This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating a win for women, achieved by an all-women team.
Following a recent change in regulation raising the income threshold for angel investors from £100,000 per year to £170,000, Lodestone and many others were concerned about the impact on female founders and investors.
This afternoon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt detailed his Spring Budget – only three and a half months since his Autumn Statement – and the latest in a dwindling list of set-piece milestones for the Government to try and turn the dial on the direction of travel ahead of the local elections on 2nd May and the General Election, whenever that may be.
The context for this Budget is important. This was a speech from the same man who in only January, compared himself to Thatcher’s tax-cutting Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. The same Party who already this week have engaged in yet another, public spat over cuts to NI vs cuts to income tax. The same breed of government who have had nigh on 14 years to stamp their ambitions on our economy, and the same Party whose popularity currently sits at a 45-year low.
This afternoon the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Jeremy Hunt detailed his Spring Budget – only three
and a half months since his Autumn Statement – and
the latest in a dwindling list of set-piece milestones
for the Government to try and turn the dial on the
direction of travel ahead of the local elections on
2nd May and the General Election, whenever that
may be.
The context for this Budget is important. This was a
speech from the same man who in only January,
compared himself to Thatcher’s tax-cutting
Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. The same Party who
already this week have engaged in yet another,
public spat over cuts to NI vs cuts to income tax. The
same breed of government who have had nigh on 14
years to stamp their ambitions on our economy, and
the same Party whose popularity currently sits at a
45-year low.
“This is for Gaza” said George Galloway, as he took to the stage having won yesterday’s chaotic Rochdale by-election.
A Labour loss, like this, at this point (with those polls) is remarkable. And so, whatever we might prefer, it begs some discussion.
What, if anything, does it mean? Well, almost nothing really.
Today we are going to ask you to put yourself in another person’s shoes. This person is a Conservative MP.
Their seat would – under normal circumstances – be considered safe(ish). On the basis of months of polls, and last night’s stunning Labour victories in Wellingborough and in Kingswood, their seat is now very much at risk. They are not yet ready to wave goodbye to the political career for which they worked so hard. They are frightened and they are angry.
100 years ago this week, Ramsay MacDonald became Labour’s first Prime Minister. It was a historic moment but an inauspicious start to Labour’s journey as a party of power. For a start, MacDonald’s Labour didn’t have a majority in the House of Commons – they became the Government in part because the Conservative and Liberal parties were at war both with each other and with themselves. But they also found themselves in Government because then Tory leader, Stanley Baldwin, had a cunning plan.
