Football Comment: Liverpool being hit hardest by Suarez bite ban June 26, 2014 DEBATE will rage on over whether Luis Suarez’s four-month ban from all football, plus nine international games, is a fitting punishment for his latest biting incident, but amid all the madness the biggest losers from this sorry episode are Liverpool. The Reds have just had a magnificent season and Suarez has been at the heart [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 13 June 2014 June 12, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Corporate PC demand boosts Intel Intel has raised its profit guidance for the second quarter on the back of strong demand for business PCs, pushing shares up by more than five per cent in after-hours trading. Demand for the PCs – the market Intel’s chips dominate – is stabilising as companies begin to [...]
Help to Buy “already delivering” says David Cameron as second phase sees over 2,000 applications November 11, 2013 Help to Buy is gathering momentum. This morning both RBS and Halifax reported strong uptake of its second phase, which was launched a month ago. 2,384 applications have been put in, totalling £365m of new mortgage lending. On average, households have asked to borrow around £155,000 for houses worth about £163,000. The UK average house [...]
The art of theft: Why do thieves steal famous paintings when they’re so hard to sell? October 28, 2014 On a freezing Stockholm evening just before Christmas 2000, a group of six to eight Middle Eastern men put into action a plan they’d been working on for months. The group parked cars in the middle of the three central roads leading to the Swedish National Museum and set them ablaze. As fire engines [...]
Supply shortfall driving London housing market March 17, 2014 EACH property on the London market is chased by 13 buyers, according to shocking new figures that show the strength of demand in the capital. According to estate agents Barnard Marcus, the number of buyers has surged by 25 per cent in the past year, and the number of transactions is up 20 per cent [...]
Boris urges developers to stop offering London homes to foreigners first March 11, 2014 Boris Johnson will urge developers and investors this afternoon to sign up to a new deal to stop giving buyers living abroad the first chance to buy London homes sold before they’re built, in a bid to get more Londoners onto the housing ladder. Speaking at Mipim, the property’s industry annual conference in Cannes, the [...]
Letters to the editor for – 03/09 – UK risk disease, Help to Buy, Best of Twitter September 2, 2013 UK risk disease [Re: Both Left and Right should fear the threat to medical research in the UK, yesterday] London has the capacity to build a world class cluster for biomedical innovation. But John Hulsman highlights a stark example of a risk averse culture in this country – a disease we need to treat if [...]
Letters to the Editor – 04/10 – Business growth, Stamp duty, Best of Twitter October 3, 2013 Business growth [Re: Cameron needs growth gazelles to bring life to his land of opportunity, yesterday] The Prime Minister’s gazelles will find it difficult to leap with elephants in the room. Indeed, our recent research looked in depth at certain features of over 250 companies – around 54 per cent with no serious financial issues and [...]
Interest rate hikes risk a household debt tragedy if we don’t act now July 23, 2014 Beware the economist bearing forecasts. The only thing that’s ever certain about economic predictions is that they’ll turn out to be wrong. But this one’s nailed on: interest rates are going to rise. Hardly the riskiest punt – the current emergency base rate of 0.5 per cent can’t be sustained forever and, as yesterday’s Monetary [...]
Lloyds hopes for a 2013 dividend October 29, 2013 LLOYDS hopes to pay a dividend for this year after returning to profit, chief executive Antonio Horta Osorio revealed yesterday. The bailed out bank began its privatisation last month when the government sold a £3.2bn stake in the lender, and resuming dividend payments would be another key step on the return to normality for Lloyds. [...]