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Axios
5 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Chicago Board of Trade Building Museum opens to help LaSalle Street revival
The founders of the Chicago Board of Trade Building Museum hope the new attraction helps revitalize the financial district. What to expect: The free museum on the first floor of the iconic Art Deco Board of Trade Building on LaSalle and Jackson celebrates the history of the CBOT, from an instructive video of traders' ferocious hand signaling to a phone that plays memories of the men (and at least one woman) who ruled the pits. Between the lines: The financial district has changed greatly since CBOT opened in the late 19th century, especially after 2020 as work-from-home policies keep workers off LaSalle several days a week, and development has moved to other parts of the city. Even before the pandemic, the Board of Trade was heavily impacted by the transition to online trading and closure of the physical trading pits a decade ago. The intrigue: Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced LaSalle Street Reimagined in 2022. Earlier this year, developers broke ground on 79 W. Monroe, an office-to-apartment conversion. Chicago's Department of Planning and Development awarded museum founders R2 Companies, the real estate firm that manages the CBOT building, $250,000 for the museum as part of an effort to revitalize empty spaces in the Loop. What they're saying: "It's no secret that every city in the world's got to rethink their central business district and part of doing that is not just places to live, work, eat and shop, but you have some activities to do," Ald. Bill Conway tells Axios. "This is an iconic building, and an important part of the birth and backbone of our economy and capitalism globally. So having a museum that commemorates that, I think will be very interesting to people from around the world." State of play: Conway, whose ward includes the CBOT, says the museum is a sign of the area's growing arts and culture scene, which already gets regular visitors on the city's architecture tours.
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Business Standard
21-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Trading with India will be 'quicker, cheaper, easier' post-FTA, says UK
It will be quicker, cheaper and easier for British companies to trade with India as a result of the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) struck earlier this month, the UK government said on Wednesday. Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds described the FTA as the best deal India has ever agreed to as he convened a revamped advisory board for its first meeting, tasked with boosting exports to grow the UK economy. The Board of Trade, made up of UK business experts, is charged with delivering targeted support for small businesses across the country and helping firms utilise the exporting opportunities from the UK's recent FTAs with the India pact followed by a US deal. Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for British trade. This Board isn't just a talking shop it's a hands-on, dynamic force that will help businesses of every size access global markets and seize the opportunities created by our landmark trade deals, said Reynolds, who concluded the UK-India FTA negotiations during Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal's visit to London earlier this month. We've already secured the best deal India has ever agreed to, and our US agreement has slashed tariffs for our steel and automotive sectors, protecting hundreds of thousands of British jobs, he said. The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said its India trade deal is expected to be a shot in the arm for the UK's exports of whiskies and gin, cosmetics, medical devices, advanced machinery and lamb and is expected to increase bilateral trade by an estimated GBP 25.5 billion a year in the long term. Trading with India will be quicker, cheaper, and easier thanks to improved customs processes and by promoting digital systems, which will be particularly important for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) who may have otherwise been unable to break into the Indian market, DBT said. The UK-India FTA has been dubbed a landmark trade deal, worth GBP 4.8 billion annually to the UK economy by 2040 as a result of slashed tariffs across the board. The UK-India Free Trade Agreement is a significant achievement that will create new opportunities for UK and Indian businesses, enable greater access to one of the world's largest and most dynamic markets, and drive growth and innovation across the UK-India corridor, said Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered and Co-Chair of the UK-India Financial Partnership. The UK exported nearly GBP 300 million worth of food and drink to India in 2024, so this FTA represents a significant opportunity for British food and soft drinks, said Karen Betts, Chief Executive of the UK's Food and Drink Federation. The FTA will also provide UK manufacturers with greater access to ingredients produced in India, strengthening the supply chain resilience and competitiveness for our sector, she said. According to DBT, Wednesday's first meeting of the Board of Trade comes as part of a wider series of measures to boost the number of high-growth SMEs across the UK. The high-profile group, made up of popular entrepreneur Mike Soutar, BT Group Chief Executive Allison Kirkby and Small Business Britain founder Michelle Ovens as ambassadors and advocates for British businesses, set about to unpick the breakthroughs with both India and the United States. It is encouraging to see new deals struck in recent weeks and a real boost to energy and ambition. Almost all businesses in the UK are small businesses, and they have a major impact on the economy, employing millions and creating and supporting communities, said Ovens. The board will advise on the delivery of the government's forthcoming Trade Strategy' and Small Business Strategy', to ensure both align with the economic growth agenda to raise living standards across all parts of the UK. It also comes close on the heels of the US trade deal with President Donald Trump, which the Prime Minister Keir Starmer led government says will protect jobs in the automotive, steel, aluminium, pharmaceutical and aerospace sectors employing over 320,000 people across the UK. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Trading with India will be 'quicker, cheaper, easier' post-FTA, says UK
It will be "quicker, cheaper and easier" for British companies to trade with India as a result of the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) struck earlier this month, the UK government said on Wednesday. Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds described the FTA as the "best deal India has ever agreed to" as he convened a revamped advisory board for its first meeting, tasked with boosting exports to grow the UK economy. The Board of Trade, made up of UK business experts, is charged with delivering targeted support for small businesses across the country and helping firms utilise the exporting opportunities from the UK's recent FTAs - with the India pact followed by a US deal. "Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for British trade. This Board isn't just a talking shop - it's a hands-on, dynamic force that will help businesses of every size access global markets and seize the opportunities created by our landmark trade deals," said Reynolds, who concluded the UK-India FTA negotiations during Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal's visit to London earlier this month. "We've already secured the best deal India has ever agreed to, and our US agreement has slashed tariffs for our steel and automotive sectors, protecting hundreds of thousands of British jobs," he said. The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said its India trade deal is expected to be a "shot in the arm" for the UK's exports of whiskies and gin, cosmetics, medical devices, advanced machinery and lamb and is expected to increase bilateral trade by an estimated GBP 25.5 billion a year in the long term. Live Events "Trading with India will be quicker, cheaper, and easier thanks to improved customs processes and by promoting digital systems, which will be particularly important for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) who may have otherwise been unable to break into the Indian market," DBT said. The UK-India FTA has been dubbed a "landmark trade deal", worth GBP 4.8 billion annually to the UK economy by 2040 as a result of "slashed tariffs across the board". "The UK-India Free Trade Agreement is a significant achievement that will create new opportunities for UK and Indian businesses, enable greater access to one of the world's largest and most dynamic markets, and drive growth and innovation across the UK-India corridor," said Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered and Co-Chair of the UK-India Financial Partnership. "The UK exported nearly GBP 300 million worth of food and drink to India in 2024, so this FTA represents a significant opportunity for British food and soft drinks," said Karen Betts, Chief Executive of the UK's Food and Drink Federation. "The FTA will also provide UK manufacturers with greater access to ingredients produced in India, strengthening the supply chain resilience and competitiveness for our sector," she said. According to DBT, Wednesday's first meeting of the Board of Trade comes as part of a wider series of measures to boost the number of high-growth SMEs across the UK. The high-profile group, made up of popular entrepreneur Mike Soutar, BT Group Chief Executive Allison Kirkby and Small Business Britain founder Michelle Ovens as ambassadors and advocates for British businesses, set about to unpick the "breakthroughs with both India and the United States". "It is encouraging to see new deals struck in recent weeks and a real boost to energy and ambition. Almost all businesses in the UK are small businesses, and they have a major impact on the economy, employing millions and creating and supporting communities," said Ovens. The board will advise on the delivery of the government's forthcoming 'Trade Strategy' and 'Small Business Strategy', to ensure both align with the economic growth agenda to raise living standards across all parts of the UK. It also comes close on the heels of the US trade deal with President Donald Trump, which the Prime Minister Keir Starmer led government says will protect jobs in the automotive, steel, aluminium, pharmaceutical and aerospace sectors - employing over 320,000 people across the UK.
Daily Mail
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
He led us through the darkest days. Little wonder my grandfather Winston Churchill ensured Britain stocked up on beer and bunting on VE Day, writes NICHOLAS SOAMES
On the day before peace in Europe was announced, my grandfather Winston Churchill sent an urgent communique to the Ministry of Food. It was imperative, he warned, that London must not run out of beer. Bonfires were already blazing across the country and the pubs that evening were packed with revellers in anticipation of Victory in Europe (VE) Day. Civil servants sent reassurance to Downing Street the next morning on May 8, 1945: beer supplies were plentiful. Even bunting was freely available, taken off the ration books by the Board of Trade for this one occasion. Both the capital city and the whole nation could have the knees-up they deserved. In the event, of course, many pubs and hotel bars were drained to the last drop, not just of beer but of spirits, champagne, brandy and anything else that made the party roar. I treasure photographs of Churchill from that day, not only because they are testament to the joy that swept the nation, but because they are incontrovertible proof of how deeply loved he was. In one, taken on Parliament Street close to the Cenotaph, he is surrounded by a sea of cheering men and women. Many are in uniform, some waving their caps and Union Flags in the air as my grandfather, who was then Prime Minister, beams with a cigar in his mouth. Two bodyguards stand at the PM's shoulders, and a mounted policeman surveys the crowd, but there's no need for security. Churchill is adored. He is the people's leader, who has led them through the darkest days imaginable, through the Blitz and an existential battle to preserve our freedom. It's impossible to imagine such a scene today, as we live in an era in which no politician commands so much affection and respect. The crowds around the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace were even more vast. Shortly after 3pm, King George and Queen Elizabeth, with their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, made their first of six appearances. Later, my grandfather joined them on the balcony and was met by tumultuous cheers that did not abate for more than five minutes. He then took to the balcony of the Ministry of Health overlooking Whitehall, with members of his War Cabinet including Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison, where he made one of the most quintessentially Churchillian speeches of his life. 'God bless you all,' he declared. 'This is your victory! In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best. 'Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attacks of the enemy, have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the British nation. 'My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It's a victory of the great British nation as a whole.' No other English orator has been able to conjure with words so powerfully. What he evokes in these opening lines, delivered without notes, is how our nation survived the onslaught of Nazi evil thanks to the sheer resilience of ordinary people who were not ordinary at all. This week, 80 years on, we have what will perhaps be our final opportunity to give thanks to the last survivors of that generation. For the rest of us, our imaginations will never be equal to understanding what they endured. Our cities were bombed nightly, our Army was almost wiped out before the heroic rescue at Dunkirk, our merchant ships were ruthlessly sunk by U-boats, and our soldiers, sailors and airmen – mostly drawn from the ranks of civilian life – were hurled into cataclysmic battles. And as Churchill told the Whitehall crowds that day: 'We were left all alone against the most tremendous military power that has been seen. We were all alone for a whole year. 'The lights went out and the bombs came down. But every man, woman and child in the country had no thought of quitting the struggle.' He reminded all those listening, by radio as well as in the crowd, that the job wasn't over yet. The Allies were still fighting in the Pacific against 'a foe stained with cruelty and greed – the Japanese'.But though millions were grieving their war dead and the conflict would not be truly over for more than another three months, May 8 was a day for taking joy in everything Britain had achieved, before beginning to rebuild. 'I rejoice we can all take a night off today and another day tomorrow,' he proclaimed. It is sometimes forgotten May 9 was also a public holiday. The King and his family made a procession to St Paul's for a thanksgiving service. Photographs of the parade on Ludgate Hill, leading west from the cathedral, show just what a hammering the City had taken. Today, the whole district would be cordoned off for health and safety reasons – but in 1945, every square inch of pavement was jammed with onlookers hoping for a glimpse of the Royal Family. For the third night in a row, the pubs were overflowing, with Piccadilly Circus the hub of London's revelries. My grandfather must have been the subject of countless millions of toasts. He probably had little thought for the coming General Election, the first since the outbreak of war. And during the celebrations, very few could have imagined he would be ousted from Downing Street two months later. After bearing the weight of responsibility on his shoulders for preserving Western civilisation for so long, he had earned his respite from government. He was indefatigable, touring the length and breadth of the nation, giving his 'V for Victory' salute and waving his hat on his stick. It is not mere family loyalty and my abiding memories of the man who towered over my childhood that make me feel Churchill ascended closer to the status of living myth than anyone in our lifetimes, with the exception of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. When he lost the election in July, he bore very little rancour, understanding that it was not a personal defeat. The country wanted to look to the future, and that meant a new Prime Minister. Later, of course, voters realised what they'd lost, and Churchill was back in No 10 in five years. As he stood on that Whitehall balcony, making that extraordinary, heart-stirring speech, he knew there would be many more struggles ahead. 'I say in the long years to come,' Churchill declared, 'not only will the people of this island but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we've done and they will say: 'Do not despair, do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straight forward and die if need be – unconquered.' ' This week we will honour the heroes to whom we owe everything. But it is imperative we remember what they were fighting for. And we must always be ready to take up arms against evil again. My grandfather led Britain to victory against what he called a 'monstrous tyranny'. Our job is to make certain the monsters and the tyrants can never take our freedom.
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Anne Harper obituary
One unexpected but significant outcome of the year-long miners' strike 40 years ago was its impact on radicalising a generation of women who lived in the areas of the British coalfields. Anne Harper, who has died aged 83, then the wife of Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers, emerged from domestic obscurity in 1984 to embrace a life of political activism, and in doing so provided an inspirational role model for many thousands of others with similar backgrounds. She was arrested twice – once during the 1984-85 strike for obstructing a police officer, leading to a strip search and being held in a cell for 14 hours; and later, in 1992, after further pit closures were announced, for chaining herself to the railings outside the Department of Trade and Industry. During the strike she led marches, drove busloads of like-minded women pickets to demonstrations and organised soup kitchens and welfare support. Staging subsequent protests in 1992-93 against the closures that presaged the end of the British coal industry, she demonstrated at the Oxfordshire home of Michael Heseltine, the then relevant government minister as president of the Board of Trade; occupied the main conference room of Markham Main colliery, Doncaster; organised protest camps outside seven pits threatened with closure; and with three other women spent four nights on a sit-in 2,000ft underground at Parkside colliery, Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside. On one occasion in 1993 she superglued the office doors of Jim Logan, the pit manager at Grimethorpe colliery, South Yorkshire; when she next met him, five years later, it was as the fiance of her GP doctor daughter, Margaret. Anne Scargill (as she was known until divorce in 2001) surprised herself when in May 1984, shortly after the start of the 'Great Strike' – as she termed it – she plunged into direct political engagement after a march through her hometown of Barnsley. Thousands of women had joined the demonstration in support of their 165,000 menfolk, on strike although without a national ballot. There followed another, larger march in London and Women Against Pit Closures was formed with Anne Scargill as one of the founders. She learned to speak in public and grew in confidence, determination and audacity. She did not look back and when the strike was over moved on to campaign on wider issues concerning human rights, equality and employment. Pin-box smart and always immaculately turned out, Anne Scargill proved to be a fearless leader of others. She was outgoing, a funny woman and immensely practical. 'Get real girls!' she told her fellow activists if they got distracted by irrelevancies. She was acutely aware of the dinner-on-the-table traditional role of miners' wives, as followed by her own family for generations. She knew, too, that as she put it: 'miners tended to be a bit male chauvinistic'. One of them told her after the strike that he wanted his wife back – 'her who used to do the ironing'. She said once: 'It's fair to say that some women did go back to that, but most women were changed for ever by the strike.' She had joined the Labour party in 1982, the year after her husband became president of the NUM, but found her political independence through joint action with other women. She never told her husband what she was doing in advance, although she did once leave him a note on the kitchen table reading: 'I will not be home at 5pm. You will know why.' Yet in a memoir published in 2020, written with her friend and co-activist Betty Cook (Anne and Betty: United by the Struggle) she confessed she was 'still a bit uncomfortable at calling myself a feminist'. The foreword to the book was written by the actor Maxine Peake, who also wrote the play Queens of the Coal Age, based on the women's action to resist the pit closures. Anne was born in Barnsley, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and grew up in the nearby village of Barugh Green. She was the third of four children born to a miner, Elliott Harper, and his wife, Harriet (nee Hardy), from Skelmanthorpe. She and her younger sister, Joan, were predeceased by two sons (Elliott, who was stillborn, and Ken, who died aged 10 months from meningitis). A former cook, their mother ran a tidy house – she was 'tight enough to nip a currant in two' according to her daughter. Their father, who had taken part in the 1926 general strike, was politically active and a union official. He had a secondary job as a chimney sweep and money was always short. Anne went to Darton Hall school (now Darton academy), leaving, aged 15, for a job winding wire for electric motors. Her world would change four years later when a young Arthur Scargill called at the family home on NUM business. The couple married the following year, in 1961, and moved in with Arthur's father, Harold, a retired miner, who remained with them until he died in 1989. Margaret was born in 1962. Although Arthur provided some early education for his young wife in politics, of more practical use was that he taught her to drive. He also encouraged her to study for a diploma, which enabled her to take a job as an accounts clerk at the Barnsley Co-op, joining in 1967. She had worked there for 31 years when she was made redundant and offered £4,000 in compensation for the job, which was then earning her £7,000 a year. She refused the money, challenging Co-operative Retail Services at an industrial tribunal on the grounds that they were advertising for new staff, and was reinstated in 1998, shortly before the hearing took place. In the same year she stood unsuccessfully for the Worsbrough ward of Barnsley council as a candidate for the Socialist Labour party, founded by her husband two years earlier in protest at the Labour party's abandonment of its commitment to nationalisation. She had been lonely in the course of her marriage and would write later that the couple had little in common, apart from a shared interest in their airedale terriers and subsequently in politics. She liked jazz, rock'n'roll and holidays, none of which were of much concern to her husband. They had grown apart by the time they separated in 1998, but she wrote in her memoir that his decision that they should part still came as a shock. She is survived by Margaret and by twin grandsons, Henry and Thomas. Anne Harper (Scargill), political activist, born 12 October 1941; died 10 April 2025
