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www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
London

Rail strikes: London to Scotland journeys face disruption in July

Train drivers will strike on Avanti West Coast and ban overtime on LNER in July, spelling disruption on both of Britain's mainlines from London to Scotland.The Aslef union announced a one-day strike on Sunday 2 July on Avanti, with an ongoing overtime ban starting on LNER from 1 July.The disputes at each operator are separate to the wider national pay dispute.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
London

Heathrow security staff to strike on almost every weekend this summer

Security staff at Heathrow airport will strike for 31 days this summer after the Unite union announced fresh action over pay.More than 2,000 officers will strike, affecting almost every weekend from June to August, in what the union described as a major escalation.The strikes to date have been focused on Terminal 5, used by British Airways.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
London

London's super-prime' property market back to pre-Brexit levels

More than 160 properties worth 10m or more were sold in London over the past year the most since 2016 when Brexit spooked the global super-rich from investing in the UK's super-prime market.A total of 161 such sales or three a week were made in the capital in the year to March, according to analysis of Land Registry data by the estate agent Knight Frank and the data provider LonRes.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
London

Arm co-founder partly blames Brexit idiocy' for US flotation

Brexit idiocy is partly to blame for Arm's decision to choose New York over London for its stock market listing, but a secondary listing in the UK at a later date would make sense, according to a co-founder of the Cambridge-based chip designer.Arm's parent, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, has officially filed for a US-only listing, in a blow to the UK government, which has lobbied hard for a London listing.
moreLondon
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
UK politics

UK government urged to outline plans to help with winter energy bills

MPs have urged the government to set out its plans to protect households from high energy bills this winter as they said about 1.7 million people, including some of the most vulnerable groups, had been left waiting too long to receive previous support.The public accounts committee (PAC) said that although schemes were introduced quickly, the government did not have the bandwidth to make sure help reached all groups in a timely fashion.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Failure to grasp UK inflation drivers will continue to keep prices high

Inflation is falling, but not as fast as everyone hoped.The Bank of England expected a bigger drop and so did the majority of City analysts.A fall in the consumer prices index (CPI) to 8.7% in April from 10.1% in March put an end to the UK's long period of double-digit price rises, but was not the 8.2% analysts forecast.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Jaguar Land Rover offered 500m in subsidies to build battery plant in UK

The government has offered Jaguar Land Rover 500m in subsidies in an effort to persuade the carmaker to build a new electric battery plant in the UK.The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has offered a package of incentives to entice JLR, days after three global carmakers warned that Brexit rules on where parts were sourced threatened the future of the British automotive industry.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Monthly rent outside London passes 1,000 for first time, figures show

The average new monthly rent outside London has passed 1,000 for the first time, figures show, with tenants in Great Britain now typically paying 25% more than they were at the start of the Covid pandemic.The estate agent Hamptons, which issued the data, warned that the rate of rent rises was unlikely to slow considerably due to the number of landlords looking to pass on their rising costs and this may force some tenants to downsize or relocate to a cheaper area.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Rail passengers face weekend of strike disruption across Britain

Rail services across Britain will be severely disrupted on Friday as train drivers stage the first of the latest wave of planned strikes in a long-running pay dispute.Members of the drivers' union Aslef will strike for 24 hours across virtually all the big passenger operators in England, stopping some major intercity and commuter services entirely.
www.theguardian.com
11 months ago
UK politics

Why the UK rail strike truce failed to foster a lasting peace

Of all the low moments in the long-running rail dispute, few have possibly been as dispiriting as the last 24 hours.After Network Rail and the RMT union reached agreement on a two-year deal in March, long-suffering passengers and workers might have assumed the truce was also leading to a wider settlement between train firms and their staff.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
Gender

More women on UK boards but number of female bosses flatlines

UK businesses have improved female representation on their boards, research shows, but two-fifths of FTSE 100 firms still do not have a woman in one of their top four executive roles.The proportion of women on the boards of the 585 FTSE all-share listed companies has risen over the past year from 36% to 40%, according to the analysis of Companies House data.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Royal Mail chief expected to step down within weeks

Royal Mail boss Simon Thompson is expected to step down within weeks, after a turbulent two-year stint at the helm.The chief executive has been accused by unions of inflaming the bitter industrial dispute, and his credibility was put in question after a Commons select committee appearance.According to Sky News, his exit could be announced as early as this week, with some members of the board of International Distributions Services (IDS), the parent of Royal Mail, having concluded that new leadership is needed.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
Media industry

Mirror publisher blames revenue decline on Facebook changes

The publisher of the Mirror, Express and Daily Star newspapers has blamed changes in the way Facebook displays news content for a slide in its digital revenues.Reach, which also owns hundreds of regional newspapers including the Birmingham Mail, Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News, reported a fall in group revenue of almost 6% for the four months to 23 April.
www.theguardian.com
11 months ago
Spain news

More fruit and veg shortages to come as weather in UK and Spain hits crops

Shoppers have been warned they face more fruit and vegetable shortages, as temperatures in southern Spain soar to unprecedented levels while the UK growing season gets off to a late start because of cold, overcast weather.Temperatures were expected to reach a new April record of 39C (102F) in parts of Andalucia on Friday amid a long-lasting drought that has affected the production of vegetables in Spain.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
UK politics

Heathrow security staff cancel first of planned summer weekend strikes

The first of a series of summer weekend strikes by security staff at Heathrow airport has been called off, raising hopes the dispute may be ended before peak season.Unite said the strike by about 2,000 of its members on 24-25 June would not now go ahead due to an improved pay offer from Heathrow.The union will ballot its members on the latest offer, having already rejected a deal worth about 10%.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
UK politics

North Sea oil and gas industry offered get-out' clause on windfall tax

Jeremy Hunt has handed the North Sea oil and gas industry a get-out clause from the windfall tax on fossil fuel profits if wholesale energy market prices fall back to normal levels.The Treasury set out the change before a meeting with oil companies including Equinor, BP, Shell and Total in Aberdeen on Friday afternoon, after months of warnings from the North Sea industry that the windfall tax would threaten investment and jobs.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Shops will close': soaring cost of potatoes batters British chippies

Whether it's fried, baked or mashed, potatoes have traditionally been a low-cost staple food in the UK but not any more.A surge in costs is clobbering high street chippies, while in the supermarket, oven chips and the once humble baking potato are casualties of soaring grocery prices.Some fish and chip shops could opt to close after the cost of 25kg sacks more than doubled to 20, said Andrew Crook, who speaks for the industry as the president of the National Federation of Fish Friers.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

RMT to hold rail strike across England on eve of FA Cup final

The RMT has announced another rail strike on Friday 2 June, the day before the men's FA Cup final, warning that the government cannot wish the dispute away.About 20,000 RMT members working for the 14 major rail companies in England will strike for 24 hours in the long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

One in five workers will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 IFS

One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government's record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people one in five of all taxpayers who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury's attempt to reduce the UK's budget deficit.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
Europe politics

European economy expected to grow faster than forecast, says EU

Europe's economy is expected to grow faster than previously thought this year and next, despite high inflation and rising interest rates, according to the European Commission.The commission said the EU's 27 members would grow at an average of 1% in 2023, up from a previous estimate of 0.8%.It nudged its forecast for growth in 2024 to 1.7% from 1.6%.
www.nytimes.com
9 months ago
Television

The Big Number: 13

Marie SolisReporting on the Business news of the week It's the mythical unlucky number, and for Chris Licht, the former head of CNN, perhaps especially so: It's the number of months he lasted in the top role before being fired on Wednesday.Here's what led up to his ouster CNN's corporate head, David Zaslav (pictured here), handpicked Licht to run CNN last spring as part of an overhaul of the network, which he thought had veered into left-leaning advocacy.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
UK politics

UK's biggest banks urged to increase measly' savings rates

Britain's biggest banks need to up their game and stop fobbing off millions of loyal customers with measly savings rates, according to the head of an influential committee of MPs.MPs on the Commons Treasury committee have been investigating why, when the Bank of England interest rate has increased 12 times in a row to 4.5%, many leading banks are still offering easy access savings accounts paying less than 1%, and in some cases as little as 0.25%.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
UK politics

Ladbrokes owner funded dishonest' lobbying against gambling reforms

The owner of Ladbrokes, Entain, has been accused of dishonest lobbying after it funded an operation mobilising people to complain to their MP about proposals to reform gambling laws.The government last month unveiled plans for tighter regulation, including measures it said would make gambling safer but would also reduce revenue for brands such as Coral and PartyCasino, owned by Entain.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
Gender

Women's private pensions worth 35% less than men's in Great Britain

Women's private pension pots in Great Britain are typically worth 35% less than those of their male colleagues by the time they reach 55, according to the first major government study into what has been termed the great gender pension chasm.Having analysed the data for both sexes between 2018 and 2020, government researchers concluded that, on average, for every 100 accumulated in men's private pensions, women have just 65.
www.theguardian.com
9 months ago
EU data protection

Capita cyber-attack: 90 organisations report data breaches

1. Cyber-attacks can have serious implications for businesses, both in terms of customer data breaches and financial losses.
2. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has the power to investigate and impose fines for data breaches, and has recently fined Capita £60,
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
Europe politics

Facebook owner Meta fined 1.2bn for mishandling user information

Facebook owner Meta has been fined a record 1.2bn (1bn) and ordered to suspend the transfer of data from Facebook users in the EU to the US.The fine imposed by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), which regulates Meta across the EU, is a record for a breach of the bloc's general data protection regulation.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
London

Asda plans 5% pay cut for about 7,000 workers just outside London

Asda is planning to cut pay for about 7,000 workers in stores close to London by about 5% despite the surge in the cost of living in Britain.The UK's third biggest supermarket, which was bought by the billionaire Issa brothers and private equity firm TDR Capital in 2020, said it was in consultation about removing a 60p an hour supplement from workers at 39 stores sited outside the M25 but near to the capital.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency trading in UK should be regulated as form of gambling, say MPs

UK authorities should regulate cryptocurrency trading as a form of gambling rather than a financial service, parliament's Treasury committee has said after a fresh inquiry into the industry.The government must avoid wasting more taxpayer funds promoting tech innovations such as digital tokens, without demonstrating the clear benefits to the public, MPs said in a report published on Wednesday.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
London food

Losses at Gordon Ramsay restaurants narrow sharply after Covid rules eased

The restaurant group owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay narrowed losses to 1m last year as sales more than tripled after Covid restrictions were eased.Ramsay has an interest in 50 restaurants including 36 directly operated outlets in the UK, such as the Michelin-starred Petrus and the Savoy Grill, as well as 14 licensed venues overseas.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
Marketing

ITV reveals slump in ad revenues and predicts tougher times ahead

ITV has reported a 10% drop in advertising revenues in the first three months of this year, and said it expected the situation to get even tougher in the coming months.The company warned of a challenging outlook for ad spending overall as businesses cut back their marketing budgets during an economic slowdown and cost of living crisis.
www.theguardian.com
10 months ago
London

People like to come and browse': Heal's revamps its flagship store to lure back shoppers

Desks for a new generation of professional home workers, king-size beds and plush velvet sofas: the upmarket furniture retailer Heal's has revamped its original London store along with its range to try to win over shoppers amid stubbornly high inflation and a cost of living crisis.The company has been selling furniture to well-heeled residents of the capital from the same shop on Tottenham Court Road since 1840, long outliving many of its rivals.
www.theguardian.com
11 months ago
Spain news

Eurozone economy avoids recession by a whisker'

The eurozone has defied predictions that the Ukraine war would plunge it into recession after a warm winter blunted the impact of higher energy prices.Data from Eurostat the EU's statistical agency showed that growth in the 20 countries using the single currency stood at 0.1% in the first three months of 2023.
Yahoo Finance
11 months ago
Artificial intelligence

Mark Zuckerberg says AI boosts monetization by 30% on Instagram, 40% on Facebook

Meta ( META) stock hit a new 52-week high on Thursday as investors celebrated the company's return to revenue growth.One of the key drivers: artificial intelligence.Further integration of A.I.helped drive Meta's first revenue increase in three quarters, the company said on Wednesday.Reels monetization is up over 30% on Instagram and over 40% on Facebook on a quarterly basis as A.I. plays a larger role in the platforms.
www.theguardian.com
11 months ago
UK politics

Rail strikes: train drivers' union names three more dates in May and June

Train drivers' union Aslef has announced three more days of rail strikes in May and June, dashing hopes that the long running dispute could be coming to an end.Drivers at England's government-contracted train operating companies will stage three separate 24-hour strikes after the union rejected what it called a risible 4% pay offer.
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