Cicero Analysis

• Taking Risks:
  why the insurance industry needs to rethink its attitude towards HIV
• Gifts that keep giving: the benefits of corporate philanthropy
• Lessons in Re-education: Cameron's Conservatives and grammar schools
• Failure to Launch: lift-off for HIPs sees another setback
• The misrepresentation of private equity
• The growth of Islamic finance

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Taking Risks:
why the insurance industry needs to rethink its attitude towards HIV

By Johanna Gornitzki, Editor, COVER magazine

Insurance is all about risk, there is no doubt about that. Saying that, though, and with the risk of sounding like Naomi Klein, where should a firm’s attention to risk end and when should the corporate social responsibilities of a company come into effect? That question is pivotal when it comes to HIV and insurance. For decades, the way insurers have treated people with HIV and individuals associated as being at high-risk of contracting the virus has been a thorny issue...

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Gifts that keep giving: the benefits of corporate philanthropy

By James O’Shaughnessy, Head of Research, Policy Exchange

Switch computers off at night. Tick. Establish working from home policy. Tick. Make charitable donations. Tick. Bored yet? Companies that took on the check box demands of the early corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda certainly seem jaded, but are we seeing the emergence of a new enthusiasm about the role of business in society?...

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Lessons in Re-education: Cameron’s Conservatives and grammar schools

As the sun sets on the Blair era and Gordon Brown packs his boxes ready to move into No 10, the Conservative Party is stepping up its efforts to present itself as the natural ‘heir’ to Blairism – particularly in the field of public services...

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Failure to Launch: lift-off for HIPs sees another setback

On 22 May, the day before a symbolic debate on Home Information Packs (HIPs) in the Lords in which the Government looked to be defeated, and a few days after a judge had issued an interim order effectively blocking their implementation on 1 June, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly MP stood before the House of Commons to make an emergency statement...

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The misrepresentation of private equity

Like any other Government driven service, there are two questions looming over the provision of generic financial advice: how much will it cost and who is going to pay?...
   

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The growth of Islamic finance

Around this time last year, Gordon Brown announced his intention to “make Britain the gateway to Islamic finance and trade”. His speech to the Islamic Finance and Trade Conference, in which he pointed out that London currently has more banks supplying services under Islamic principles than any other Western financial centre, was a recognition of the increasing significance of this alternative to mainstream financial practice...

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