Where is Yanis Varoufakis as the Greek parliament votes? July 10, 2015 Lawmakers in Greece are preparing to vote in Parliament today, but Varoufakis will not be there due to family reasons. The Greek government had sent a package of reform proposals to its creditors on Thursday in order to unlock new funds and avoid bankruptcy, which parliament will be voting on in order to endorse immediate [...]
Blockchain boss Eddy Travia on Coinsilium’s IPO: Why I chose to float a FinTech business in London July 15, 2015 Whilst the bitcoin price may have stolen some headlines during the Greece negotiations it is the underlying technology, blockchain, that is really making waves across the financial world. Last year $330m (around £211m) flowed into bitcoin and blockchain companies, and in the first half of 2015 $373m was invested into the same space, bringing the [...]
Greek debt crisis: Creditors come under fire for tough stance on Greece June 29, 2015 US President Barack Obama yesterday urged German leader Angela Merkel to find a solution to Greece’s economic crisis as bailout talks broke down and the country said it would put its latest offer from creditors to a referendum next weekend. The referendum question will be “Do you accept the institutions’ proposal as it was [...]
July Budget 2015: From the pensions expert to the PwC economist, reactions to the chancellor’s statement July 9, 2015 THE BUSINESS GROUP Confederation of British Industry director general John Cridland Firms will welcome measures to boost investment but will be worried about paying living wage. “This is a double edged Budget for business. Firms will welcome measures to balance the books and boost investment, but they will be concerned by legislating for wage increases [...]
EU migrant crisis: Don’t close the borders – why Germany needs the refugees September 13, 2015 “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free” – Inscription on the Statue of Liberty Having so recently played the part of the hard-hearted, skinflint uncle to a tee in the Greek crisis, it has been a profoundly pleasant surprise to see Germany behave in such a generous manner [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne cuts benefits and the family tax credit July 8, 2015 Chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne announced major cuts to welfare spending yesterday, using the summer Budget to set out how he planned to save the Treasury a further £12bn in the next three years. The chancellor said that his Budget was designed to take Britain "from a low wage, high tax, high welfare [...]
Greek debt crisis: IMF head Christine Lagarde says Eurozone is “in strong position” June 28, 2015 The head of the International Monetary Fund has expressed confidence in the Eurozone's ability to manage the ongoing Greek debt crisis. Christine Lagarde said Europe is in "a strong position to respond to developments in a timely and effective manner, as needed" in a statement, following the Greek government's backing of a referendum on a [...]
Labour has rejected its own legacy of NHS reform – with sad implications for patients September 14, 2015 "New Labour officially dead and buried", tweeted Daily Politics presenter Andrew Neil as the Labour leadership election results came in. Writing for the Guardian, general secretary of Unite the Union Len McCluskey also interpreted Jeremy Corbyn’s victory as “three parts optimism and one part repudiation of the ‘New Labour’ past”. It is hard [...]
How peer-to-peer lending can help wean the UK off artificially cheap credit July 13, 2015 The Budget contained headline-grabbing announcements on banks and pensions. But there’s been little commentary on the chancellor’s declaration that “the government is against unfair subsidies wherever we find them”. This immediately got me thinking about some of the disparities in the financial system and, in particular, the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS). It’s almost [...]
Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee warns of government “snooper’s charter” after Queen’s Speech May 30, 2015 Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has warned of encroaching government powers after plans for new legislation to monitor communications was revealed in the Queen's Speech. "There's never been so much at stake" Berners-Lee told an audience at the Southbank's Web We Want Festival, where he urged support for a Magna [...]