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Latest News:

  • Morrisons to shut 100 convenience stores as supermarket blames Labour’s ‘policy choices’ for rising costs
  • April borrowing surges to £24.3bn as debt interest bill breaks month record
  • Jaguar Land Rover eyes American tie-up with Stellantis to sidestep Trump tariffs
  • Labour eyes £1bn VAT raid on airport charges in stealth blow to family holidays
  • Blame the system, not the school leavers for youth unemployment, says Amazon’s UK boss
  • Potters win £120m rescue as government finally backs Britain’s ceramics heartland
  • Reeves serves up summer of savings with VAT cut on family days out
  • Andrew trade envoy files: Queen ‘very keen’ ex-prince led UK plc abroad, Whitehall papers reveal
  • HS2 reset to punch £33bn black hole in Britain’s public finances
  • Youth jobs in retreat: IFS warns Britain is sliding back to Covid-era lows

Category: Opinion

Some of the UKs leading business leaders and opinion formers share their insight and ideas for growth

Charlie Mullins, the outspoken multi-millionaire entrepreneur and founder of Pimlico Plumbers, has declared his support for Reform UK following his move abroad to avoid paying further taxes under the new Labour government.

The non-doms have packed their suitcases and the tax base is going with them

9 April 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

A year after the non-dom regime was scrapped, says Richard Alvin, the data is in. The capital, the giving and the City salaries that have left town tell their own story.

It is the morning of 6 April, the first day of the new British tax year, and I have spent the last hour staring at a payroll spreadsheet that has, by some entirely legal arithmetic, just deducted another £1,360 a month from the operating margin of our smallest subsidiary.

Happy New Tax Year: same kicking, slightly higher boot

6 April 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

6 April brings higher employer NICs, the rates revaluation, and IHT bear-traps for family firms. Richard Alvin: in Britain, ‘growth’ is something done to you, not for you.

I have a friend who runs a glassworks in Yorkshire, third-generation, family-owned, the kind of business that produces, for not much money, the small clear bottles that sit on the shelves of the most exclusive perfume houses in Paris.

British manufacturing is being electrocuted to death, and we are calling it net zero

31 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

UK industrial energy is four times the US. Richard Alvin on the slow strangulation of British manufacturing — and the policy choices we are dressing up as climate leadership.

OpenAI has launched a powerful new AI assistant feature for ChatGPT that allows users to delegate everyday tasks like browsing the web, making restaurant reservations, and shopping online—marking a major leap in AI’s ability to act, not just analyse.

AI is quietly making graduates redundant: we will regret this inside a decade

28 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

Big consultancies are slashing graduate intakes. Richard Alvin warns Britain’s talent pipeline is breaking, and that the next generation of partners and CFOs has to come from somewhere.

I had a frankly demoralising conversation last week with a man who runs a perfectly successful family-owned electrical contractor in Lincolnshire.

The Apprenticeship Levy is broken, and the ‘Growth and Skills’ rebrand won’t mend it

24 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

A year after Labour’s ‘Growth and Skills’ rebrand, says Richard Alvin, the levy still funnels money to MBA-flavoured consultancies while the real apprenticeships die quietly.

Neurodiverse workers could hold a distinct advantage as artificial intelligence reshapes the modern workplace, according to a UK technology entrepreneur who says businesses are overlooking a critical talent pool at a pivotal moment of change.

Neurodiverse talent could be key advantage in AI economy, says UK tech founder

20 March 202619 March 2026 Opinion Amy Ingham 0 Comments

CareLineLive founder Josh Hough says neurodiverse workers could have a competitive edge in the AI economy, as businesses seek skills like pattern recognition and problem solving.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her Spring Statement to the House of Commons under the shadow of escalating conflict in the Middle East and mounting fears of a renewed inflation shock driven by surging energy prices.

After the Spring Statement, Britain’s businesses know exactly what to expect: nothing

19 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

The red box has been and gone. Richard Alvin reacts to Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement — and why Britain’s small firms have, again, been treated as the audience, not the answer.

Rachel Reeves has tightened the squeeze on renewable energy generators, raising the windfall tax on wind and solar producers from 45 per cent to 55 per cent in a move the Chancellor insists will stop the sector "cashing in" on the latest Middle East oil and gas shock.

Reeves’s Spring Statement: brace yourselves, the begging bowl is on its way round again

11 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

The Chancellor’s Spring Statement is a week away. Richard Alvin on what Britain’s SMEs are bracing for, and the four moves Rachel Reeves should make if she is serious about growth.

We are heading towards a time where five generations share the workplace. From Baby Boomers to Gen Z, employees bring very different experiences, values and expectations.

How generational differences can fuel growth

9 March 202611 March 2026 Business, Opinion Business Matters 0 Comments

We are heading towards a time where five generations share the workplace. From Baby Boomers to Gen Z, employees bring very different experiences, values and expectations.

The proportion of women studying computing degrees in the UK has risen to 25 per cent for the first time, according to new analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data by online lab-hosting platform Go Deploy.

International Women’s Day: spare us the lanyards and look at who’s actually got the cheque book

8 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

Another IWD of pastel-pink panels while female founders still get a fraction of UK venture capital. Richard Alvin: the gap is in capital allocation, not breakfast events.

I was in a pub in Marylebone last Wednesday, a perfectly civilised, low-ceilinged, slightly damp London pub of the kind that ought to be impossible to ruin, and I watched a couple in their late thirties order, in entirely sober earnestness, two mocktails and a small bowl of edamame.

Lent, Dry January, Sober October: when did the British pub become collateral damage in the wellness wars?

4 March 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

Mocktails won’t pay the gas bill. Richard Alvin on how Britain’s wellness wars are quietly sinking the public house — and the case for treating the pub as national infrastructure.

UK pubs and restaurants are significantly scaling back staffing levels as higher costs and weaker consumer demand continue to batter the hospitality sector.

The Government’s entrepreneurship adviser says we don’t need more restaurants. She’s wrong and here’s why

26 February 2026 Columns, Opinion Zoe Adjey 0 Comments

Zoe Adjey, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Hospitality and Tourism, Department of Innovation and Management, Royal Docks School of Business and Law gives her opinion on the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser, Alex Depledge, declaring that Britain does not “need any more restaurants”

A surge in mental health-related absences among Britain’s youngest workers has underscored the urgent need for employers to rethink their approach to employee wellbeing.

Late payment is Britain’s quiet pandemic, and SMEs are still being told to take it on the chin

24 February 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

Britain’s big firms are still paying small ones in 90 days plus. Richard Alvin argues late payment is a quiet pandemic — and the Treasury must finally make it personal.

The government has announced a £4bn investment package aimed at transforming support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), but sector experts have cautioned that the funding risks being swallowed by mounting backlogs and growing demand.

£4bn SEND funding welcomed as experts warn of backlog pressures

23 February 202623 February 2026 Opinion Jamie Young 0 Comments

The government has announced a £4bn SEND investment, including £1.6bn for mainstream schools, but experts warn funds may be absorbed by rising demand.

A group of influential MPs is urging the government to do more to prioritise economic crime and explain why legislation is being delayed.

Companies House has turned every UK director into a passport-juggling pen-pusher

19 February 20263 May 2026 Columns, Opinion Richard Alvin 0 Comments

Companies House identity verification was meant to clean up British business. Instead, says Richard Alvin, it has clogged up founders while real fraudsters keep moving.

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Latest Content

Morrisons is preparing to pull down the shutters on 100 loss-making convenience stores in a move that places hundreds of shop-floor jobs in jeopardy, with the Bradford-based grocer pointing the finger squarely at Labour's tax and wage agenda for tipping the sites into terminal decline.

Morrisons to shut 100 convenience stores as supermarket blames Labour’s ‘policy choices’ for rising costs

Morrisons is closing 100 loss-making convenience stores, putting hundreds of jobs at risk, and has blamed Labour’s “policy choices” for the rising costs eroding profitability.

April borrowing surges to £24.3bn as debt interest bill breaks month record

Jaguar Land Rover eyes American tie-up with Stellantis to sidestep Trump tariffs

Labour eyes £1bn VAT raid on airport charges in stealth blow to family holidays

Blame the system, not the school leavers for youth unemployment, says Amazon’s UK boss

Potters win £120m rescue as government finally backs Britain’s ceramics heartland

Brad Burton interview: how the UK’s no.1 motivational speaker rebuilt after lockdown wiped out 4Networking, and survived a four-year online stalking campaign

Nightlife chief brands Chancellor’s summer VAT cut a ‘superficial fix’ that abandons clubs and festivals

Utilities

Energy savings

Business Energy Claims recovers £25,000 for UK chocolatier

Energy saving

Manufacturing company recovers thousands from mis-sold energy contracts

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