3240 days ago
Obviously the coolest folks are libertarians. And so am I. Amanda Van Dyke has a few dangerous neocon tendancies (foreign policy) and some odd views on the EU but for a Canadian is a pretty libertarian - her fellow countrymen tend to be lefties. Charlotte Argyle, the daughter of Thatcher pictured above, is crystal pure. But you only know something is really cool when folks with no claim to be one of us, start trying to claim to be part of the crowd. That brings me to a total tosser called Nick Curtis, a columnist in the London Evening Standard.
I stress that I am not a regular Standard reader. But on the train back to Bristol last week I happened upon a copy and being bored started to read it. As ever I was struck how folks inside zone 1 of London are a completely alien speciies to the rest of the UK. They have different concerns, interests and views to the rest of us. They are the political, media and corporate elite and they just live on another planet.
Mr Curtis writes on the 10th June about how the busy body sheep shaggers at the Welsh Assembly wish to ban vaping ( "smoking e-cigarettes" in public places). And in the piece he proclaims "I'm a libertarian who believes in personal choice." Great news... a kindred spirit. er....
3292 days ago
The latest video from UK Investor Show contains a couple of my little jokes, a few words from Charlotte Argyle plus the opening speech given by a man I respect for his commitment to free speech, Sajid Javid MP
3400 days ago
Why am I in a good mood? The promise of dinner with Ms Argyle next week perhaps? I do not know but it all flowed out today in this podcast. So on the agenda: BP, Tern (target price 2p because I am a generous nice guy - but don't let on as I have a reputation to protect), Asia Resource, Nanoco, LGO Energy and oil stocks again.
3590 days ago
Ed Croft of Stockopedia is the latest big name to sign up to speak at the UK's leading one day investor show, UK Investor. Ed will be doing a main stage presentation with a top chartist on fundamentals versus technicals, looking at the wider debate plus analysing key stock picks of Nigel Wray and Mark Slater plus some audience suggestions. Ed will also be doing a solo lunchtime session in a 250 seater breakout room. Remember the 50% off early bird ticket offer ends at Midnight on Monday 30th June. Do you remember Ed's star turn from 2014?
Ed is joined on the main stage 2015 by Nigel Wray, Vin Murria, Mark Slater, Ben Edelman, Amanda Van Dyke, Matt Earl, Lucian Miers, Evil Knievil, Dominic Frisby, Charlotte Argyle (picture) and many others. We already have 35 big name speakers and a really big name has today agreed to join them...more on that later.
There are also now 60 of the 110 growth companies booked in to attend.
Details of all this can be found at www.UKinvestorshow.com
3611 days ago
As ever I start my day reading the excellent column of my old pal Malcolm Stacey, the grandfather of share blogging. But today I was spluttering into my cornflakes as I read his words. Has my old pal become infected with “deluded lefty disease”? Please tell me it is not true or that it if it is you will spend a weekend at the Richard Poulden libertarian boot camp with Ms Argyle (pictured as she is better looking than Comrade Poulden), Matthew Sutcliffe and Dominic Frisby seeking urgent therapy.
Malcolm’s offending phrase in his otherwise excellent column today – HERE – was:
Of course, I sympathise with young people who still can't get jobs and families who have to rely on food banks. That is down to inequality of opportunity, for which the government must shoulder blame.
Where to start with such obvious tosh?
3652 days ago
It is now a day less than a year until the 2015 UK Investor Show but following the smash success of the sell-out 2014 show, the UK's leading investor show is already able to announce the first 31 speakers who have agreed to appear in 2015! And there are 27 more names to reveal as the show moves up into superdrive
Our new speakers are Matt Lofgran of Nostra Terra and Matt Suttcliffe of Alaxander Mining and they join on stage Nigel Wray, Evil Knievil, myself (Tom Winnifrith), Clem Chambers, Vin Murria, Ben Edelman, Paul Scott, Lucian Miers, Steve Moore, Robert Sutherland Smith, Cathal Friel, Andrew Bell, Marcus Hanke, Amanda Van Dyke, Matt Earl, Thierry Laduguie and..
NEW For 2015: Charlotte Argyle, Ben Turney, Jason Drummond, Cassandra Harris and BrokerMan Daniel
Some failing shows manage only a handful of speakers but UK Investor Show delivers both changes each year AND the big names. Over the coming weeks we will announce more big name speakers as we plan an increased number of sessions as we take on more floor space. Brace yourself for a 50 speaker show!
And
3666 days ago
It is still just over a year until the 2015 UK Investor Show but following the smash success of the sell-out 2014 show, the UK's leading investor show is already able to announce the first 21 speakers who have agreed to appear in 2015!
They are: Nigel Wray, Evil Knievil, myself (Tom Winnifrith), Clem Chambers, Vin Murria, Ben Edelman, Paul Scott, Lucian Miers, Steve Moore, Robert Sutherland Smith, Cathal Friel, Andrew Bell, Marcus Hanke, Amanda Van Dyke, Matt Earl, Thierry Laduguie and..
NEW For 2015: Charlotte Argyle, Ben Turney, Jason Drummond, Dominic Picarda and BrokerMan Daniel
Some failing shows manage only a handful of speakers but UK Investor Show delivers both changes each year AND the big names. Over the coming weeks we will announce more big name speakers as we plan an increased number of sessions as we take on more floor space. Brace yourself for a 50 speaker show!
And there will also be 110 stands for PLCs to exhibit and present from. Already we are almost 20% booked out and we will start announcing those exhibiting very soon.
There are two classes of tickets:
A Golden Ticket guarantees you a front three row seat in any of the days 110 sessions plus a pass to the after show party with CEOs, speakers and journalists. It costs £60 (inc VAT)
An Investor class ticket gains access to any session at the show and costs £12 including VAT.
BUT you can buy either type of ticket with a 50% early bird discount if you book NOW. You can buy your early bird tickets HERE
3668 days ago
My fave libertarian Tory blogger Charlotte Argyle is in fine form once again. The child of Thatcher rightly points out that capitalism not aid is what is needed for both donors and recipients. Over to the pin up girl of Tory blogging:
It starts with a chap called Mr O, an Ethiopian Farmer who claims that the £1.3Bn the UK has sent to Ethiopian in the last 5 years has done nothing more than fund a despotic government which has enacted great atrocities on his family and livelihood by using brutal force to annex land and property from hundreds of native villagers to sell off to foreign investors or add to its own little stash of Government chattels. Just to put our ‘good deed’ into context Ethiopia is among the biggest recipients of British aid receiving £38 million in July 2011 alone.
This simply serves to exposure the huge lack of accountability and traceability on the behalf of the do-gooders at DFID when it comes to ensuring that OUR money goes to the right source. It also magnifies the dangers around minimal foreign intervention without a serious approach to risk. To prove my point, imagine the blushing faces last year as DFID had to admit to the National Audit Office that it did not know in which country £530 million of aid was spent nor why a country like Nigeria, which is flourishing into an emerging economy – with the second highest national income of all African countries still receives £275 million from the UK in 2013 and will receive a further £250 million until 2015. .
So now we have Mr O set to sue the UK Government for hundreds of thousands of pounds – taxpayers pounds, in the name of DFID breaching the Department for International Development’s (DfID) human rights rules (yep breaching their own rules). But here is the best bit, some kind London lawyers (Leigh Day to be precise) have decided to help Mr O taking on the case on his behalf and have already served papers on DFID .
As they feel it is necessary to point out - Mr O is not seeking compensation but challenging the Government’s approach to aid – Well thanks Mr O but I think that slimming down of our ever gout-ridden state letting more people keep more of their own money may have the same effect. One has to wonder how much Leigh Day are set to make on this little case though. Imagine the headline "Ethiopian gets legal aid from UK - to sue the UK for giving aid to... Ethiopia"
DFID’s complete lack of action
3672 days ago
My fave Tory blogger Charlotte Argyle was one of those sitting in the bloggers cafe at the UK Investor Show. As ever she was forthright in her views as regular readers know from her classice pieces: what a banker and on how the minimum wage destroys jobs and hurts the poor. The true child of Thatcher, outlines a few of her thoughts in the video below
3683 days ago
I have to flag up this piece from yesterday by my fave Tory Blogger Charlotte Argyle becuase it is a? very good and b) seems to have wound up a series of lefties. Well done on both counts Ms Argyle. The daughter of Thatcher writes...
I like Bankers..... There you go I said it. My guilty little secret is out. What I don’t like though, is the concept of an organisation being too big to fail.
3693 days ago
Up to London for a lunch with libertarian fellow Shoreditch refugee Philip, a CEO meeting and then to the offices of a City law firm to moderate a panel presentation for Liquity – a new platform for investors in unlisted stocks. It is an interesting proposition and I wish the firm the best of luck, not least because it employs my fave Tory blogger Charlotte Argyle. Rather conceitedly I thought I was on pretty cracking form.
I was certainly getting a few laughs but it is quite possible that many of those present were laughing at me not at my witty asides. You never really know.
As soon as the formal bit was over I headed outside for a quick nicotine fix and a fellow who was leaving congratulated me on my style and cynicism and said I gave a most enjoyable performance. Thank you said I. He then introduced himself as a full time member of the House of Lords and thrust his card into my hand saying that he had read my blog but would become a more regular reader from now onwards.
I shall not name this fellow to spare his blushes but I find praise from a member of the political classes a bit disconcerting. Does he not know that when the Popular Libertarian Front sweeps to power in 2020 one of the first acts of Dear Leader Richard Poulden will be to have the entire political class strung up from lampposts? Naturally I shall be there in the front row with my knitting needles gloating as the tumbrils pass along the Mall.
But for his kind words tonight, I shall put in a good word with the PLF and Lord X will have his sentence commuted to 20 years in the newly established salt mines in the grim Northern Wastelands surrounding Stoke on Trent. But it got worse.
3757 days ago
I am always happy to give a platform to my fave Tory blogger Charlotte Argyle as her views are - as far as I know - 100% bang on the money. And so over to Charlotte.
As of December 2012, the average London worker can expect to enjoy a wage of £33,816 compared to that of their Northern neighbour, where in Manchester for example the average is £26,242.
If you go on to look at the median hourly rate for London, it is £10.13 and further investigation shows that if you take the median hourly rate by years experience, you would need 5-9 more years within that sector to reach anywhere close to the proposed £8.55 ‘living wage’ figure.
At a time of reported low growth, the living wage can be described as nothing more than another bureaucratic bid to stifle SMEs and start-up growth.
4100 days ago
For some reason I get called a sexist beast by some folks. And it is not just the odd bird who seems to think this. As such I am delighted to publish a guest post by a woman. This is not affirmative action. Just because the post makes a good point or two although I am not sure why she hails the vile Clinton woman as a role model – try Ann Coulter instead.
The poster is Charlotte Argyle who is from City Future an organisation for young professional Conservatives in the City. For some reason Charlotte thinks that I am not too old to attend an event or two…flattery will get you everywhere but I am not too sure that my views on Call Me Dave would go down that well. Charlotte writes:
100 years ago, Emily Davison threw herself in front of the King’s horse during the Epsom Derby as a suffragette protest. In 1918 the wheels of female equality turned, but the Representation of the People Act was just the beginning of the story. Over the last 100 yrs there have been numerous figures that women could covet when looking for a role model. Some of my personal favourites include Aung San Suu Kyi, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and Alek Wek. However the most obvious error in the above statement is the omission of the male of the species: somehow in the quest for female equality the see-saw of opinion has tilted, and now, it is almost an insult to the cause for females to seek afflatus from our XY friends.
