Press Round-Up Short (Premium)
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Food price inflation, London Underground, Wise
The rapidly rising price of food including milk, margarine and crisps pushed August shop price inflation to the highest levels since 2008 as the war in Ukraine raised costs for farmers. Prices in shops rose by 5. 1%, a big increase from 4. 4% in July, as food producers passed on increases in the cost of fertiliser, wheat and vegetable oils, large amounts of which are produced in Ukraine and Russia, according to data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and market research firm NielsenIQ.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Hospitality, energy costs, recession, broadband
Thousands of pubs face closure without urgent government support to soften the blow from soaring energy bills, the beer industry has said, putting jobs at risk in a sector still battling to recover from the Covid pandemic. The bosses of companies owning almost half of the UK’s 47,000 pubs said tenants were already giving notice because they could not cope with energy bills, which are due to rise more than fivefold in some cases. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: VAT, Tesco, Iberdrola
The frontrunner for the Tory leadership is mulling a five percentage point across the board reduction to value added tax. The measure could save families £1,300 a year. According to the Sunday Telegraph, Liz Truss, had discussed the possibility with advisers but a final decision would not be taken until after the end of Conservative leadership contest on 5 September. An estimate by the Institute for Fiscal Studies had put the cost of a five point reduction in VAT at £3.
Friday newspaper round-up: Twitter, energy price cap, mortgage rates
Elon Musk may get access to Twitter data used in a 2021 audit of active users but other information the billionaire seeks in a bid to end his $44bn deal to buy the company were rejected as “absurdly broad”, a judge said on Thursday. Twitter must turn over data from the 9,000 accounts sampled in the fourth quarter as part of its process to estimate the number of spam accounts. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Energy bills, Royal Mail, HSBC
Physical and financial harm will be caused to millions of vulnerable families unless the government takes action to avert a winter catastrophe by cutting energy bills, leading economists have warned. In the run-up to the announcement of the new energy price cap tomorrow the Resolution Foundation thinktank said radical policies such as price freezes, solidarity taxes or lower social tariffs were needed to prevent the cost of living crisis worsening. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Minimum wage, energy crisis, Eurostar
The minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible to help millions of low-paid workers struggling amid the cost of living crisis, the TUC has said. In a move that opens a fresh policy gap between unions and Keir Starmer’s Labour party, the TUC has thrown its weight behind calls for a more ambitious legal floor on pay rates. The union body said the government needed to draw up plans to get wages rising as workers suffer the biggest hit to living standards on record.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: British Airways, Sony, Bulb
British Airways has announced another round of cancellations, axing 10,000 flights to and from Heathrow until the end of March next year as it adapts to the persistent staff shortages that have hit aviation. The carrier’s decision to shrink its short-haul timetable by 8% comes after the London airport extended the summer’s 100,000 daily cap on passenger numbers by another six weeks until the end of October and asked airlines to sell fewer flights. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Ineos, Felixstowe, Britishvolt
Chief executives of the UK’s 100 biggest companies have seen their pay jump by 39% to an average of £3. 4m, according to research by the High Pay Centre thinktank and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The median average pay of CEOs of companies in the FTSE 100 index rose to £3. 4m in 2021, compared with £2. 5m in 2020 during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when many bosses took a voluntary pay cut as they placed millions of employees on furlough. CEO pay has also surpassed the £3.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Sky-high electricity prices, Royal Mail, Olaf Scholz
The Chancellor is examining the options that it has at its disposal for bailing out businesses that might otherwise go bust next winter due to sky-high electricity prices. Government sources said Nadhim Zahawi believed that repurposing Covid schemes to help businesses should be among those options. Other options on the table include grants for small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as VAT and business rates holidays. Another source however said supports for SME's would be dependant on the next Prime Minister's appetite for increased borrowing.
Friday newspaper round-up: Water bosses, P&O Ferries, Apple
The annual bonuses paid to water company executives rose by 20% in 2021, despite most of the firms failing to meet sewage pollution targets. Figures show on average executives received £100,000 in one-off payments on top of their salaries, during a period in which foul water was being pumped for 2. 7m hours into England’s rivers and swimming spots. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Royal Mail, Merlin Entertainments, PwC
More than 23 million people in the UK used virtually no cash last year, while notes and coins will account for just 6% of payments within a decade, a report predicts. The findings, from the banking body UK Finance, are likely to prompt concern that millions of people could be left behind as the shift to a cashless society accelerates. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Tideway, cyclists, corporate insolvencies
The executive overseeing construction of London’s “super sewer” under the Thames has been awarded bonuses that doubled his pay to nearly £1m despite delays and cost over-runs on the flagship project. With executive pay in the water industry already under scrutiny, Tideway has revealed it paid its chief executive, Andy Mitchell, a total package of £928,000 for the year to 31 March 2022, up 7. 5% from £863,000 a year earlier. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Heathrow, Thungela Resources, Ted Baker
Water company bosses should be stripped of their multimillion-pound bonuses until they fix leaks and build reservoirs, politicians and campaigners have said as the country is gripped by drought. With parts of England the driest they have been since records began – after five months of below-average rainfall – some homes have run out of water, rivers have turned dry and farmers are facing crop failures. Many are outraged at the companies for failing to invest in reservoirs, fix leaks and stop sewage pollution from their pipes.
Monday newspaper round-up: Amazon, Saudi Aramco, Victoria
Amazon could be off the hook for tax in the UK for at least two more years after benefiting from reliefs brought in by Rishi Sunak during the pandemic, a report suggests. The research from the Fair Tax Foundation indicates that the US tech company claimed more than £800m in capital allowances – business expenses that can be offset against profits – in 2021, £500m more than in 2020. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Energy tariffs, Bank of England, IAG
Scottish Power and Eon have called for a special fund to be created that would allow customers' bills to be frozen for two years and to spread the cost of the natural gas price crisis over ten years or more. According to Scottish Power boss, Keith Anderson, "unprecedented times call for unprecedented action". UK families on default energy tariffs are staring at a surge in their annual bills from £1,971 to around £3,582 from 1 October when the new price cap set by Ofgem - and which is due to be announced on 26 August - is due to go into effect.
Friday newspaper round-up: Energy bills, John Lewis, EDF, HSBC
Ministers have been warned that energy bills will cost more than two month’s wages next year unless new help is given to households, as the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, told firms they must invest their “extraordinary” profits or face the threat of further taxation. The TUC ramped up calls for the government to cancel the October energy price cap rise, saying the cost of living crisis this winter was an “emergency of pandemic scale”. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Disney, Russian airlines, renters
Walt Disney edged past Netflix with a total of 221 million streaming subscribers at the end of the most recent quarter and announced it will launch a Disney+ option with advertising this December. In the just-ended quarter, Disney+ added 14. 4 million Disney+ customers, beating the consensus of 10 million expected by analysts polled by FactSet, as it released Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi and Marvel’s Ms Marvel. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Elon Musk, stealth raid, EDF
Elon Musk has sold $6. 9bn (£5. 7bn) worth of shares in Tesla after admitting that he could need the funds if he loses a legal battle with Twitter and is forced to buy the social media platform. The Tesla CEO walked away from a $44bn deal to buy Twitter in July but the company has launched a lawsuit demanding that he complete the deal. A trial will take place in Delaware in October. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Retailers, luxury rents, IBM
July could be the “lull before the storm” for retailers and consumers after the heatwave boosted sales of summer clothing, picnic treats and electric fans despite the intensifying cost of living crisis, experts have warned. Figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed a 2. 3% sales rise last month compared with a 6. 4% rise the year before. The latest BRC-KPMG sales monitor found the sales growth was largely caused by inflation, which is at more than 9%, and masked a larger drop in the number of items sold.
Monday newspaper round-up: City workers, energy bills, National Grid
City workers received double-digit wage rises while people on the lowest incomes were paid annual increases of just 1% in the last year, according to a study that illustrates the ability of better-paid workers to protect themselves from the cost of living crisis. The CEBR (Centre for Economics and Business Research) said workers in the banking and insurance sector had secured inflation-busting increases together with lawyers, accountants and professional services staff, mainly among those working in London’s financial district.