City Matters: The growth of Islamic finance is critical to sustaining the City’s export weight February 23, 2014 GEORGE Osborne signalled last week that he plans to encourage more trade and investment in next month’s Budget announcement. The chancellor rightly pointed out that this was critical to securing a sustainable recovery across the UK. The City plays a crucial role in underpinning the wider economy through job creation, investment, trade and exports. That [...]
Businesses slam Labour tax plan January 27, 2014 LABOUR’S Ed Balls was facing mounting and angry opposition from the business community last night over his plans to increase the top rate of tax to 50p if his party is elected in 2015. The shadow chancellor claims that his tax hike would raise £3bn a year and help cut the budget deficit, helping him [...]
The man with a plan for your retirement May 5, 2014 The former Barclays banker turned insurance group chief executive thinks he’s found a new direction for LV= WHEN Mike Rogers first heard about chancellor George Osborne’s plans to scrap compulsory annuities, the LV= chief executive was on a train back to London. “I’d been to Bristol for lunch with some of the top performers from [...]
Clash looms in Parliament over banking bill November 25, 2013 AN INFLUENTIAL group of Lords is threatening to derail chancellor George Osborne’s key banking reforms with a series of challenges in parliament today. Tory ex-chancellor Lord Lawson, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, former cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull and ex-Treasury Select Committee chair Lord McFall want to crack down on bonuses and impose tougher reforms [...]
British savers free to choose at last March 19, 2014 @allisterheath WHAT a remarkable, extraordinary Budget. In recent years, the chancellor’s announcements have largely been ignored by the financial markets; not yesterday. This was the biggest market-moving Budget that I can remember, with the shares of many of the City’s blue chip financial companies crashing and others rocketing. It contained the greatest surprise in years [...]
Lord King gets drawn into the Co-op affair November 25, 2013 FORMER Bank of England governor Lord Mervyn King may be asked to give evidence to the Treasury Select Committee investigating the collapse of the Co-op’s purchase of Lloyds Bank branches, after claims he told a rival bidder its bid would get nowhere. Lord Levene has said that Lord King invited him to the Bank to [...]
Blueprint for Brexit: Why post-EU prosperity isn’t unthinkable April 8, 2014 IT WOULD be easy to think that the debate about Britain’s membership of the EU has been done to death. Yet there has been relatively little serious discussion about the alternatives to EU membership – an urgent issue given the possibility of an in/out referendum in 2017. Outlandish claims that exit would be utterly catastrophic [...]
No rest for City’s new Lord Mayor November 11, 2013 THOUSANDS of supporters braved the rain on Saturday to come out and celebrate the inauguration of the new Lord Mayor of the City of London, Fiona Woolf. As part of the 800-year-old tradition more than 7,000 participants took part in the three-and-a-half-mile procession from Bank to Aldwych and back, accompanied by everything from vintage cars [...]
The Iron Brady April 14, 2014 Annabel Palmer talks to sporting executive-turned TV star Karren Brady – the Conservative Party’s ambassador for UK small businesses SHE IS known as the First Lady of Football, but Karren Brady’s list of accolades extends far beyond the beautiful game. Wikipedia describes Brady as a sporting executive, novelist, author, TV broadcaster and columnist. And as [...]
Political row grows over bank scandal November 19, 2013 Political knock-on effects of the scandal surrounding former Co-op Bank boss Paul Flowers became clearer yesterday, with figures from both major political parties assigning blame for misconduct. The former chair of the influential Treasury Select Committee, Lord McFall, told BBC’s Newsnight that he was “gobsmacked” at the revelations, saying that lessons had not been learned [...]