News

By Alan Owens, Partner and Head of Technology at law firm DWF The current Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations explicitly fail to address the big issues facing the global tech industry – data and US dominance. These issues have come right to the fore following the recent EU action against internet giant Google. Google has been in the crosshairs of the EU for some time, replacing Microsoft as its US tech target of choice. On 27 November last...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Police targeted, stores looted and havoc wreaked across the streets of Baltimore. The past week has been a mass of ugly pictures in Maryland as footage emerge from riots that broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray, 25, who died after suffering a spinal injury in police custody. Like the London riots, citizen journalism has played a prominent role in conveying the events which seems to have humanised the uprising. Subsequent media responses have been...

By Ivan McKeever, CEO SwitchMyBusiness.com It is a political cliché that if every one of Britain’s 5.2 million small and micro firms were each helped to create one job, we would wipe out our unemployment problem. But what do those parties seeking our votes offer beyond tempting rhetoric at election time? A survey for SwitchMyBusiness.com, an energy compare and switch service for small businesses, revealed 93 per cent of small business owners want drastic change from the next Government. And...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Protein World's 'Beach Body Ready' campaign has kicked up such a big fuss of late you would have thought body-shaming was a new concept, but the reality is that the girl in the yellow bikini has merely drawn people's attention to a more prominent body shaming platform, one that is far more pronounced and more destructive than any London Underground billboard ad. Social media compounds body image issues in ways no other platform has ever managed...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Next-generation betting exchange Smarkets has reached the one billion pound traded milestone. A strong response to the Cheltenham Festival and record-breaking interest in the Grand National built on momentum from 2014 pushing the company over the £1 billion mark. Cheltenham saw trading volume grow by 320 per cent year-on-year, whereas the response to the Grand National smashed the company’s one-day record for GBP volume traded, recording a revenue increase of 359 per cent. Revenue has snowballed in the...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Voting is open for the PPA Awards' annual Magazine Cover of the Year Award, one of many accolades contested by the magazine industry. The awards are one of the most important celebrations of world-class talent within magazine media in the UK. Now in its 35th year the prestigious event showcases excellence, rewards innovation, and provides the benchmark by which all consumer and business media brands are judged. Take a look at this year's entries for Magazine Cover...

By Pieter Cranenbroek As Owen Jones has noted, the Tory election campaign has proved far from a Machiavellian plan to win the election. The Conservatives’ personal attacks on Labour leader Ed Miliband have backfired and they are openly mocked for making silly blank cheque promises. Good news for Labour, except there is one problem: Labour is still more or less tied with the Tories. Many blame Miliband’s persona for this but Labour’s real problem is its inability to influence the...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  The NUS is set to reveal a national advertising campaign targeted at MPs who voted to increase student fees, with billboards across Sheffield, Manchester and London from Thursday 23rd April. Dubbed 'the 2010 pledge breakers' the advertisement attacks MPs who pledged to scrap tuition fees before voting for the increase. Prominent locations in London Victoria, Sheffield Central and Manchester Piccadilly have been selected with the billboards being erected overnight tonight to be up for the...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Dividends have been, and always will be, an important component to the average investment strategy. The typical dividend strategy is rather basic (but effective) - purchase a well-reputed, long-term income stock, one that has a history of paying regular dividends. But, that's far from the only dividend strategy available. There is a dividend strategy called dividend stripping that takes the typical long-term strategy and flips it on its head. In this article, we will be...