News

By James Rubin, CEO, www.envirowaste.co.uk UK recycling rates increased rapidly by 32% between 2000 and 2012 but recently this rate has flatlined. Only 33.9% of household waste in London was sent for recycling last year despite Boris Johnson suggesting an initial target of 45% and the EU setting a target of 50% recycling by 2020. As Europe’s greenest major city with 40% of surface area made up of public green spaces, we should be able to work towards these targets....

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Queen guitarist and animal campaigner Brian May is set to lead a protest urging policymakers to keep the Hunting Act intact outside Westminster on Tuesday. The musician and activist - along with May's Save Me Trust, PETA, the RSPCA, the League Against Cruel Sports, Born Free, Lush and Humane Society International – will descend on Westminster in an attempt to make the public aware of the high stakes of the vote: that amending the existing rules to...

By David Dumeresque of executive search experts, Tyzack Peter Whitehead, former editor of the FT Non-Executive Directors’ Club, wrote in a Financial Times article titled Non-executive director: a task for which no one is qualified: “The list of attributes required of a non-executive director is so long, precise and contradictory that there cannot be a single board member in the world who fully fits the bill.” There is no doubt that the role of the non-executive director (NED) has changed...

By Mark Mason, Chairman enterprise app consultancy and developer, Mubaloo According to the latest budget, the UK is growing faster than any other major country (UK, 2.6%, USA 2.4%, Canada 2.4%, Japan 0.1%, France 0.4%, Germany 1.5% and Italy which shrank by 0.4%). The UK is also borrowing less and is more focused on long term sustainable growth than it was five years ago. Indeed, we are now at the end of the longest continuous rise in public debt since 17th...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Social media sentiment graphs have revealed that there has been a shift towards a more positive mentality in the latest London Underground Tube Strike, with the British 'keep calm and carry on' sentiment prevailing. Research by Falcon Social found sentiment on Wednesday evening as disruption first started was mostly negative.   However, that took a complete shift this morning when a lot of humour and good natured reactions featured amongst the top Twitter mentions. Not...

By Jane Ollis, MD of Rift Accounting Micro businesses and entrepreneurship are getting some great press lately and it’s fully deserved. There are now over five million firms in the UK with between 0-9 employees, a huge rise of 1.5 million since the turn of the century. The growth in micro businesses has helped drive the economic recovery and put entrepreneurs at the heart of British business. A new report from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and...

By Ben Ramanauskas Greece has found itself in a modern day tragedy of Homeric proportions. However, this is a tragedy which is both very real and which has no heroes. There is no Achilles or Odysseus ready to save the day, only villains and victims. Whether it's previous Greek Governments who borrowed and spent far too recklessly, or the cunning investment bankers who helped them to hide their debt, or the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the German...

By Ben Gelblum, TLE Correspondent @BenGelblum What an excellent budget. As long as you are long-term employed, in a well paying job, under the age of 25, live in the South East and aren't ill or disabled then your chum George Osborne, king of the middle class elite, has delivered an absolute corker. Of course, that leaves a lot of people unaccounted for. The living wage (that isn't the living wage) is one of very few concessions offered to the...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor People expected an iron bar smashed across their face, instead they got a solid head butt. So, strangely, lying on the floor wiping the blood from your nose, you might feel slightly relived at today’s budget. PMQs was fairly flat as everyone waited for Osborne’s emergency budget, has there ever been a positive emergency? Of all the welfare cuts, inheritance tax give-aways and war on pot holes (we have worse roads than Namibia apparently), one...