Nigel Fairbrass

Gambling

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 27 October 2023

Doctored: how the public health community weaponised a tobacco ‘playbook’ against UK gambling

A regulatory clampdown on the UK gambling sector echoes the war waged by the public health community against cigarettes. But these parallels are not accidental and reveal how clinicians use the long shadow cast by the tobacco industry to effect regulatory change across the consumer landscape. Last month, a dozen public health experts published an […]

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Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 7 May 2023

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century – Eterna’s Book Club

“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” – Garry Kasparov The recent leak of US intelligence papers, and the revelation that a million or more US citizens are employed by the country’s intelligence “industry,” has been a reminder of […]

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Wimbledon in a spin

Insights Serra Balls

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 1 June 2022

Wimbledon in a Spin

Has the All England Club double-faulted on its decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon? The decision in April by the All England Lawn Tennis Club to ban Russian and Belarusian players from this year’s Wimbledon championship elicited a volley of criticism. Players past and present, such as Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Martina […]

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Insights Nigel Fairbrass Uncategorised

Fishful Thinking

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse confirmed almost half a billion dollars in fines and $200m of Mozambican debt relief this week, following successive regulatory investigations into the so-called “tuna bonds” scandal. Credit Suisse and VTB, a Russian investment bank, had arranged $2bn of bonds and loans for Mozambique, ostensibly to set up a state-backed tuna […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 4 June 2021

Trust in the Trust – a restoration project

The ousting of Tim Parker last week, chairman of the National Trust, has been hailed as another skirmish in the wider culture wars. Variously accused of politicising the National Trust by pandering to such modish causes as Black Lives Matter and gay rights, Parker was undone by Restore Trust, a fifth column of Trust members […]

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Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 27 November 2020

Covid Vaccines – A dose of reality

It was a moment to rival the climax of the Cuban missile crisis. Or perhaps the declaration of victory in Europe in 1945. In Hollywood’s hands, world leaders would have been waiting anxiously by silent telephones, and crowds would have flocked expectantly to town squares to hear the news (socially-distanced of course). But in the […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 27 September 2020

A weak hand

The UK gambling sector has been on a dismal losing streak. Seemingly mired in perpetual tabloid scandal, the sector has become a byword for consumer exploitation. Lurid headlines about children gambling, addictive products, suicides, and the appropriation of sport for commercial gain have provided the backdrop to a slew of new and proposed market restrictions. […]

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Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 26 May 2020

False Idols

For an administration that once derided experts, the Government’s reliance on scientific advice through the C-19 crisis has marked a stunning revision. Whether it’s Boris Johnson’s supplication to be ‘guided by the science’ or the flanking of ministers by the high-priests of public health every evening, the ruling class have clung to the authority of […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 23 March 2020

‘Let us go forward together’

As the UK Chancellor prepares the biggest peacetime package of economic assistance this country has ever known, shrill pleas for aid from the business community will be ringing in his ears. But as business fixates on what the country can do for them, they should also be aware that the Chancellor will be haunted by […]

AI Robot Characters Vector art illustration.Copy Space. Artificial intelligence Robot (Robotic arm) carrying a gear.

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 21 February 2020

Active investors: rise of the machines

The automation revolution was supposed to come for Lincolnshire fruit pickers, not Mayfair stock pickers. Yet this week saw further evidence of the accelerating shake-out in the active fund management sector, driven by the march of the machines. Merian Global Investors fell gratefully into the arms of Jupiter, in a £419m deal that creates the […]