Share Sounds

Legislation for the first phase of the HS2 high-speed rail project has passed its final hurdle. The parliamentary Bill to construct the line from London to Birmingham has now received royal assent, meaning building work can now begin. Sim Harris, managing editor of railnews.co.uk, joined Nigel to discuss the project.

An "extraordinary" interview with the conservative MP Michael Gove reports the "confessions" of the former cabinet minister, including an admission he "was wrong to stand for PM". Plus Eastern Europeans are leaving the UK in "record numbers", as the number of those returning to eight EU countries "more than trebled to 39,000" in the year to September. To discuss all these stories and the main story of the morning of Copeland electing its first Conservative seat since 1935, Georgie Frost was joined by Ryan Heath, Senior EU Correspondent at POLITICO.

Increasingly people are becoming employed in the so-called gig economy with firms such as Deliveroo and Uber however it leaves a lot of questions over their employment rights. Recently Uber and Deliveroo have appealed for an overhaul of employment laws which they claim prevent them from providing benefits such as insurance and pensions to self-employed staff. This follows last month's legal battle by a plumber- who wanted to reduce his days at Pimlico Plumbers following a heart attack. To give some insight into the law in workers rights Georgie Frost was joined by employment expert Beverley Sunderland from Crossland Employment solicitors.

Researchers at Rotterdam School of Management, have discovered what in a TV advert triggers people to find the product online. This group was shown the adverts of 11 different adverts, all created for the same brand of pain-relieving muscle and joint gel. Brain scans then revealed that an advert works best when it highlights both a product’s functional benefits and triggers the viewer’s imagination. James Brydges spoke to Linda Couwenberg, who led the research.

Joining Georgie Frost to discuss the latest market headlines was Share Radio's very own Nigel Cassidy. A busy morning of Company Announcements starting with numbers from RBS and Standard Chartered this morning. We also had the news last night that John Lewis would be cutting up to 400 jobs.

The mortgage market has had its strongest start to a year since 2008, with lending up by 2% from January 2016. Mortgage approvals hit a nine-month high in December, more figures from the British Bankers Association reveal today. The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that gross mortgage lending was £18.9 billion last month, although this wasn't as strong as December. To discuss the figures, Nigel was joined by Mohammad Jamei, an economist from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Next week is 'Wales in London' week with a number of events scheduled across the capital. Cardiff recently beat London in terms of its combination of talent AND quality of life in a recent recruitment survey. Deloitte moved a number of back office jobs from London to Cardiff recently. Chair of Central Cardiff Enterprise Zone Chris Sutton joined Nigel; he'll be talking at an "Invest in Wales" event in London on Monday.

Chairman of the Lafferty Group, Michael Lafferty, joins Nigel in the studio to discuss the loss announced by the Royal Bank of Scotland this morning.

It's time to talk politics. On today's programme, Simon Rose will be looking at the latest net migration figures with Jonathan Isaby, Editor of Brexit Central, the Government's prison shake-up with Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at The Howard League for Penal Reform, as well as checking in with Lord Teverson, Liberal Democrat peer, to see how the Government's Brexit bill is getting on in the Lords.

Hello and welcome to today's edition of The Apprentice Investor. Regular listeners to the show will know that our Apprentices are four members of the Share Radio team who've each been given fifteen thousand pounds of virtual money to build their own share portfolios. They have a minimum of eight stocks, which they've been buying and selling through The Share Centre for the past couple of years. Today Share Radio's Simon Rose was joined in the studio by Apprentices Alexi Phillips and Olivia Demitriades. Standing by with advice and useful observations was Share Radio's sparkling Senior Analyst Ed Bowsher.