Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » April 2009 Archives
Taking the NI bull by the horns will help us all
- Tags:
- Budget
- national insurance
Posted by on April 8, 2009 9:35 AM
BUSINESSES hoping for a second major fiscal rescue package in this month's Budget are likely to be disappointed.
THE Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, was spot on when he said that Britain's creaking public finances would be unable to take the strain of another fiscal stimulus.
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Money for nothing
Posted by Andrew Mernin on April 8, 2009 11:51 AM
I can't seem to leave them alone these days - Kazakhstani metals that is.
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One speaker, a couple of pizzas, a few pints and plenty of great minds.
Posted by James Mills on April 16, 2009 1:58 PM
The first Refresh Teesside meet-up was held last night (Thursday 2nd April) and I am pleased to report it was a great success. I would like to thank everyone for coming and making it a first event to remember. We had a great turn out with people from Barnsley and Newcastle coming to see what all the fuss was about.
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Cheers! That's Tim's good time message
Posted by on April 20, 2009 8:06 AM
The advent of cut-price supermarket booze, the addictive Wii and the growing popularity of house parties, has made the 21st century British pub a shadow of its former self.
Bars that were turning customers away a few of years ago are struggling to make ends meet.
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Budget must back business - not the banks
Posted by on April 20, 2009 8:06 AM
A FEW months ago Peter Mandelson pledged to get tough on banks that turned off the lending tap to businesses. But the drought shows little sign of ending.
The Business Secretary's 'no more Mr Nice Guy' (was he ever?) image is cutting little ice with banks and many Tees Valley firms have been unable to access vital funds to expand or ease cashflow problems.
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You Love Us
Posted by on April 20, 2009 5:39 PM
'Formula One is no stranger to controversy'. That's the sort of phrase you often see bandied about in commentaries on the sport. Of course, it doesn't help when the intimate details of the governing body's head honcho are the subject of an examination in open court that is all but forensic and seized upon gratefully by the tabloid press.
I hoped that this year it would be different. Not long before the season started, the FIA announced that the championship would be won by the driver with the most victories, which I'd have thought is sort of the point in what is supposed the ultimate motorsport. It put me in mind of the unfortunate decapitated individual whose body, recovered a few years ago in Kashmir, was to be the subject of a post-mortem to determine cause of death. Things are seldom as simple as they first appear.
The teams protested (since such a move would take power from them and elevate the drivers and we can't have that, obviously) and got themselves lawyered up for the fight. It was announced that the plan would be postponed to 2010, but it will DEFINITELY happen then. I wouldn't count on it.
New technical rules concerning 'diffusers' have been introduced and the two teams leading the charge, Brawn and Red Bull, happen to be the two teams that have done the best job of interpreting those rules legitimately to their advantage. Of course, the aristocracy of F1 weren't keen on that and numerous legal challenges have been mounted unsuccessfully.
Then Lewis Hamilton somehow managed to get himself disqualified from the first race after managing to finish in fourth in an old Renault 5 or something. He was overtaken behind the safety car (a 'black flag' offence - the overtaking, not the being overtaken) and yet his team ordered him to be less than entirely honest about the events and he was caught.
I wonder why we don't just dispense with the cars and the drivers altogether and make this simply a world championship for lawyers? The team with the most aggressive in-house counsel and most expensive law firm on the payroll, as demonstrated in a series of challenges in different jurisdictions around the world, wins. The only problem is, the result of the last race seems to be unchallenged, thus threatening the whole concept of F1. Still, give it time: it's only Monday.
On Easter Monday, 'Bee Movie' was the afternoon's viewing at Rippon Towers and was much enjoyed by all. In the final scenes, the mosquito starts a career in the law. "I was already a bloodsucking parasite," he says. "All I needed was a briefcase". The younger members of the family didn't get the joke but Mum and Dad (both lawyers) fell about. But F1 is a microcosm. Where do you go if you don't like the result of something, if something happens to you that you don't like, or you just want to give yourself or your business the best possible advantage?
Really, deep down inside and much though you doth protest to the contrary, the simple truth is this. You love us and you couldn't live without us..
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My second blog but not too late for an introduction
Posted by James Mills on April 21, 2009 9:06 AM
I know this is my second blog but I thought I should really introduce myself.
This week I was given the privilege of becoming a blogger here. I have not been tasked with a subject to blog about; However I have a couple of ideas about what I would like to talk about. I don't want to preach and I don't want to populate the web with more garbage (we have enough cluttering up the internet as it is).
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UKB selected to pitch at conference
- Tags:
- Secure Future Conference
Posted by on April 23, 2009 10:36 AM
It's been a hectic couple of weeks for me. I spent the beginning of the month in the US with our technology partners in Albuquerque.
We are jointly developing a new fingerprint access product which we hope to launch later this year.
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