Nicky Morgan urges Treasury to provide no-deal tariff plans ahead of May’s Brexit vote March 6, 2019 Former Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan has urged the Treasury to clarify its position on tariff policy in the event of a no-deal Brexit following reports that up to 90 per cent could be slashed. Morgan, who chairs the Treasury Select Committee, wrote to Philip Hammond today to demand he state whether the lowering of tariffs was current [...]
Brexit-backing Tories are running out of road March 6, 2019 Next week, MPs will be asked to vote (again) on the government's proposed Brexit deal. While Theresa May's team attempts to woo Labour MPs with offers of cash for poor areas and commitments on workers' rights, the attorney general and Brexit secretary have been in Brussels, frantically trying to win concessions on the thorny Irish [...]
There are plenty of reasons for investors to be optimistic about China March 6, 2019 Since the election of Donald Trump, one story has dominated global markets news: the trade war between China and the US. As negotiations reached a critical phase last month, markets fluctuated as setbacks led to breakthroughs, only for talks to stall again. But while investors are right to worry about currents of protectionism in the world’s [...]
Theresa May makes employee rights pledge to charm Labour MPs into backing Brexit deal March 6, 2019 Theresa May has pledged that the standards of workers’ rights from EU laws retained in UK law will not be reduced after Brexit. As part of the EU withdrawal agreement, parliament will be given the right to consider any future changes in EU law that strengthen workers’ rights or workplace health and safety standards. It [...]
Provident Financial resolves regulation issues with City watchdog March 6, 2019 Doorstep lender Provident Financial has said it has "substantially resolved" recent regulatory issues as it revealed that it has hired a new boss to lead its Vanquis Bank business. The company, which has rejected a £1.3bn takeover bid from rival Non-Standard Finance (NSF), revealed that the Vanquis refund programme was more than 99 per cent [...]
Theresa May is delusional if she thinks she can win over Labour MPs March 6, 2019 Has the Prime Minister been reading “How to win friends and influence people”, by Dale Carnegie? It would make a change from “The bluffer’s guide to negotiating”. The thought came to mind when I read of Theresa May’s latest attempt to get Labour MPs to support her withdrawal agreement in the vote next week – [...]
Like the myth that the Earth is flat, the socialist conspiracy theory never dies March 6, 2019 The idea that the Earth is flat is a rapidly growing trend on social media. The Flat Earth Society’s Twitter feed has the best part of 100,000 followers. The fact that the planet is a sphere has been known since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. The astronomer Eratosthenes demonstrated it with a simple [...]
WPP needs to revamp culture to attract the best people, says boss March 5, 2019 WPP must create a more open culture if it is to attract the best people in the industry, chief executive Mark Read said today. “WPP is really just about people at the end of the day,” he said at the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) conference this morning. Read more: Brands have ‘Netflix envy’, [...]
Brexit: Geoffrey Cox and Stephen Barclay head to Brussels for final backstop push March 5, 2019 Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay and attorney general Geoffrey Cox will today head to Brussels in a bid to win changes to the Irish backstop in the run-up to another crunch Commons vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal. The two ministers are hoping EU officials will agree to a time limit to the backstop – the [...]
The high street can be saved if physical shops and online retailers collaborate and use data March 5, 2019 In January, affiliate marketing company Awin released research showing that 39 per cent of Britons wouldn’t really mind if we lost all high street stores altogether, with over a third of respondents saying that they “almost never” shopped there anyway. News stories about high street stalwarts being in the doldrums have become a recurring theme, from [...]