As sectarian violence in Iraq intensifies, does the West have a responsibility to intervene? August 7, 2014 Robin Simcox, research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, says Yes. The mess in Iraq is partially of the West’s making – both in terms of the botched post-invasion planning in 2003 and the US’s disastrously premature withdrawal in 2011. The al-Qaeda offshoot Islamic State (IS) now controls significant amounts of territory and is treating [...]
Baroness Warsi resigns over Gaza conflict August 5, 2014 Foreign Office minister Baroness Warsi has resigned from the cabinet because she can no longer support the government's position on Gaza. She made the announcement via a tweet posted today at 9.10am. It said: “With deep regret I have this morning written to the Prime Minister & tendered my resignation. I can no longer [...]
Blackrock’s Jonathan Burrows, the City’s artful ticket dodging banker, is hardly alone August 3, 2014 The City’s artful ticket dodger has finally been named. Turns out the mystery Stonegate to Cannon Street commuter, who shaved a whopping £43,000 off the price of his commute by not tapping in at Stonegate (making him the biggest fare dodger in history), was Blackrock investment executive Jonathan Burrows. He has since resigned. Burrows can [...]
UBS boss Mark Yallop quits just 18 months into the top job July 31, 2014 UBS’ UK boss is quitting the job barely 18 months into the post, the Swiss bank revealed yesterday. Mark Yallop was appointed chief executive officer in February 2013 to restructure the bank’s capital to meet new rules, and to rebuild the bank’s relationship with UK regulators after it was fined for attempted Libor rigging. He [...]
Barclays’ Antony Jenkins says his bank has turned corner July 30, 2014 Antony Jenkins had a new spring in his step yesterday. Payment protection insurance mis-selling might have blown another near-billion pound hole in his profits, but he had the look of a man who knows he is on the verge of something great. Like most post-crisis banking chiefs, Jenkins took the reins at Barclays in the wake [...]
OKCupid experimented on users just like Facebook did because “That’s how websites work” July 29, 2014 Dating site OKCupid has boldly admitted to performing experiments on users in the same way as Facebook because “that’s how websites work.” OKCupid founder Christian Rudder detailed three experiments the website performed on users in a blog post titled “We Experiment On Human Beings!”. Despite the public outrage after Facebook was found to have experimented [...]
No size fits all: Getting the best out of introverts July 23, 2014 Shyer staff have different needs, so cut down on background noise. There’s a problem with using stereotypes like “introvert” and “extrovert” to inform office policy. Setting aside whether or not these broad terms actually apply to all staff, how many other employee caricatures should be actively catered for? Do alpha males and females require [...]
Value stocks: A canny investor’s choice July 22, 2014 There is a long-running tug of war between two styles of investing: value and growth. The former sees investors select stocks with an intrinsic value. The definition varies, but tends to focus on companies with lower valuations and higher dividend yields. Growth investing is when investors tend to select stocks with growth potential, with valuation [...]
HS2 to base construction HQ in Birmingham July 21, 2014 The construction headquarters of the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway line will be based in Birmingham it was announced yesterday, with a number of jobs to be moved from London. The new HQ is due to open in phases starting from 2015 and will employ around 1,500 staff. Ben Ruse, lead spokesman at [...]
German economy expected to slow in second quarter as geopolitical tensions take their toll July 21, 2014 Europe's economic motor is spluttering. Germany's economy was likely to have stagnated in the three months to June, according to the nation's central bank, as the EU's largest economy was weighed down by geopolitical tension and weak construction and industrial output. In its monthly bulletin, the Bundesbank said that the global uncertainty stoked by tensions [...]