The A-Team Blog

Is this Budget going to be a serious economic document, or is it all just bullshit? Gina Dyer wades through the mess so far and offers her opinion.

Given that’s it’s taking place a mere hop, skip and a couple of months away from a general election, this Budget is widely expected to be very high in political content and low in what we might call ‘fibre’ – ie actual fiscal policy that’s expected to feed the economy.

Like a fashionista during the big spring shows, John Stokdyk has been gallivanting around laptop suppliers of late and fingering their latest merchandise. While awed by the selection on offer, he wonders if the wider market will get as excited.

Bill Nighy and Richard Curtis joined tax campaigners and other finance professionals to debate the proposed ‘Robin Hood’ tax at an RSA event in London today. Consulting practice editor Mark Lee was there to take part in the discussion.

It was hardly the shot heard around the world, but in its own quiet way the Charity Finance Directors Group (CFDG) kicked off the profession’s election hustings with a “Question Time” election debate in Westminster between charities minister Angela Smith and her shadows Jenny Willott (Lib Dem) and Nick Hurd (Con). The CFDG website includes a podcast and transcript of the full debate.

AccountingWEB.co.uk editor John Stokdyk thought he was a tech-savvy guy, until 2.05pm today.

"Do as I say, don't do as I do" has been my motto for a working life in the media for more than two decades. A little episode that occurred in my post-lunch email in-tray brought home to me the underlying hypocracy of my little private joke.

After 20-odd years, it gets more and more difficult to get fired up for the ritual of software company user gatherings.

If you’re coupled up or happen to have lots of secret admirers, you’re probably looking forward to Valentines Day this year but spare a thought for your poor colleagues in IT, many of whom will be dealing with the spurious advances of Valentines hackers, if recent reports are to be believed.

While accounting standards setters bleat about transparency in financial reports, UK corporates are having to change the rules every year to keep up with them.

Deloitte’s new ‘Measuring by Halves’ study of half yearly financial reporting found that three quarters of companies reported accounting policy changes in 2009-10. The changes were attributed to the adoption of a new accounting standard on segmental reporting.

AccountingWEB.co.uk's new practice development editor Mark Lloydbottom makes his debut in the A-Team blog.

At some point on Monday morning, the 213,100th AccountingWEB.co.uk member clicked into Simon Hurst’s article on New Name Range Features in Excel 2007 to take it past Gary Mackley Smith’s epic Tax links guide as the all-time most popular item on our website.