Holiday Bookings at ‘Pre-Pandemic Levels’ The BBC has reported that holiday bookings have now returned to “around pre-COVID levels” after the government announced that pre-departure tests for the fully vaccinated populous will be scrapped. Britain’s largest low-cost carrier, easyJet, has experienced an almost 200% rise on the previous week and TUI declared “a strong uptick” as bookings for warm climates lead the pack. Lanzarote has seen a 427% week on week ...
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Husqvarna have released a documentary on the history of their automower. Earlier this month, our Patron company Husqvarna released a documentary on how their robotic mower helped transform them from an industrial to a technology company, and revolutionized gardening along the way. Give it a watch here. Grand Hôtel's restaurant Matbaren by Matthias Dahlgren wins Sweden's best hotel restaurant 2021. The World Culinary awards awarded Matbaren the prestigious prize for "pushing ...
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UK Political Updates Over the last week the British political scene has generated the majority of headlines due to recent accusations, and camera footage, of Downing Street suggesting multiple Christmas parties took place last year whilst the nation was in a lockdown. During this period in 2020, England had laws in place to prosecute and fine individuals who celebrated Christmas outside of their own households and support bubbles. Downing Street maintains ...
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Dan Sten Olsson is CEO and majority owner of Stena Sphere, a privately held Swedish conglomerate. Stena was founded in 1939 as a trading company by Dan's father, Sten, Dan took over in 1983 and now owns 51%. He graduated from the University of Gothenburg and spent a year at Clarkson Ltd in London before he embarked a long career in the family business, Stena in 1972. Dan Sten Olsson ...
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UK By-Elections The month of December contains two by-elections in two ultra-safe Conservative Party seats but neither of which are likely to experience strengthened majorities due to disappointing polling data for the Party. Nationally, the ruling party is now polling neck-and-neck with the opposition (Labour) party at 37% and 36%, respectively, of voters which is 5% below their 43% vote share in the 2019 General Election. The first of these contested ...
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Northern Ireland Economy The smallest country within the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland (NI), represents just 1.9m people in an area around 3% the size of Sweden: however, NI has almost fully recovered economically from the effects of COVID. Output in Q3 of 2021 is just 0.3% below the same period in 2019 according to ONS data. Comparatively, the West Midlands is down 10% for the same period (partly due to manufacturing ...
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Handelsbanken, a BSCC Patron Member, on the 25th of November celebrated 150 years since their founding at Kornhalmstorg in the Old Town district of Stockholm. That year, in 1871, delivered the company with its first banking charter by royal decree and established Handelsbanken as a leading bank in the capital. By 1912 the firm had six branches in the city but now sought to expand across Sweden and so acquired ...
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Rising Inflation The month of October experienced a ‘bigger than expected’ 4.2% jump in inflation amid fresh calls for the Bank of England to raise interest rates. This outpaced the previous months 3.1% increase and marks the highest rate of inflation in 10 years for the UK. Two of the main causes of this are the surging fuel and energy bills faced by the British public over recent weeks. The RAC, ...
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On Wednesday 17 November the BSCC and Centigo had the pleasure of co-hosting, HM Ambassador to Sweden Ms. Judith Gough for a breakfast seminar on the British Governments take-aways from COP26. Ms. Gough began by using the glass half full analogy to describe the Government’s viewpoint on COP26 as a whole. Whilst she iterated that the climate conference did not fulfil all of the Government’s aims, significant gains were made in ...
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COP26 Summary The new global “Glasgow Climate Pact” has emerged from the COP26 Summit and was welcomed by many but also faces expectations for increased contributions going forward. The document is not legally binding but sets an international agenda on climate change, it focuses upon: Emissions – meeting next year to pledge further CO2 cuts and keep temperature increase within 1.5C Coal – first COP conference with explicit plan to reduce ...
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