EDITION 893
1 NOVEMBER 2021

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 create a more candid culture. Leaders often try to create an open culture, where people feel comfortable speaking up and challenging one another, by saying they’re listening. But you can go further to demonstrate that your company is a safe place for people to raise issues. READ MORE >>

2. Tesla breaks $1tn valuation barrier. Tesla has become the first carmaker to break through the $1trn valuation barrier – joining Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft in an elite club of tech titans. The catalyst for the share surge that took Tesla over the line was an order for 100,000 electric vehicles, worth $4bn, from the rental company Hertz. But it follows “a record quarter” for the carmaker, in which its Model 3 became “the best-selling car across Europe in September” – and the first battery electric vehicle ever to top the region’s monthly sales charts. The Guardian

3. Ikea opens in the high street. Ikea cemented its plans to gain a city-centre presence, by snapping up Topshop’s old flagship store on Oxford Street in central London. The Swedish firm is believed to have paid £378m for the 100,000 sq ft premises, which it will open as a home furnishing store and café in 2023. The deal completes the sell-off of assets from Philip Green’s Arcadia Group. BBC

4. Mortgage rates set to rise. City economists have forecast that millions of households face higher mortgage payments with interest rate rises expected next week. The markets are convinced that the base rate will rise from 0.1% to 0.25% next Thursday and believe that it could reach 1% next May, four months earlier than previously expected. Barclays, HSBC, NatWest and TSB have already announced mortgage rate increases. The Times

5. Plan B would cost £18bn. The government has been warned that the “Plan B” for tackling Covid over the winter months would cause up to £18bn in damage to the UK economy and result in only a marginal drop in cases. Politico said the documents “outline the thinking at the top of government” as the prime minister comes under pressure from public health leaders to bring in new restrictions. The assessment found that vaccine passports would exacerbate Britain’s supply chain crisis. The Independent

6. People taking statins less likely to die from Covid. People who take statins are slightly less likely to die of Covid-19 than people who are not on the cholesterol-lowering drug, a study has found. Researchers analysed health data from almost a million over-45s living in Stockholm and found that those who had been prescribed statins before the pandemic were about 12% less likely to have died of Covid during the study period – between March and November 2020 – than those not on statins. They stressed that more research would be required to show that the association was causal but said that their findings raised the possibility that statin treatment has “a modest preventive therapeutic effect on Covid-19 mortality”. BMJ

7. COVID cases about to fall. Forecasts seen by the government suggest Covid cases will plummet in November even without Plan B restrictions, according to The Daily Telegraph. A model published last week by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicts that cases will soon peak before falling steeply in the winter months, even without new rules. The paper says other unpublished models have also shown similar imminent drops. City AM

8. Poll finds Brexit dissatisfaction. An opinion poll found that almost twice as many voters now believe Brexit is having a negative effect on the UK economy as think it is benefiting the nation’s finances. In other data from the study, 53% of people believed Brexit is having a bad effect on prices in shops, against 13% who thought it is having a good effect, while 51% thought it is adversely affecting the UK’s ability to import goods from the EU, against 15% who thought it is helping. The Observer

9. Meanwhile, in another poll. A poll by the National Centre for Social Research found that nine out of ten Leave and Remain voters say they’d vote the same way again. 64% of adults believe that “ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth”, the highest level since 1998. The Guardian

10. The bottom line. Nearly half of all first-time buyers this year will draw on funds from the “Bank of Mum and Dad”, according to analysis by the estate agent Savills. Parents are expected to contribute a total of £9.8bn to their children’s deposits – far more than last year’s £6.1bn, and equivalent to £58,000 per child. The Daily Telegraph