As the London Mayoral election looms, it’s time for Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan to think big on housing April 7, 2016 With just under a month to go until London votes for a new Mayor, and less than a week until City A.M. hosts a packed-out hustings between the two main candidates, one familiar issue has raised its rather ugly head – the soaring cost of living in our capital. Some housing market analysts believe that government [...]
Failure to tackle the scourge of rising rents will undermine London’s startup renaissance May 3, 2016 Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales once said that “in the US, Washington is politics, LA is Hollywood, San Francisco is tech, New York is advertising and finance, but London is all of those things.” If anything, he is selling our city short; throw in the culture of the city that shaped creative geniuses such as Charles [...]
Why I’ll be voting to leave the costly, dysfunctional and bureaucratic EU April 28, 2016 Let me start with an admission. I love Europe. I love its food, culture and heritage. It is a continent I love to visit and do business with. But Europe is being torn apart by the European Union. Its two big political projects are in crisis. The euro has left national governments with huge debts and [...]
Before the bell: What you need to know before the US market open May 26, 2016 The price of US crude oil has smashed through $50 per barrel after Brent crossed that mark last night. Meanwhile the world's leaders have assembled in Japan for the G7 meeting. Here's what you need to know before the US market open at 14:30 London time. The futures market is pointing up. The S&P is up by 0.1 [...]
Real wages continue fall to dash hopes that cost of living crisis is easing July 16, 2014 The recovery is still some way off reaching people's pockets, as earnings growth slowed to a meagre 0.3 per cent in the three months to May, according to the Office of National Statistics. Average earnings for the three months to May fell from a revised 0.8 per cent figure for April to its lowest [...]
Seven years of quantitative easing and 0.5 per cent interest rates by the Bank of England: Who are the winners and losers? March 3, 2016 This Saturday will mark seven years since the Bank of England enacted its historic quantitative easing programme, and cut the UK’s main interest rate to 0.5 per cent, in a bid to save it from the financial crisis which was then tearing across the globe. Just like any other policy, it has thrown up winners and losers. Investors who [...]
Sadiq Khan’s rent caps could benefit London landlords May 12, 2016 London’s newly elected mayor, Sadiq Khan, has already committed to making the London housing crisis a priority. He has announced a raft of policies aimed at helping the capital’s two million private renters, and one is attracting particular scrutiny and controversy – the introduction of a London rent cap. Few people doubt rents in London [...]
Sadiq Khan vows to make London better as he’s sworn in as mayor May 7, 2016 Sadiq Khan sworn vowed to make London better as he was sworn in as the new mayor of London at Southwark Cathedral. He stormed to victory yesterday with the biggest ever mandate from the electorate, ending eight years of Conservative control at City Hall. "I'm determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London [...]
UK banks have yet to address the elephant in the room: Their current business model is unsustainable April 14, 2016 It was another tough year for UK banks in 2015, and the challenges look set to continue. Our high-street banks are at a vital juncture: they’ve survived the crisis and are now preparing for one of the biggest overhauls of UK banking we have ever known with the introduction of ring fencing. KPMG analysis out today [...]
Daphne Koller on Coursera in refugee camps, and why our education systems won’t help us in the future June 27, 2016 If you've never done a MOOC – a massive open online course – you likely know someone who has. Coursera is the biggest provider in the world. Launched just four years ago, it now has almost 20m learners worldwide, in 140 institutions across 28 countries. In the UK, there are over 600,000 users. Co-founder Daphne Koller was [...]