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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 1. How to keep your next meeting on track. Meetings can easily get out of hand, with people wandering off on tangents or giving long speeches. How can you keep meetings focused without being a taskmaster or squashing creativity? READ MORE >> 2. Support for taking refugees rises. A YouGov poll has revealed that 76% of British people want the Government to resettle Ukrainian refugees, with 11% opposed. 77% support more sanctions against Russia, up from 69% just before the invasion began. 60% support sending more arms to Ukraine, while 55% support the UK conducting cyberattacks against Russian forces. But over half oppose sending British troops to Ukraine, and only 31% think the UK should coordinate air strikes on Russian targets in Ukraine. The Independent 3. UK growth to halve in 2022. Surging inflation, tax rises and the war in Ukraine will combine to cut Britain’s economic growth by half this year, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has warned. The business lobbying group said growth would fall to 3.6% – less than half the 7.5% expansion in national income seen last year. “Our latest forecast signals a significant deterioration in the UK’s economic outlook,” said Suren Thiru, head of economics at the BCC. The Guardian 4. Vaccine roll-out a success. The Covid vaccine roll-out saved 128,000 lives, had a better uptake than anticipated, and represented good value for money at £8.3bn, according to a major report by the National Audit Office. However, it cautioned that 3.7 million adults are still unvaccinated, and noted that more effort was needed to reach particular groups. It found that 71% of vaccines have been delivered at GP centres and pharmacies; and that only 4% of doses had been wasted (against an estimated 20%). The average cost of buying and administering one dose was £25.70, the report said. The Guardian 5. PM warned about misleading claim. The government was warned repeatedly about its misleading claims regarding job figures before the official statistics watchdog reprimanded Boris Johnson. The UK Statistics Authority said there had been “a series of informal discussions” before the regulator took the “unusual” step of issuing two public rebukes to Johnson. The PM has repeatedly claimed that more people are in employment in the UK than before the pandemic but the number of self-employed people has dropped significantly so the total number of people in work is down by 600,000. The Observer. 6. Do you live to work, or work to live? For years, society glamorised, and even revered, the former. Well, the era of a perpetual ruled-by-work lifestyle may be crumbling, no matter what industry you're in, and replaced by "anti-ambition". The pandemic forced many to reconsider the how, why and what of work. Whether we're successful or unsuccessful, we're all doing the same thing, huddled over laptops at the kitchen table and asking colleagues to come off mute in Zoom meetings. A lot of people are now reassessing things. Which are you? Work to live or live to work? Have your say in our latest poll. VOTE HERE >> 7. Startups aim to make 90 the new 50. A cadre of tech billionaires wants to make 90 the new 50. Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner are among the investors pouring some of their fortunes into anti-aging research, The Guardian reports. And they’re doing so Silicon Valley-style, pumping billions into startups and hiring scientific dream teams to helm their labs. Thiel has said he wants to live to 120, but the draw isn't necessarily just the promise of extending healthy life. As a molecular geneticist said, some of these developments are "going to make someone a lot of money." The Guardian 8. Prices rise fastest since 2011. Prices in shops have risen at their fastest rate in over a decade, said the British Retail Consortium (BRC). According to the group’s closely watched index, shop price inflation jumped from 1.5% in January to 1.8% in February, the highest rate of inflation recorded since November 2011. The BRC said that although retailers are “going to great lengths to mitigate against these price rises and support their customers” there are “limits to the costs that retailers can absorb”. The Independent 9. Calls to swap ‘chairman’ with ‘chair’. Business groups have said the word “chairman” may be contributing to inequality and should be replaced with the gender-neutral alternative “chair”. In an open letter, the manufacturers’ organisation Make UK, the Institute of Directors, the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce pointed out that “chairman” is still used by Companies House as a default term, meaning it is repeated in the articles of many thousands of companies across the country. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has rejected holding a Commons vote on the issue. The Times 10. The bottom line. A report concluded that restoring The Palace of Westminster without a full decant of MPs could take up to 76 years, and cost £22bn. Even if all parliamentarians moved out, the work would cost up to £13bn, and take at least 12 years. Daily Mail |