The chancellor could use the Budget to help both startups and investors February 26, 2020 Ahead of any Budget, there is always great speculation on what may be announced. This year, the focus thus far has been on when a Budget would happen and who will deliver it. But with the new chancellor Rishi Sunak confirming that it will go ahead on 11 March, all attention has turned to the [...]
Former business secretary Greg Clark leads calls for overhaul of coronavirus loan scheme April 9, 2020 Former business secretary Greg Clark MP today branded the government’s coronavirus loan scheme for small and medium-sized businesses a “disappointment” and called for an overhaul of the programme. “It hasn’t been taken up as widely as was touted when it was first launched. Since it was there to provide finance for businesses in substantial quantities [...]
Achieving budgetary balance in a virus crisis March 12, 2020 A proportionate response needs to be adopted in the face of the spread of Covid-19. That was certainly the sense from yesterday’s Budget. A calm and measured chancellor presented this government’s first Budget during very unusual times. This outbreak has been devastating, initially in China, but now in Italy and Iran too, with many countries [...]
Global stocks plunge amid oil crash and coronavirus outbreak March 9, 2020 Global stock markets plunged today as a crash in oil prices and the rapid spread of coronavirus caused panic to set in on trading floors around the world. The UK’s FTSE 100 slumped 7.7 per cent in its biggest one-day fall since the 2008 financial crisis. The rout wiped £125bn off the value of the [...]
The revolution is imminent, and big Telco needs to change February 21, 2020 Complex deals. High prices. Bad service. Guess which industry I am talking about? Four old incumbents own more than 90 per cent market share, nearly nine million people pay a loyalty tax every year, and yet “industry leaders” get invited to Downing Street for tea and biscuits. The answer is telecoms. It’s front-page news: 5G [...]
Martin Gilbert: Coronavirus ‘multiple times worse’ than Black Monday for City April 29, 2020 Veteran asset manager Martin Gilbert has warned the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will be “the most dramatic we’ve seen since the 1930s” as he warned of “a long, slow recovery” for certain sectors of the economy. Speaking to The City View podcast today, Gilbert said that though Black Monday in 1987 was a [...]
Exclusive: MPs slam ‘inconsistency and incompetence’ as SMEs struggle to get bounce back loans September 28, 2020 Banks have been told to ensure that no small businesses are “locked out” of government-backed coronavirus loans, after firms were left unable to access the loans despite being eligible for funding. MPs said lenders accredited under the scheme should re-open applications for bounce back loans (BBLs), designed to help small companies weather the pandemic. Barclays [...]
We need Alan Turing’s innovative mindset to make it through coronavirus March 27, 2020 Alan Turing designed the curiously named Bombe machine during the early stages of World War II. A forerunner to the computer, the Bombe was able to rapidly intercept messages, quickly decode them, and thereby allow allied forces to react within hours rather than weeks. Stories from the world of codebreaking today bring to vivid life [...]
Storm in a teacup as Yorkshire Tea wins Twitter February 26, 2020 The story was predictably silly: Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak poses with a big bag of tea, and anti-Tory Twitterati say they will never drink that brand again, dropping a fair few expletives in their ranty responses to a completely imagined outrage. What have we learnt from this storm in a Yorkshire Tea cup? On the [...]
Labour’s Ian Murray: We need universal basic income to beat coronavirus March 20, 2020 The government must introduce a universal basic income to protect the UK’s most vulnerable workers amid a coronavirus-fuelled economic downturn, Labour deputy leadership contender Ian Murray warned this week. He also called on Boris Johnson to step up measures to protect businesses in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic – or risk “local community businesses [...]