Monday newspaper round-up: Greek election, IS hack, IAG takeover...
Greece sent shockwaves across Europe last night as anti-austerity party that has promised to end austerity and refuse to take orders from Berlin and Brussels triumphed in the country’s election, wrote The Times. Syriza, founded by ex-communists and led by the firebrand Alexis Tsipras, is the first of a new wave of anti-cutback parties on the Continent to take power since the financial crisis, the paper said.
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George Osborne has requested that ministers make dozens of interventions to fast-track fracking projects for oil in the UK as a “personal priority”, including the delivery of numerous “asks” from shale gas company Cuadrilla, according to The Guardian. The list of requests are laid out in a leaked letter to the chancellor’s cabinet colleagues. The Guardian said they include interventions in local planning, and offering public land for potential future drilling. Anti-fracking campaigners claim the letter reveals collusion with the industry, while Labour said it showed the government was an “unabashed cheerleader for fracking”.
The board of Aer Lingus is expected to recommend a €1.34bn cash bid from British Airways owner IAG, said the Financial Times, which would open a major public debate over the Irish government’s 25% stake in the nation’s flag carrier. The €2.50 a share cash takeover approach by IAG was its third bid in just over a month. The paper said people familiar with the matter said that the two sides could announce the start of formal talks to finalise a deal in the next few days, but warned that the situation remained fluid. IAG and Aer Lingus declined to comment.
Hackers claiming to be supporters of the Islamic State have hijacked the Malaysia Airlines website this morning, printed The Times. People trying to log on to the site are being greeted by the image of a tuxedo-wearing lizard, and read “Hacked by Lizard Squad -- Official Cyber Caliphate”, the paper said. It also carried the headline “404 - Plane Not Found”, a reference to the loss of MH370 last year with 239 people aboard.
Scotland-based Redeem, which recycles mobile phones and sells them on, mostly to consumers in emerging markets, has won a new three-year deal with O2, The Telegraph reported. Half a million people traded in their phones last year to the network operator, claiming back £30m, up by a fifth on 2013, the paper said.
The immigrant population of London has more than doubled since 1971 and is on course to account for over half of the capital’s residents within 16 years, analysis by The Times has revealed. The paper wrote that after a record spike predicted this year, the foreign-born population is predicted to rise to more than five million in 2031 as the capital’s total population tips over ten million.
David Cameron will reaffirm the Conservatives’ commitment to tax cuts in a speech on Monday, arguing that “after years of sacrifice, the British people deserve a reward”, wrote The Guardian. Depicting the general election as the nation’s “tax moment”, the prime minister will say that voters have to choose between a Conservative party committed to tax cuts worth £7bn and Labour and the Liberal Democrats, which he will describe as tax-rising “enemies of aspiration”, according to the paper.
The Times reported that more than eight million households will be £1,330 better off on average next year after benefiting from tax cuts, according to Treasury figures rushed out by the Liberal Democrats.The release of the official analysis by Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, was likened by one source to a “smash and grab raid” on the Tories’ election campaign, said the newspaper.