Just days after receiving the green light from Brussels and pressure from civil society, France officially banned nicotine pouches on 6 September, with the prohibition to take effect from March 2026. Given nicotine’s toxicity and highly-addictive nature for young people, leading anti-tobacco associations like France’s Alliance Against Tobacco (L’Alliance contre le tabac) have celebrated this bold move as an important ...
The National Enterprise Network (NEN) has urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to use this month’s Autumn Statement to deliver a new wave of support for Britain’s micro and small businesses (MSBs) — which it says are “the foundation of the UK economy” but increasingly constrained by rising costs and patchy access to finance. Representing a nationwide network of local enterprise agencies ...
Wealthy Britons are moving unprecedented sums into offshore bonds as they brace for higher taxes and seek more flexible ways to manage their wealth. According to data reviewed by the Financial Times, around £10.5 billion was invested in offshore bonds in the 12 months to June, more than double the £5.1 billion recorded the previous year — marking a record-breaking ...
The Bank of England has voted narrowly to hold interest rates at 4%, pausing further cuts amid stubborn inflation and growing uncertainty ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ pivotal Budget later this month. In a closely split decision, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 5–4 to maintain the current rate, with Governor Andrew Bailey casting the deciding vote. Bailey said he ...
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has signalled that her 26 November Budget will ask more Britons to shoulder the burden of repairing the nation’s public finances — even if that means breaking Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise income tax. In a speech this week, Reeves warned that “hard choices” were unavoidable if Britain was to protect the NHS, reduce national debt ...
More than a third of the UK’s fastest-growing technology scale-ups have no women on their boards, according to new research that highlights a striking gap between rhetoric and reality on diversity in Britain’s tech sector. The report from global growth consultancy Think & Grow found that women occupy just 18% of board positions across the UK’s leading tech scale-ups, while ...
Germany is emerging as Europe’s most compelling growth story heading into 2026, with analysts forecasting a return to steady expansion and international firms eyeing new opportunities across the continent’s largest economy. Global employment specialist Agility EOR is urging international companies to take a fresh look at Germany, as forecasts point to 1.3% GDP growth next year, underpinned by €500 billion ...
The regenerative medicine sector has long promised transformative therapeutic interventions, yet commercial viability remained elusive for decades. Recent developments suggest the field has reached a critical inflection point where cellular therapy technologies transition from experimental protocols to scalable clinical applications. Companies like Celljevity, with their Prometheus Cell therapy demonstrating consistent outcomes across more than 1,000 treated patients, exemplify this maturation ...
Imagine you need to build a team of 150 professionals from scratch, in a country where critical infrastructure isn’t finished, while the entire world prepares to watch. You have officials from every continent speaking dozens of languages, three separate organizational bodies with competing priorities, and a construction site that should already be a world-class tennis venue. Welcome to Olympic officiating. ...
Short answer? Black boxes track your driving. Telematics understands it. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If you’ve been shopping for car insurance and keep bumping into terms like “telematics” and “black box”, here’s what’s what—and why one might save you more money (and stress) than the other. First things first: what is black box insurance? Black box insurance ...