Cut unemployment benefits for immigrants, but don’t cut immigration August 1, 2014 Prime Minister Cameron should be applauded for his plan to halve the length of benefits for unemployed immigrants down to three months. When a government allows immigrants to collect benefits without employment, it essentially pays someone to live off taxpayer dollars without contributing to the economy. But in Britain this is not generally the case. [...]
Winter storm power cut compensation payouts cost UK energy companies an extra £3.3m July 24, 2014 Energy regulator Ofgem has announced it has secured an additional £3.3m from SSE and UKPN following its investigation into the companies' performance during the dramatic storms seen last Christmas. The regulator has now landed a total of £8m from the two energy firms, which had to payout to the 1m households that suffered power cuts at [...]
Co-operative Group sells off farming arm to Wellcome Trust for £249m August 4, 2014 The Co-operative Group continued offloading its non-core assets yesterday with the sale of nearly 16,000 hectares of British farmland, 15 farms and over 100 residential properties to health charity the Wellcome Trust for £249m. The sale comes just three weeks after The Co-op sold its 774-chain pharmacy business for £620m, as the group looks to [...]
Investment into Europe property hits record high March 10, 2014 INVESTORS from outside of Europe spent a record €36bn (£30bn) on European real estate last year, with US, Asian and Middle Eastern investors leading the charge. According to research released today by DTZ at Mipim, the property’s industry annual conference in Cannes, this represented a 26 per cent share of total volumes invested across the [...]
Advisers December 9, 2013 NIGEL FOX CAPITAL REAL ESTATE PARTNERS CAPITAL Real Estate Partners was brought in alongside Rothschild to advise London Bridge Holdings on the sale of More London. Leading the team on behalf of Capital Real Estate was Nigel Fox, who co-founded the niche London agency in January 2010 after more than two decades working in central [...]
New maps on shale formations quench fears of water pollution July 3, 2014 The UK’s burgeoning shale gas industry yesterday went some way to satiate the concerns of environmental campaigners, when new data showed the layer of rocks where the resource would be found was far below the area exploited for drinking water. Critics argue that extracting shale gas – and the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing [...]
US extends flight ban to Israel for another 24 hours July 23, 2014 The United States has renewed its ban on airlines flying to Tel Aviv for a further 24 hours, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said. A host of major US and European carriers suspended flights to Ben Gurion airport in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Tuesday, after a rocket strike on Tuesday is reported to [...]
Ed Miliband’s conference speech: Here’s what you need to know September 23, 2014 Ed Miliband has delivered his last speech to a Labour conference before the 2015 general election. The Labour leader hopes his six-point plan will be enough to entice voters to give his party the keys to Downing Street and reverse his low personal ratings. The plan is intended to be implemented over 10 years. Here [...]
British support for free trade starts to grow June 16, 2014 MORE BRITONS are coming around to the idea that free trade is good for the economy, the British Social Attitudes Survey shows today. And the fear of foreign businesses harming local firms is also showing some signs of fading, according to the study from the researchers at NatCen. The 2103 survey found 48 per cent [...]
Don’t count on brownfield: It won’t solve the housing crisis alone June 11, 2014 IN TODAY’S Mansion House speech, George Osborne is expected to outline new plans to encourage housing development on brownfield sites. The speech follows in the wake of an IMF report, which urged the UK government to relax planning rules that constrain both brownfield and greenfield development in order to sort out the grave imbalances in [...]