EDITION 999
11 DECEMBER 2023

There is no escaping it: too much news is bad for you. It should come with a government health warning: “This intellectual diet is fine taken in small doses, and preferably in weekly instalments, via a well-balanced newsletter, such as 10 things from William Montgomery."

So, as another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. Please feel free to share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can also subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

William Montgomery
Editor and CEO of TEN

1. How to get through a crisis. When a company is in crisis - facing bankruptcy or a disruptive competitor - it needs to act fast. But it’s also important to stop and speak with the people who are doing the day-to-day work of moving the organisation in a new direction. READ MORE

2. Student performance drops globally. Students across Europe and the UK have scored the worst performance drop in the history of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The education capabilities survey tested nearly 700,000 15-year-old students in 81 countries on mathematics, reading and science. Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland recorded lower achievements in mathematics in 2022 than in 2018. Ten economies - Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Macao and the UK - saw their students score proficiently in all three domains and had "high levels of socio-economic fairness." OECD

3. Trump would beat Biden. Donald Trump would secure the US presidency in a race against Joe Biden, according to a new study. With Trump at 47% support and Biden at 43%, the poll is the first by the paper to give the Republican the lead in a head-to-head contest with the Democrat. Biden's satisfaction rating has fallen to a record low with just 37% of those surveyed saying they were content with his performance. Trump's lead on Biden grows to six points if a third-party candidate enters the race. Wall Street Journal

4. UK living standards lag peers by £8K. The UK is falling behind its European counterparts on living standards due to low growth and high inequality. This, according to a new report by the Resolution Foundation and LSE, is costing the average UK worker £8,300 compared to countries like France and Germany. The analysis also finds that 9 million younger UK workers have never experienced sustained real wage rises, as the economy has failed to recover from the 2008 crisis and now faces fresh blows from inflation and other factors. The report urges the government to increase public investment to 3% of GDP and focus on boosting second-tier cities and the services sector. The Guardian

5. Walk fast to avoid type 2 diabetes. Several studies have shown that people who go on regular walks are less likely to develop diabetes than their more sedentary peers. Now scientists have found that the faster people walk, the more pronounced the effect. Their analysis of the ten existing studies involving more than half-a-million people has found that those who regularly adopt a reasonable pace of 2 to 3mph are 15% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who amble at less than 2mph. Picking up the pace to a brisker 3 to 4mph was associated with a 24% reduction in risk, while striding it out above 4mph cut it by 39%. British Journal of Sports Medicine

6. 'Yawning' social divide. Britain now has a social divide that mirrors the "Two Nations" of the Victorian era. More than 13m people are leading lives "blighted by poverty, broken families, poor housing and chronic ill health", said the paper. A report by the Centre for Social Justice argued that Covid lockdowns worsened the divide between "haves" and "have nots", with a "yawning gap between those who can get by and those stuck at the bottom". The report is based on a survey of 6,000 people and evidence from charities, social enterprises and policy experts. The Sunday Times

7. ‘Mortgage war' rages. Mortgage rates are expected to fall below 4% as soon as next week. Swap rates, a leading indicator for mortgage rates, fell to 3.99% on Tuesday before falling to 3.94% on Thursday. The following day, the average rate for two-year fixed mortgages also dropped below 6% for the first time since the middle of June. Leading lenders, including Nationwide, Santander and Halifax, all cut their fixed rates yesterday, in a move described as "the next chapter of the mortgage rate war". The Telegraph

8. Is the Premier League pricing out fans? The Premier League has agreed a new record £6.7bn domestic television deal for Sky and TNT to show up to 270 live games a season. Sky acquired four of the five packages that were on offer through the TV rights auction, the maximum for any one broadcaster, meaning it will be able to show more than 200 games during the season. If fans want to watch all these games, however, they'll be paying hundreds of pounds over the next few years. Amazon, which currently shows 20 matches per season under the league's current deal, did not secure any rights in the new agreement. The deal, which covers the four years from the 2025-26 season, is being hailed as the "largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK". BBC

9. Pantone colour of '24 is just peachy. The Pantone Color Institute cares about you. At least, that's the thinking behind its selection of the Pantone 2024 Color of the Year. “Peach Fuzz brings belonging, inspires recalibration, and an opportunity for nurturing,” stated the news release. “Drawing comfort from PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz, we can find peace from within, impacting our well-being.” 2024 marks the 25th anniversary of a Color-of-the-Year pick; last year's champion was Viva Magenta. Washington Post

10. The bottom line. At least 96 sitting MPs have been given knighthoods or damehoods since the Tories came to power in 2010. In comparison, when Labour was in government between 1997 and 2010, only 11 sitting MPs were so honoured. Daily Telegraph