It’s time to scrap the Equality Act Opinion Pernicious New Labour legislation is distorting the jobs market and costing business, says Joe Dinnage It’s a golden rule of good writing to invoke George Orwell as little as possible. Chronically overused, the term ‘Orwellian’ is to newspaper columnists what ‘obviously’ is to football pundits. Occasionally, however, rules must be broken. We at the Prosperity [...]
Duplantis follows Bolt in having special ticket for athletics fans Sport Business Pole-vaulter Mondo Duplantis has followed in the footsteps of Usain Bolt by putting his name to a category of reduced price tickets for children. The Swedish field athlete’s Mondo Ticket will see young people able to watch the European Championships in Birmingham for £6.31, which mimics his world record. Jack Buckner, chief of UK Athletics, [...]
New HS2 budget to blow £33bn hole in public finances Transport & Infrastructure The government will need to find as much as £33bn in additional cash from tax and spending measures or from other departments to fund its revamped plans to deliver HS2. According to a City AM analysis, the Department for Transport’s updated proposals for the rail line require between £18bn and £33bn of additional public money [...]
‘Obscene’ – HS2 on track to cost at least £102bn as minister slams ‘gold-plated folly’ May 19, 2026 HS2 is now poised to cost the taxpayer as much as £102bn and will not run from Euston until at least 2040, according to the transport secretary who blasted the project as a “massively over-specced folly”. Heidi Alexander said the cost of the ill-fated train line was now on course to nearly double from the [...]
Birmingham driving service sector boom February 26, 2026 Birmingham has been at the front of a “service sector boom”, according to new research from Oxford Economics, helping to drive job creation across the wider region. The West Midlands combined authority (WMCA), which contains Britain’s second city, saw gross value added (GVA) in the services sector rise by an average of 4.2 per cent [...]
Labour to unveil new Birmingham-Manchester rail link after HS2 fiasco January 13, 2026 Ministers are poised to unveil plans to build a new railway line running from Birmingham to Manchester as part of a major overhaul of rail infrastructure in the North – but it won’t break ground for roughly a decade. Rachel Reeves will reveal the heavily delayed shake-up of east-west railway lines across the north of [...]
Birmingham City’s 62,000-seat stadium with 12 chimneys and sky bar November 20, 2025 Birmingham City have revealed plans for a new 62,000-capacity stadium with 12 brick chimneys, a retractable roof and movable pitch. The stadium, when completed in time for the 2030-2031 season, will become the UK’s 8th largest, ahead of Anfield in the top 10. Knighthead Capital Management have appointed Heatherwick Studio and Manica Architecture for the [...]
Birmingham City get boost from chancellor with stadium metro funding June 4, 2025 Birmingham City are set for a multi-million pound boost to their Sports Quarter development after chancellor Rachel Reeves committed investment which will see the city’s metro reach the club’s planned new stadium. Part of the £2.4bn allocated to the West Midlands will link Birmingham’s Sports Quarter to the centre of town, according to West Midlands [...]
Spending review: Rachel Reeves pledges £15.6bn for regional transport June 4, 2025 The government has made its biggest spending announcement since Labour’s drubbing at the local elections in May, with a pledge from Chancellor Rachel Reeves to double investment in local transport over the next five years. A £15.6bn cash injection will form a major pillar of the 11 June spending review, which the Treasury says would [...]
Bankrupt, rat-infested Birmingham shows why local government matters April 23, 2025 With local elections across much of England, it’s time we took regional accountability much more seriously, says Simon Clarke Next Thursday, there are local elections across much of England. For many people, these events will pass them by entirely. For others, they will be purely an opportunity to send a message about national politics: it [...]