At least Lloyd Green Solicitors, who are personal injury experts in Essex, want to put something back into society as the sponsorship of the Heart FM Essex campaign shows. The firm tells us, discreetly, that it assists other charities and it’s particular selling point is that it is a local law firm but one which offers a truly specialist personal injury service. To go along with that message, the firm has launched a new website, forthepeople.co.uk which is intended to offer the message that yes, whilst they are lawyers, they are human and that they are not simply pumping the compensation claim message.

Do you know of other solicitors with positive or charitable news associated with them ? If so, let us know and we may mention them.  Some positive press is deserved, just like criticism is sometimes deserved !

The hacking scandal in the UK has been very big news and ask most people about their views on News International, and probably most would have a negative view.

However, in strictly commercial terms the News International and Murdoch business empire is alive and kicking and in fact is doing very well. The company’s PR may have been severely damaged but when it comes to making all the right business moves, the business is very well run. It is also easy to forget that the newspaper publishing arm is only a very small sector of what this company does, and publishing newspapers is now far less profitable than was once the case, bearing in mind the use of the internet now. The real downside for News International was the impact of the News of the World scandal on any prospect of the company increasing it’s stake in BSkyB which is a very profitable business.

In general terms, shares of News Corp have scaled new highs. In the immediate wake of the hacking scandal, News Corp lost nearly a quarter of its market capitalization, a whopping $11 billion but the shares have rallied strongly and are have recouped those losses and added some gains as analysts see that the company has a strong balance sheet and some very attractive and profitable businesses.

People often think of social media as being primarily a young person’s activity, but social media covers a wide spectrum of sites, and whilst facebook may still be the forum of choice for more young people, surprisingly it seems that the over 45’s have taken to twitter in a big way. Perhaps this is because is is so user friendly and fast.

Research published on a Reuters blog has found that :-

• 45-54 year olds are over 35% more likely than average to visit Twitter
•  the number of unique visitors to twitter is up by a staggering 1,000% in the last year
• Twitter is becoming increasingly popular with retired people. Just over 5% of twitter users in the US are over 65.

As last night’s riots in Tottenham indicate, and as many of us have been saying for some time, society is in a mess. The riots in my view are indicative of a much wider problem.

With the pace of life and economic pressures ever increasing, we have all become increasingly detached from both family and local bonds which hold society together. When economic times are good, it feels ok to operate in our own little “bubble”. When economic times deteriorate, frustration grows and our “dog eat dog” mentality increases. This is evidenced on many levels but not least in the way we are now treating our neighbours, especially bearing in mind the age old precept of “love they neighbor”.

In the news this week, the Daily Mail reported that, incredibly,  neighbour disputes may have contributed to up to 1 million people in Britain moving house based on disagreements about maintenance works, noise,  boundaries, parking spaces.

The Mail also reported that :-

• 1 in 5 have had a  dispute with a neighbour in the last year
• 1 in 4 rarely speak to their next door neighbor
• 1 in 7 don’t know their neighbours names.

When you have this type of situation, it is no surprise that there are big problems in society. If we can’t even get on with our family or neighbours, what does this say about our society ?

One size does not fit all, so we will be finding our own news stories, whether relating to business, law, politics or other topics. Hopefully, you will like the selection we make and our summary of each item and keep coming back. Similarly, if you have an interesting news article, please let us know and we may well post or re-post it on this site. Enjoy.