EDITION 916
25 APRIL 2022

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 unstuck in your career. In life and work, sometimes you just feel stuck. You may find yourself questioning if your current job is what you really want to do. When you start to become restless, you should take a step back so that you can have a clearer picture of what's ahead. It is important to identify where you are in the "growth process" to clarify your next step. READ MORE

2. UK to have slowest growth in G7. The UK is set to have the slowest economic growth out of the countries in the G7 group of leading Western nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. The UK’s economy is now predicted to grow by just 3.7% this year, down from the previous forecast of 4.7% made in January. This means the UK will no longer be the fastest-growing economy in the G7 group but will be the slowest in 2023. According to the IMF, the UK was the fastest-growing G7 economy in 2021. BBC

3. Macron vows to unite France. Emmanuel Macron yesterday secured a second term as France’s president following a convincing run-off victory over Marine Le Pen. The leader of La République En Marche!, who won by 58.55% to 41.45%, told supporters that now the election was over he would be a “president for all”. Le Pen won more than 12m votes in a historic high for her party. The result was met with unrest, with protesters throwing fireworks at a police car in Lyon and police firing tear gas on dozens gathered in Paris. The Independent

4. Tories say PM ‘must go soon’. Britons appear to be losing confidence in their prime minister, with a Yougov pollshowing that a majority of voters believe the government is handling almost every issue badly - by ratios of more than three to one in the case of inflation, taxation, immigration, housing and the NHS. And with a Commons committee now set to examine whether Boris Johnson misled parliament about Downing Street’s lockdown parties after an opposition motion was nodded through by Tories, it appears the PM’s own party may be losing confidence too. One former minister said: “If we don’t act well before the party conference in October, it will be too late.” The Observer

5. How to turn off work when working from home. With bedrooms and living rooms doubling as office spaces for many, it can feel difficult to feel separate from work. How can we fully disconnect at home? You can start by fine-tuning your schedule to distinguish work time from personal time. Also, finding ways to create a separate physical workspace - even if it’s a dedicated corner of a room - can help you think intentionally about “entering” and “exiting” the office. And creating your own day-to-night transition rituals, like changing your clothes, can help signal to your brain that it’s time to prioritise rest and leave work-related thoughts until tomorrow. Editor

6. Office returns make anxieties flare. Workers who aren't offered flexibility in return-to-office plans are far more stressed and anxious than their bosses, according to a new Future Forum survey. It found employees who've been given office-return ultimatums have the worst levels of work-related stress and anxiety since the survey started in 2020, and their declines in work-life balance were twice as steep compared to flexible workers. The survey also noted a "troubling double standard": Even though executives want rank-and-file workers back in the office, bosses only show up about half as often. CNBC

7. Fake reviews to be outlawed. Paying someone to write a fake review will become a crime under new government plans. Ministers said that websites which host fake reviews might also be criminally liable unless they take “reasonable steps” to check the reviews are genuine. The average UK household spends about £900 each year after being influenced by online reviews and the proposed new laws may mean businesses such as Amazon and Tripadvisor have to outline what they have done to stop companies or individuals from exploiting their systems. BBC

8. Private schools and happiness. Young adults who went to a state school are generally just as satisfied with their lives as their privately educated peers, a study has suggested. The study, published in the Cambridge Journal of Education, found no evidence of a statistically significant private school advantage (or disadvantage) in terms of mental health, at any age. It showed that privately educated young adults were more likely to report being satisfied with their lives at the ages of 20 and 25, but the effect disappeared when other factors were considered, including parental social class. GB News

9. A holiday that helps you live longer. As many are rethinking their travel habits after the pandemic, "longevity tourism" could gain ground among those looking for a meaningful experience. This new type of holiday involves visiting one of the world's so-called Blue Zones, or longevity hotspots in Sardinia, Greece, California, Costa Rica and Japan, where people live the longest, with many reaching well over 100 years of age. There are many parallels in the way people go about their lives in these regions – and travellers can learn from them in classes that range from shopping at a food market in Okinawa to cooking in Puglia and yoga at Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. Euronews

10. The bottom line. The number of people who currently have Covid in the UK is continuing to fall. The data suggests around 3.76m people were infected in the week ending 16 April - roughly one in 17 people. This is a drop of about 15% on the week before - when the figure stood at 4.4m, or around one in 15 people. The ONS also said that more than 70% of people in England have had Covid since the pandemic began. Office for National Statistics