UK angel investors are spreading their wings – and fuelling our enterprise revolution January 27, 2015 Yesterday it was confirmed that Britain was the fastest growing major economy last year. New business creation is a big part of that story. With 760,000 more businesses now than in 2010, we are rapidly becoming a nation of entrepreneurs. It’s within our grasp to make Britain the best place in the world to start [...]
After the economy lost momentum in the fourth quarter of 2014, should the UK fear a slowdown? January 27, 2015 Nancy Curtin, chief investment officer of Close Brothers Asset Management, says Yes The figures for the fourth quarter point to UK growth losing pace, and we are likely to see this continue into the first half of 2015. Economic growth remains too imbalanced. While improved consumer spending is supporting a buoyant services sector, production and construction [...]
Why Syriza’s fairy tales will devastate Greece – and the wider Eurozone too January 26, 2015 When I was 16 years old, my family (bless them) scraped together enough money to send me to Europe; the first place I touched down on the continent was Athens. A longstanding – and correct – family joke makes it clear that, in many ways, I intellectually never came back from that first trip. It’s [...]
The populist crusade against tax avoidance has turned into an assault on justice January 26, 2015 If “tax avoidance” is the answer, what is the question? For many years it might have been: “what subject excites only a small number of tax lawyers and HMRC officials?” But in the age of attempted deficit reduction, “tax avoidance” – or rather “clamping down on tax avoidance” – is the answer you hear every [...]
Misguided anti-fracking campaigners jeopardise our economy and climate January 26, 2015 If I told you I had a technology that could create tens of thousands of jobs, many in parts of the North of England with relatively high unemployment, support domestic manufacturing, and help us reduce carbon emissions, I imagine I would have your attention. If I added that the technology has already been in large-scale [...]
With public borrowing still high, is David Cameron right to renew his pledge of £7bn in tax cuts? January 26, 2015 John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says Yes The Prime Minister is absolutely right to go into the General Election campaign with a plan to cut taxes – even in the face of continued public spending restraint and necessary belt tightening. Lower personal taxes can be a fillip to businesses, who [...]
Is 2015 the year digital disruption goes physical? January 26, 2015 Now that our environments are increasingly embedded with sensors and overlaid with software, digital is extending its reach beyond the domain of ones and zeroes and into the physical world. This shift is bolstered by a new breed of startups with broad visions for how to mix digital and physical services for the first [...]
General Election 2015: Business ethics must be top of the manifesto writers’ agendas January 26, 2015 Tesco has taken the right step towards healing its frayed relationship with its suppliers. The supermarket giant last week launched an online network for its 5,000 suppliers where businesses will be able to interact with Britain's biggest retailer. Whilst it is encouraging to hear that big businesses like Tesco are taking responsibility for their dubious [...]
Syriza wins Greek election: Victorious radicals will need to learn how to compromise – and quickly January 26, 2015 So what’s next for Greece after the Syriza win? This relatively new radical left anti-austerity party managed to get a considerable lead over its closest rival in yesterday’s elections. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, can claim that the vote gives him the democratic mandate to pursue the policies he promised a population that has been ravaged [...]
Saudi soap opera: The petro-kingdom’s day of reckoning is now approaching fast January 25, 2015 I have never understood the world’s fixation with soap operas; why obsess about EastEnders when the real world is so often far more dramatic and even less plausible? Even more to the point, why worry about 80s American re-runs Dallas and Dynasty when we have the true-to-life House of Saud, the world’s most prosperous family, [...]