Friday newspaper round-up: Bercow, Capita, LSE, Woodford
John Bercow has threatened Boris Johnson that he will be prepared to rip up the parliamentary rulebook to stop any illegal attempt by the prime minister to take the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October. In a direct warning to No 10, the Speaker of the House of Commons said he is prepared to allow “additional procedural creativity” if necessary to allow parliament to block Johnson from ignoring the law. – Guardian
Capita, the outsourcing company behind the London congestion charge and the BBC licence fee, is giving almost 6,000 UK workers a pay rise, offering staff the real living wage as a minimum from next April. The company said all of its 40,000 UK employees, from administrative staff to construction, health and call-centre workers, would be paid, at least, the independently verified real living wage. The real living wage is £10.55 an hour in London and £9 an hour across the rest of the UK. – Guardian
One of London Stock Exchange Group’s largest shareholders believes it is “now or never” for other suitors to make a rival offer to the shock £30bn bid from the Hong Kong bourse. The top ten shareholder said they would not be rushed into a decision over the surprise offer from Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), because they want to see whether it could spark a bidding war. – Telegraph
Investors backing Neil Woodford suffered a fresh setback last night when the investment trust he runs said it was writing down one of his unquoted investments by £36 million. Woodford Patient Capital Trust declined to identify the unlisted company that had disappointed because of “confidentiality obligations”, but said the writedown would wipe 4p from its net assets per share, which were previously 72.85p. – The Times
Tim Steiner and Jonathan Faiman went to nursery school together, but the future of Waitrose’s online business appears to have created a bitter divide between them. Mr Steiner, 49, and Mr Faiman, 50, grew up in north London and went on to work on the bond trading desk at Goldman Sachs with Jason Gissing, 48. The trio launched Ocado, the online grocery retailer, almost 20 years ago. – The Times