London home registrations at highest point since records began January 31, 2014 2013 saw the number of homes registered in London boom to the highest level since electronic records began 26 years ago, according to the National House Building Council (NHBC). Last year, the number of new homes registered in London rose to 26,230 an increase of 60 per cent on the previous year. However, growth in [...]
City & Gild: Modernisation is the only way back to the future for the Co-op March 17, 2014 So what do we make of the recent goings-on at the Co-op Group, the once proud pioneer of social corporate responsibility? Taking their business issues to one side, it’s hard to knock their vision and values – to want to build a better society through ethical leadership (among other, altruistic aims) is not only a [...]
How cross-border collaboration can help drive growth May 21, 2014 Daniel Rajkumar, founder of Web-Translations, tells Liam Ward-Proud about how he uses cooperative technologies to link freelancers around the world, and the ways UK SMEs can break into global markets The rise of the internet and e-commerce has made it easier than ever for small businesses to access fast-growing international markets. But cultural and linguistic [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 08 April 2014 April 7, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES EU bank failures deal risks unravelling A landmark EU agreement on a common rulebook for handling bank failures is in danger of unravelling over the fine print restricting when a state can intervene to rescue a struggling bank. Britain is facing objections from several other member states as it scrambles to revise a [...]
The real reason you should be depressed by political soundbites April 7, 2014 POLITICAL sound-bites can be excruciating. They hang around for a year or two before disappearing when they become untenable. Who can forget Labour’s “too far, too fast”, or the Conservatives’ “global race”? With just over a year to go before the general election, you’ll be depressed to hear the current offerings look entrenched. The Conservatives [...]
Innovation Diary: Perfect storm of factors is set to make education technology the UK’s next growth sector January 26, 2014 FOR THOSE seeking a model of the classroom of the future, Estonia is often high up the list. Speaking at Davos last week, Barclays’s Antony Jenkins contrasted the Baltic state’s “technologically-oriented” economy, where every child is taught coding at school, with the UK’s structural youth unemployment. Estonia’s tech transformation is indeed impressive. It has some [...]
Our clueless establishment needs to pay the price for floods crisis February 10, 2014 WHEN a private company messes up, it rightly gets pilloried. But when the public sector commits a blunder, even an enormous one, it all too often gets away with it. Blame is deflected; few people, if any, lose their jobs; knighthoods are retained; and the flawed dominant ideology is allowed to retain its grip on [...]
Energy wars spark UK blackout fears March 28, 2014 OFGEM’S decision to refer the UK’s energy market for a full-scale investigation will put the UK at a higher risk of blackouts, the industry warned yesterday. The regulator has asked the new Competition and Markets Authority to probe competition in the retail energy market, following months of heightening political pressure to bring down customers’ bills. [...]
Energy wars spark UK blackout fears March 28, 2014 OFGEM’S decision to refer the UK’s energy market for a full-scale investigation will put the UK at a higher risk of blackouts, the industry warned yesterday. The regulator has asked the new Competition and Markets Authority to probe competition in the retail energy market, following months of heightening political pressure to bring down customers’ bills. [...]
Metro blames IT for banks’ lack of competition January 20, 2014 BRITAIN’S banking sector cannot be broken open by challengers because the country lacks the vibrant IT sector needed to support new lenders, Metro Bank chairman Vernon Hill told City A.M. yesterday. Hill founded the first new bank in the UK in over a century in 2010, but argues it is a much easier process in [...]