Sir Martin Sorrell and WPP have been lobbying hard for changes to the UK ‘controlled foreign companies’ tax rules which are designed to stop UK-based companies and their overseas subsidiaries paying lower rates of tax abroad. The UK coalition government ...
Read More »New take on austerity doom and gloom from Crossroads Films director Nick Scott
It’s been an annus mirabilis for many of us without a doubt but Crossroads films director Nick Scott and his producer Michael Berliner have come up with a nice take on it all in this short film ‘School Portrait.’ School ...
Read More »Is noisy Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP becoming too attached to his ‘bully pulpit?’
Teddy Roosevelt coined the phrase ‘bully pulpit’ although he didn’t mean bully in its modern sense, bully meant something good for the extrovert US president and big game hunter. But Teddy realised that the status of president gave you the ...
Read More »Can Brand Branson extend into banking now Virgin has bought Northern Rock?
Sir Richard Branson has wanted to get into UK banking for years and now, finally, he’s succeeded by agreeing to buy bailed-out northern-based bank Northern Rock from the UK government for £747m. It’s not clear yet if Rorthern Rock will ...
Read More »The strange case of George Osborne, Andy Coulson, the prostitute’s memoirs and Number Ten
UK chancellor George Osborne is supposed to have been the politician who persuaded then Tory leader (and now PM) David Cameron to hire former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his director of communications (not the wisest advice ...
Read More »It’s 8-2 to UK bankers as lobbying blitz crushes coalition government’s Vince Cable
Ever since the crash of 2008 the world’s bankers, many of whom have pitched their tents in the UK, have had more verbal ordure heaped on them than any group of people since, well, the last religious martyrs in Western ...
Read More »Can former Asda marketer Chris Pilling put some fizz into UK building societies?
Chris Pilling, currently head of HSBC’s bank branch network in the UK, is joining the country’s second-biggest building society Yorkshire as CEO. The move is interesting on two counts: building societies have been pretty moribund since the 2008 credit crunch, ...
Read More »Will the last retailer to leave the British high street please turn out the lights?
Well that’s the way it looks at the moment as UK retailers Carpetright and Thornton’s (which makes and sells chocolate) prepare to slash the size of their high street estates and fashion chain Jane Norman tumbles into a pre-pack administration ...
Read More »UK coalition government ad cuts have created a worrying inability to communicate
The last year and a bit has been a turbulent time for the UK government’s communicators. It was always likely to be the case, with the coalition government wielding its new broom. A haze of resignations, slightly fewer appointments, U-Turns ...
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