The Capitalist: Labour’s boost for wealth advisors and bane for private schools plus friends like Boris’
Trump has gone to war with the US model of government January 11, 2019 There’s an ancient Greek fable about some frogs who ask Zeus for a king. The god gives them a log to be their ruler, which proceeds to do exactly what you’d expect: nothing. Disappointed, the frogs complain that their king isn’t getting anything done, and ask for a more active one. Zeus gives them a hydra, [...]
Laundry is the biggest source of microplastic pollution – here’s how we tackle the issue October 11, 2018 Anyone who is yet to wake up to the issue of plastic polluting our rivers and seas must have their head in the sand. Programmes such as Blue Planet and Drowning in Plastic have done a brilliant job of showing us the terrible damage being wrought on the environment by discarded plastic. Heartrending images of [...]
DEBATE: Should the government set guidelines on meat consumption to combat climate change? October 16, 2018 Should the government set guidelines on meat consumption to combat climate change? Ben Glover, a researcher at Demos, says YES. Last week, the UN’s IPCC warned that to avoid disastrous levels of climate change we must make “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” – including cutting meat consumption. That’s because livestock counts for about [...]
Kamikaze Brexiteers may end up in a hell of their own making February 8, 2019 Hell hath no fury like a Brexiteer scorned. From the backlash this week, you would have thought that European Council president Donald Tusk had suggested that the EU get custody of the Queen in the Brexit divorce. “I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit, without even a [...]
Pointless meetings? There’s no such thing – the peacock explains why November 2, 2018 IT’S A good rule of thumb that you can learn more by looking at what people do than listening to what they say. Everyone in the corporate world, for example, likes to talk about how much they hate meetings. But for something they profess to despise, they seem to have an awful lot of them. [...]
Deliveroo set to become unicorn with $385m investment September 23, 2017 Deliveroo has secured $385m (£285.3m) in new funding from two US firms. Stateside investors Fidelity and T. Rowe Price have agreed to put money into the UK-based start-up as part of a deal which values the company at over $2bn (£1.48bn), according to Sky News. The investment means rumours of a Deliveroo IPO are likely [...]
The sugar tax is failing – let’s empower people to make their own choices instead September 6, 2018 It’s been five months since the so-called “sugar tax” was introduced, charging manufacturers a levy according to the amount of sugar in their drinks products. Ostensibly its aim was to combat obesity. But recent Nielsen data shows that the tax has had little impact on consumer behaviour. Around two thirds (62 per cent) of consumers [...]
Five reasons why Game of Thrones satisfies our (narrative) needs January 30, 2019 Game of Thrones has become something of a TV event over the past six years – the last season attracted more than 5m viewers per episode. On the face of it, the attractions are obvious: large helpings of sex and violence, bolstered by a serpentine storyline said to be inspired by the War of the [...]
Fitness challenge: four years on – The new fitness techniques that helped turn our Life&Style editor into a gym bro August 8, 2018 Four years ago I wrote an article about getting fit. For 10 weeks I went to the gym a lot, gave up booze, ate well, and got a hearty spray tan. I looked pretty good, in a ‘didn’t-quite-make-it-to-the-final-round-of-applicants-for-Love-Island’ kind of way. People still ask about it. For a while the story would appear on the [...]
Barbie on a bull run: Resurgent sales in the All-American figurine have proved a saving grace for toy making giant Mattel October 16, 2018 When it happened three years ago, it may have passed you by: after all, Donald Trump had just announced he was running for President, and the EU referendum campaign was getting under way. So you’d be forgiven for not noticing, in 2015, that Barbie dolls had just been given adjustable ankles. And yet the fact [...]