A Welsh dream: we can fight international competition with more regional investment April 19, 2022 The City holds the crown as the world’s leading international financial centre. Yet, we can do more to power the UK’s regional commercial hubs. London attracts a diverse pool of financial and professional services talent from all around the globe, and provides unrivalled UK business access to world markets. Its natural impulse for collaboration is [...]
Companies relieved at unions waning power face a revived challenge in ERGs (no, not the Brexit kind) April 19, 2022 Companies are in the firing line for the way they treat their workers. The latest in the long list of companies who are experiencing the sharp end of worker anger is gaming giant Activision Blizzard whose workers are staging a virtual walkout in protest of the lifting of the vaccine mandate, which workers claim creates [...]
Easter Reads part two: the best in our opinion pages on politics, the economy and Ukraine April 18, 2022 The much debated Online Safety Bill was introduced on March 17. It means US tech giants finally have a set of standards to adhere to, to safeguard online communities. The piece of legislation, however, is a behemoth bill of confusion, writes Leah Montebello. It’s not clear yet what content counts as “harmful”, and who should [...]
In order to succeed, today’s entrepreneurs must be able to tell their story April 18, 2022 I have a great story to tell, I’ll admit it. I came to the UK as part of the Windrush generation. I landed in Birmingham with nothing: my four brothers and I lived in poverty, and I had to scrap for everything. I worked on my father’s allotment from the age of five; I dropped [...]
Easter Reads part one: the best in our opinion pages on politics, the economy and Ukraine April 16, 2022 Back when partygate was “seemingly” subsiding, Giles Kenningham looked at another political headache for Johnson, one with a much longer legacy: the future of the Union. The pandemic gave a taste of greater independence to the devolved nations, and now some want to keep it – surely, that’s the case with Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon. To [...]
Online booking agents have been behaving like kings – it’s time to topple them April 16, 2022 As the nation begins to plan summer breaks, following a tortuous two pandemic-fuelled years, a collective sigh of relief should be heard from Somerset to Stoke. But there’s little relief to be had when a broken system is driving a false market of competition. For years, the travel industry network titans have been able to [...]
Letters: Inflation puts us back on the brink April 14, 2022 [Re: Inflation reaches 7 per cent as Brits fear cost of living crisis, April 13] The fact that inflation has reached a thirty-year high is a reminder of the huge disparity between the needs of businesses facing financial difficulties and the lack of support from the Government in addressing these challenges. Britain has not seen [...]
How accountancy can help advance the global economies of tomorrow April 14, 2022 Society’s expectations of business and governments have shifted with speed and intensity. This has been driven by the profound impacts of Covid-19, compounded by deeply alarming threats to peace and prosperity from the war in Ukraine and conflict elsewhere. The humanitarian cost is devastating, while economic growth, public debt and wellbeing have all been adversely [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Safety in numbers lures Nordics to Nato April 14, 2022 Finland’s Prime Minister said yesterday the country would decide “within weeks, not months” if the nation would apply for Nato membership. Sweden is expected to follow swiftly as the war in Ukraine forces the Nordics to look at their allies. In Finland, a margin of six to one voters backed membership of the defensive alliance. [...]
Musk’s anarchic vision won’t help Twitter but a subscription model might April 14, 2022 In late January, an unknown investor began quietly building a stake in Twitter. A little over two months later, Elon Musk breached the surface. On April 4th, he revealed a 9.2 per cent stake. Though two days later an official filing corrected that to 9.1 per cent, Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder. Poor arithmetic [...]