August 2015 TfL Tube strike: No employer can afford to meet the demands of unions RMT, TSSA, Aslef and Unite over the Night Tube August 6, 2015 London is growing and increasingly becoming a 24 hour city. The Night Tube will transform night time journeys, cutting journey times by an average of 20 minutes, with some by more than an hour. London's night-time economy will be opened up to a host of new opportunities, with the new 24 hour services supporting around [...]
Tube strike August 2015: London needs to call in retired drivers as a contingency plan to keep the capital running August 5, 2015 When the RMT leadership branded the mayor’s Night Tube plan as a “vanity project” that should be shelved, we reached a crunch point. The militant rail unions have inflicted misery on London commuters and have caused untold damage to the capital’s economy through disruptive strikes in recent years, the latest due this evening over the [...]
Even at £750m Adidas’ Manchester United kit deal could prove to be a bargain for the sportswear giant August 5, 2015 £75m per year. That’s how much Adidas is paying Manchester United to make their kit. To put that into context, that’s about 2.5 times more than the next biggest Premier League deal (Arsenal and Chelsea both receive £30m per year from Puma and Adidas respectively) and over 10 times more than NFL teams receive from [...]
The government sports policy has failed…now it must empower local people to reverse participation slump August 4, 2015 The London Olympics and Paralympics created a once-in-a-generation opportunity in the UK to inspire people to get active and play sport. With a year to the Rio 2016 games, it is clear that that the government has wasted this opportunity. The latest figures show that that fewer people are active in sports than in 2012. [...]
Our secret envy of Lords: Why we shouldn’t expect – or insist – on our Lords being more lordly than us August 4, 2015 Only the media and legions of middle England curtain-twitchers appear to have taken a sharp and judgemental intake of breath at the ‘shocking’ revelations that guess what – another over privileged life peer likes a line and spending company with ladies of the night. And Lord Sewel accompanied his session by openly taking the [...]
Labour leadership contest: Three reasons why Jeremy Corbyn could be the City’s new best friend August 4, 2015 Jeremy Corbyn is rumoured to be leading in the Labour Party’s leadership election. Without doubt he is setting the pace. The result is that words like ‘hard left’ are being bandied about, especially by his opponent’s camps. But is he bad news for the City? As the author of some of the economic policies [...]
The gender pay gap can’t be closed while the Tories have their heads in the sand August 4, 2015 David Cameron displayed a higher than usual level of complacency the other week, writing an article in the Times in which he celebrated “a recent slew of good news” for gender equality. Out in the real world, things are quite a bit less rosy. Progress towards genuine equality has slowed in recent years. In fact, across the [...]
If you’ve a grip on the Calais migrant crisis Philip Hammond, why don’t you come take a look? August 4, 2015 We British know how to queue, that is without a doubt. But last Wednesday I was sitting in a cab in Calais next to a lorry driver from Yorkshire in one of the most unpleasant queues of my life, while gangs of young men wandered past us eyeing up which UK bound lorry they thought [...]
RBS share sale: Detractors have forgotten what a terrible state the bank was in August 4, 2015 Just a few years afterwards, it seems people have forgotten how momentous the financial crisis was – and in what a terrible state RBS was. And while criticism of the chancellor for pushing ahead with the first sale of the government’s shares in RBS is politically appealing for some and taxpayers will not ‘get back [...]
Airport expansion: Forget Heathrow and Gatwick – only Thames Estuary can give more than a sticking plaster solution to the UK’s airport expansion needs August 4, 2015 Last week big business was on the march with 57 senior business leaders signing a letter urging the Prime Minister to give a third runway to Heathrow. This follows on neatly from the Davies Commission – a £20m report that has taken three years to recommend political suicide. The challenge for a future [...]