A Primary Spotlight On Political Risk:

Northern Ireland’s future: interview with Arlene Foster

In this interview with the Arlene Foster , we asked the former Northern Ireland Executive First Minister to comment on whether perceived fundamental misunderstandings of Northern Ireland’s established constitutional position within Great Britain have exacerbated tensions in unionist communities. We invited her to analyse the Biden position on the island of Ireland, and whether the NI Protocol is implementable in its current form, and how and whether invoking the Protocol’s Article 16 provisions would play out in local politics. Finally, we requested her views on what impact these variables could have on the peace dividend delivered by the Good Friday Agreement.

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Northern Ireland’s future: interview with Arlene Foster

Further Spotlights

A Primary Spotlight On Political Risk:

A French regional elections dissection

Yesterday was the second round of French regional elections, with the presidencies of all 18 regions being contested. Leslie Shaw, an economist, faculty member of the ESCP business school’s Paris campus and regular contributor on French politics writes with his interpretation of the results and what they could mean for the presidential election next year.

A Primary Spotlight On Political Risk:

Reflections on a by-election

“Ruling party with huge majority loses by-election” is not usually a “shocker” headline. Psephological orthodoxy would have us believe that this a run-of-the-mill, routine event. The losing party usually claims “happens all the time, nothing to see here” and moves on.

A Primary Spotlight On Industry Disruption:

UK Social Care: Reform and Disruption

The UK adult social care sector has been subject to multiple promises of reform since the 1999 Sutherland report famously described existing policies at that time as “neither efficient nor fair due to the nature of the risk and the size of the sums required”.

In this report we look at how the private sector and technology innovation might positively disrupt Social Care. We note how the insurance industry has in recent years developed dedicated later life care annuity type policies. These, however, will not be accessible nor affordable to the vast majority of citizens. We consider some developing technology enabling platforms to assess if these can provide a viable solution.

A Primary Spotlight On Industry Disruption:

Cryptocurrencies: a sustainable future?

In the past year alone, the US Federal Reserve has ‘created’ an additional supply of dollars of 24% and is on track for a similar surge in 2021, based upon President Biden’s spending proposals. This, it should be noted, comes after more than a decade of monetary largesse by every important central bank globally. The picture above depicts the US monetary base inexorably rising and money velocity inexorably falling. This is a manifestation of what is commonly known as ‘pushing on a string’.