Advertising boycott dents Facebook shares as campaign gathers steam June 29, 2020 Facebook is facing another day of difficulty on Wall Street, as investors baulk at the growing list of major companies boycotting advertising on its platform. Shares in the tech giant plunged more than eight per cent last Friday, as top advertisers paused ad buying on the platform over concerns about misinformation and hate speech. As [...]
Covid consolidation bears low-hanging fruit for traders June 29, 2020 No understatement is truer than the one about how “nothing will ever be the same again” following the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses in the hundreds of thousands will not reopen. Millions of jobs have been lost. Billions of dollars have been wiped off the valuations of household brands and City darlings. Past worries about Brexit seem [...]
UK’s top civil servant Sir Mark Sedwill resigns June 28, 2020 The UK’s top civil servant Sir Mark Sedwill has resigned from his three-pronged role as cabinet secretary, national security adviser and head of the civil service. Sedwill announced his resignation today and will step down from his role in September, after 30 years in the civil service. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has nominated Sedwill for [...]
The proposal to scrap jury trials is an assault on the cornerstone of our justice system June 26, 2020 You might have missed it in the outpouring of excitement over the reopening of pubs next weekend, but coronavirus could be about to claim a new victim: trial by jury. On Tuesday, while the Prime Minister was unveiling a mass relaxation of lockdown restrictions, justice secretary Robert Buckland was informing MPs that legislation to dramatically [...]
Virgin Media down: Broadband outage hits thousands working from home June 25, 2020 Virgin Media appeared to suffer an outage this morning, leaving thousands of customers working remotely without broadband. The broadband operator had not acknowledged the issue by 10.15am on Twitter despite a flood of angry complaints from customers. Downdetector, a website that records outages by tracking social media mentions, registered a surge of complaints of Virgin [...]
DEBATE: Was it the right decision to end the daily government press briefings? June 24, 2020 Was it the right decision to end the daily government press briefings? Eliot Wilson, co-founder of Pivot Point and a former House of Commons official, says YES. The coronavirus pandemic changed so much. One thing it brought was daily Downing Street press conferences, at which a senior minister would take questions, flanked by advisers or [...]
FTSE 100 and Wall Street gain on signs of economic recovery June 23, 2020 The FTSE 100 closed up and Wall Street posted strong gains on Tuesday afternoon after new economic data signalled that business activity across the US, UK and the Eurozone was recovering faster than expected. Having risen steadily throughout the morning, the FTSE 100 pushed ahead in afternoon trading today as traders welcomed the most significant [...]
Apple makes concessions to developers after outcry June 23, 2020 Apple is to begin allowing developers that break its App Store rules to appeal company decisions, marking a change in its policy as outside scrutiny of its marketplace ramps up. Similarly, updates to apps that include minor bug fixes will not be delayed while an appeal is in progress. The move was prompted by a [...]
Lockdown eased: Boris Johnson cuts two-metre rule to ‘one metre-plus’ June 23, 2020 The Prime Minister has announced that the two-metre social distancing rule will be relaxed from 4 July, when pubs, bars, cafes, art galleries, museums, hotels and cinemas are set to reopen after months of closure. Boris Johnson today said a dramatic fall in the rate of infection means “we can now safely ease the lockdown [...]
DeFi booms as Etheruem miners increase network limits June 23, 2020 This week the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped steadily from a near $9,600 high to a low of $9,275 before it started recovering. The cryptocurrency is now trading at $9,400, and is still range bound, looking to test the $10,000 mark. Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, started the week at $220 and [...]