seen of 2021: Facebook’s decision to ban news content on its site in Australia, Google’s threat to withdraw its service altogether from Australian users in light of legislation which would oblige tech platforms to pay for news, and Twitter’s intervention by suspending former [...]
Tory MPs push for Easter reopening of hospitality in lockdown roadmap February 22, 2021 The Tories’ group of lockdown sceptic MPs are pushing Boris Johnson to reopen hospitality by Easter in his roadmap out of the current Covid lockdown. The forty-strong Covid Recovery Group (CRG) of Conservative MPs want the Prime Minister to outline a full reopening for the sector by 4 April, with the UK’s pubs lobby backing [...]
New campaign urges London’s drivers: switch off engines when parked to save lives February 22, 2021 A new London-wide advertising campaign has launched today [22 February] encouraging drivers to turn off their engines when parked to cut air pollution. Led by the City of London Corporation and Camden Council, and funded by the Mayor of London, the ‘Engine Off, Every Stop’ campaign features posters and billboards on roadside sites and petrol stations [...]
Why are UK mid caps in such an M&A sweetspot right now? February 22, 2021 It would be difficult to miss the fact that UK mid cap companies are attracting a renewed level of bid interest at present. So much so that, every morning, when I log in to my virtual workplace, I am mentally preparing myself to see a new headline about the next one to be bid for. [...]
Sunday Sitdown: Time Out boss Julio Bruno on the ‘renaissance’ of cities February 21, 2021 While no one could have predicted the outbreak of coronavirus, few companies have been blighted by worse timing than Time Out. In the face of shrinking revenue from its core events listings business, the media group has spent recent years shifting its focus to a new offering of food and culture markets. But when the [...]
Two more killed in Myanmar as protests rumble on February 20, 2021 Two more people were killed in Myanmar’s second city Mandalay today when police fired to disperse protesting opponents of a military coup. “Twenty people were injured and two are dead,” said Ko Aung, a leader of the Parahita Darhi volunteer emergency service agency in the city. Opponents of the coup took to the streets in [...]
Framing Britney Spears: A glimpse of the hell of celebrity February 20, 2021 “Choose your own destiny” reads Britney Spears’ t-shirt on a recent Instagram post. You could be forgiven for thinking she did just that. Britney is the working class girl from Kentwood, Louisiana who found fame as a precocious child in the Disney Club before rising to the summit of the pop world with hits including [...]
Elon Musk risking the wrath of US authorities with Bitcoin tweets February 19, 2021 Tesla boss Elon Musk is sailing close to the wind with his mischievous Bitcoin tweets and could end up falling foul of the law, experts say.
Online car retailer Cazoo making plans to go public – report February 19, 2021 Used car retail platform Cazoo is reportedly making plans to go public at a valuation of £5bn. Sky News reported that the start-up, which was only founded just two years ago, was mulling either a London listing or a merger with a New York-listed “blank cheque” firm, or SPAC. Boss Alex Chesterman, founder of LoveFilm [...]
The changing face of match-fixing and why integrity mustn’t be allowed to suffer as Covid-19 squeezes budgets February 19, 2021 As sports events continue to take place in unfamiliar surroundings, the integrity of competitions has been thrust into the spotlight as match-fixing grows and evolves. The global pandemic has created many new challenges to the sporting world, none more significant than the way in which criminals have been able to intensify their operations and become [...]