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richard baker: The Budget that never was
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2010/03/budget-that-never-was.html
The News in your area. Thursday, 25 March 2010. The Budget that never was. The penny seems to be dropping today that it wasn’t Wednesday’s Budget that mattered but the one that follows it. If the Tories win power, they’ll dress it up dramatically as an emergency Budget to be announced within 50 days of taking office. One way or another, the amount of money the public sector has to spend on projects which go beyond their basic remit faces significant cutbacks. So later on this year the Government depa...
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: June 2009
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2009_06_01_archive.html
The News in your area. Monday, 15 June 2009. Recession: the beginning of the end? Well, it could well be that at some point in the next three months we see a Government minister flourish a set of statistics that tell us the UK economy's seemingly never-ending bungee jump is over. Government form on the use of statistics is normally right up there with kids in sweetie shops. But in this case they could well be right. Two buts, though. Don't mistake one month's positive figures as a sign that everything's ...
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: March 2010
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2010_03_01_archive.html
The News in your area. Thursday, 25 March 2010. The Budget that never was. The penny seems to be dropping today that it wasn’t Wednesday’s Budget that mattered but the one that follows it. If the Tories win power, they’ll dress it up dramatically as an emergency Budget to be announced within 50 days of taking office. One way or another, the amount of money the public sector has to spend on projects which go beyond their basic remit faces significant cutbacks. So later on this year the Government depa...
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: October 2009
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2009_10_01_archive.html
The News in your area. Friday, 30 October 2009. You can't have failed to notice the sudden wave of adverts on TV from companies offering to buy your gold jewellery for hard cash. So what's it all about? The reason why these businesses are apparently springing up out of nowhere with readies in hand is that the price of gold on the investment market has rocketed during the past three years. So there's clearly a rising market among investors wanting to buy gold and other precious metals. Discounted, and b).
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: December 2009
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2009_12_01_archive.html
The News in your area. Thursday, 31 December 2009. Business: an honourable omission? A few years back, honours were being handed out like confetti to national business superstars. The people leading high-flying Stock Exchange companies were feted like celebrities, and it wasn't unusual to see PLC chairmen and chief executives being turned into Lords, Ladies and Knights of the Realm when the boom economy gongs were being sprayed around. But why the low profile for business? Some would argue that it is bus...
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: Toyota: what comes after hubris?
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2010/02/toyota-what-comes-after-hubris.html
The News in your area. Wednesday, 24 February 2010. Toyota: what comes after hubris? As I forecast on this blog a couple of weeks ago, Toyota is indeed being given an almost ritualised pummelling in the USA. Right now, it seems that anyone who has ever had an accident in a Toyota over the past 10 years now thinks there's a possibility it was caused by a strange mechanical problem which only afflicted a certain Japanese make. Whether the recall nightmare will turn out to be nemesis – the ruin of the...
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: April 2009
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2009_04_01_archive.html
The News in your area. Thursday, 30 April 2009. Our Man from Hitachi. An interesting encounter yesterday with Sir Stephen Gomersall, the former diplomat who now heads the European division of the Japanese industrial giant Hitachi. A former British ambassador leading a Japanese electronics firm sounds interesting enough in its own right, but it was the reason Sir Stephen popped into our offices that fascinated. He was partly on a fishing mission. Right here in the East Midlands. There was initially politi...
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: An unsurprising Budget?
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2010/03/unsurprising-budget.html
The News in your area. Tuesday, 23 March 2010. Budgets are really political events. You find out the reality days, weeks and sometimes months afterwards. There'll be a few stunts in the Chancellor's statement, stunts aimed mainly at showing Labour in a good light and those 'slash-and-burn' Tories in a bad light. Expect him to contrast their talk about cutting government deficits with a Labour 'investment' in keeping young people off the dole. But beyond that there will be very little of any real substance.
richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk
richard baker: Old money and new ideas
http://richardbaker.thisisnottingham.co.uk/2010/02/old-money-and-new-ideas.html
The News in your area. Tuesday, 23 February 2010. Old money and new ideas. There is no irony in spin these days, not when it comes straight from the mouth of Peter Mandelson. Yesterday, there was an announcement that the East Midlands Development Agency would get £22m of 'new money' to help local businesses develop innovative ideas. Quite a production, then. He smelled not just a rat but the ripe old whiff of stunt politics. It isn't 'new money' – it was already there in Emda’s budget. And if it was alre...