City Pages Review: The legacy of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s bizarre bond August 25, 2021 Since the curtains came down on 2019, many of us have spent more time inside our homes than we had ever imagined. The pandemic has thrown up political and social change rarely seen in peacetime, but living through and talking about Covid has consumed incredible amounts of oxygen, often to the exclusion of other worthy [...]
Westminster needs to get a grip and learn some digital skills August 25, 2021 In the last year, the Queen convened her historic Privy Council by video, parliamentarians have voted online and the Cabinet has been meeting via Zoom. Even the hardened leaders of the country in Westminster and Whitehall have had to adapt to different ways of working because of Covid. This will be particularly useful as many politicians [...]
Science has been overrun with politics – it’s time to take it back August 25, 2021 At the onset of the Covid pandemic in February 2020, the pages of the Lancet, a very prestigious medical journal, carried a statement eulogising China and the efforts it had already made to deal with the virus. For the luminaries who signed the statement, no praise could be too high for the Chinese. They had [...]
IBM UK CEO: Accept the future of hybrid working and look at what needs to be done to retain company culture August 25, 2021 The measures taken to minimise the impact of the pandemic have upended some long-held certainties; none more widespread than the move to remote working. What was initially seen as a stopgap measure to maintain business continuity during lockdowns has quickly become an established part of the daily routine for employees. Digitisation is changing everything around [...]
DEBATE: Are overseas private equity bids good news for the UK? August 24, 2021 Morrisons has accepted a £7bn bid from US private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice. The fierce competition from US investors to buy the British supermarket giant has prompted concerns over what an injection of foreign money would mean for the high street stalwart. Ewan MacKinnon and Fraser Thorne take on the debate: Ewan MacKinnon, [...]
City Pages Review: Understanding sex, feminism and porn in the 2020s August 24, 2021 Since the curtains came down on 2019, many of us have spent more time inside our homes than we had ever imagined. The pandemic has thrown up political and social change rarely seen in peacetime, but living through and talking about Covid has consumed incredible amounts of oxygen, often to the exclusion of other worthy [...]
Nicola Sturgeon is playing the long game for Scottish independence in a toxic deal with the Greens August 24, 2021 Nicola Sturgeon entering her SNP government into a formal cooperation agreement with the Scottish Greens is all about optics and momentum, and not about substance. In the May election, the SNP narrowly failed to win an overall majority of seats at the Holyrood election. This doesn’t mean they needed a co-operation agreement to govern; the [...]
The rock, paper, scissors of ESG: when social missions clash with corporate governance August 24, 2021 In ESG terms, Ben & Jerry’s decision not to renew the contract of its Israeli licensee was described by the company as an “S” decision. The irony is that its “social mission” is likely to prompt a heavy-hitting response by investors in its parent, Unilever, on governance, or “G”, grounds. It has been widely reported that investors subject [...]
Journey to Net Zero: Green infrastructure will be the next big thing for tech investors August 23, 2021 If we’re going to hit net zero, we need a huge change to our energy infrastructure in a very short amount of time. This is needed to help us overcome challenges like how to store renewable energy, solve grid intermittency, and electrify our heating supply. The build out of new renewable energy infrastructure is happening, [...]
Leaders are entitled to holidays but Dominic Raab’s Crete vacation was a dereliction of duty August 23, 2021 Last week Foreign Secreatry, Dominic Raab was harangued from all sides because he was on holiday and either uncontactable or unwilling to disrupt his respite to make a telephone call to a minister in Kabul. The question of whether or not a conversation between Raab and his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Hanif Atmar would have made [...]