Poll: vote for your dream chancellor March 9, 2010 THE next chancellor will have one of the toughest jobs in recent political history. With credit rating agencies warning they could strip the UK of its AAA rating unless the government acts quickly to cut the huge £178bn budget deficit, he will have to make the biggest public spending cuts in a generation. This is [...]
City: cut deficit sooner not later March 17, 2010 THE NEXT government should start cutting public spending later this year, rather than waiting until 2011, according to our panel of City and business professionals. Seventy-seven per cent of panelists said spending should start to be cut shortly after the May general election, amid worries over the UK’s yawning £178bn budget deficit and exploding national [...]
CITY TAKES AN OUTSIDE PUNT ON THE BUBBLY March 23, 2010 AMUSED ripples radiated from the City yesterday following this column’s speculation as to what tipple George Osborne – likely to be the country’s next chancellor if the Tories win the election – might drink if he ends up presenting the next Budget. It seems most readers agreed with The Capitalist’s prediction that Osborne would stick [...]
The man who could be chancellor plans radical changes for the City May 3, 2010 Allister Heath and David Crow pay a visit to Vince Cable ahead of the last week of the election campaign FEW politicians have emerged from the financial crisis with their reputation intact. Vince Cable must be the only one who has actually enhanced his, with his brand of left-wing policies playing perfectly to the shifting [...]
Majority of City lawyers support Tories May 4, 2010 HERE’S a thought: if our electorate comprised City lawyers – okay, maybe not that most appealing thought – the Tories would storm to an election win on Thursday. Legal Week magazine recently reckoned that almost two thirds of City partners (63 per cent) were backing Cameron. A survey by DLA Piper of 545 senior UK [...]
OH, FOR THE DAYS BEFORE PURITANS WIELDED THE BUDGET BRIEFCASE… March 22, 2010 BUDGET Days, under New Labour, have become a decidedly austere affair in recent years – and not just because the public finances are spiralling out of control. Alongside bringing a battered red briefcase to the House of Commons, the incumbent chancellor is traditionally allowed to drink from a glass of his favourite tipple while presenting [...]
Economists call for swift deficit action February 15, 2010 A group of eminent economists and politicians have come together to insist that cuts to the government’s budget deficit take place as soon as the general election has finished. In a letter a to the Sunday Times, organised by Tim Besley a professor of economics at the LSE, the twenty signatories warned that the UK’s [...]
Memo to government: cut spending March 17, 2010 CUT spending as soon as the election is over: that is the resounding message from the City A.M./PHI panel, our unique gauge of opinion among London’s City, financial and business community. The news is good for the Tories – unlike the results of our last survey, which found that our panel favoured Ken Clarke against [...]
Coffee Republic hit by the daily grind July 6, 2009 COFFEE Republic yesterday suspended its shares “pending clarification” of its financial situation, with administrators waiting in the wings. Last week, the group placed one of its subsidiaries into administration and called in restructuring advisers from law firm Osborne Clarke. The company, which was founded by Bobby Hashemi, suffered a £527,000 loss in the six months [...]
Coffee Republic hit by the daily grind July 6, 2009 COFFEE Republic yesterday suspended its shares “pending clarification” of its financial situation, with administrators waiting in the wings. Last week, the group placed one of its subsidiaries into administration and called in restructuring advisers from law firm Osborne Clarke. The company, which was founded by Bobby Hashemi, suffered a £527,000 loss in the six months [...]