Thursday newspaper round-up: Brexit, RBS, Sports Direct, Vodafone
Theresa May’s Brexit plans have been dealt a blow after the Democratic Unionist Party backed a rival plan drawn up by Tory rebels to allow the UK to leave the EU's single market and customs union without a hard border in Ireland. The European Research Group published a paper calling for equivalence of UK and EU regulations and conformity assessment for all agricultural goods on the island of Ireland. - Telegraph
Angela Smith, Labour’s leader in the Lords, hopes to use an audacious parliamentary manoeuvre to offer MPs the chance to strike out controversial amendments on the Irish backstop and the customs union, forced through by hardline Brexiters in July. The taxation (cross-border trade) bill, was amended at the behest of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group to outlaw a customs border in the Irish Sea, and force the government to legislate before it could join a customs union, among other issues. - Guardian
Royal Bank of Scotland could use up to £4 billion of surplus capital to pay out a special one-off dividend to shareholders, its chairman Sir Howard Davies told The Times yesterday. While his preferred choice was to use the spare cash to buy RBS shares from the government, Sir Howard said that the dividend, worth about 33p per share to investors, was an option if shareholders wanted it. - The Times
A leaderless world is sleepwalking towards a repeat of its near meltdown in late 2008 and early 2009 because it has failed to remedy the causes of the financial crash of a decade ago, former prime minister Gordon Brown has warned. Britain’s leader during the period when the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers put every major bank at risk, said that after a decade of stagnation the global economy was now moving into a decade of vulnerability. - Guardian
The Takeover Panel has been forced to intervene after a Sports Direct director caused confusion by saying the retailer has considered buying Debenhams – before insisting he did not intend to make the comment. The intervention by the City watchdog for corporate deals prompted Sports Direct to issue a formal statement confirming it did not plan to make a bid for the struggling department store chain for six months. - Guardian
New York has overtaken London as the number-one city in the world for finance, according to an influential study. The US city took the top spot in the Z/YEN, Global Financial Centres Index, which measures financial centres on a range of factors including business environment, infrastructure, skills and reputation. - Telegraph
Money flowing into the UK funds industry has hit a record high, despite the City of London losing its status as a top financial centre due to Brexit. Hopes are being pinned on Britain's money managers after a closely-watched study showed that Wall Street had overtaken London as a top financial centre for the first time since 2015 amid Brexit uncertainty. - Telegraph
Vodafone is moving ahead with its plans to connect homes in Milton Keynes with "gigafast" broadband, saying some parts of the city will have access to the service from October. The firm had been piloting the service over the summer, and said initially the "Vodafone Gigafast Broadband" will be available to around 3,700 homes, before being rolled out across the whole of Milton Keynes by 2020. - Telegraph
Treasury officials are “too young and inexperienced” to make good decisions about where best to spend taxpayers’ money, a think tank has claimed. The Institute for Government urged the Treasury to ditch its dependency on “generalists” and to professionalise staff, even if it meant raising pay. The average age of a Treasury official is 31 and one in four leaves the department every year, it noted. - The Times
The median US household income jumped last year to $61,400 – roughly matching what Americans were making before the great recession. The median income went up by 1.8% from 2016, the third year in a row it has increased, according to data released by the US Census Bureau on Wednesday. - Guardian
Businesses are failing to train up young workers from poor families, missing an opportunity to solve the skills crisis and to improve social mobility at the same time, an industry leader has warned. Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn said it is a “tragedy” that businesses and wider society are losing out as a result. - Telegraph
Beijing has suspended the acceptance of licence applications from American companies as a retaliatory measure in its escalating trade war with Washington. Jacob Parker, vice-president of China operations at the US-China Business Council, said that he had been told by cabinet-level Chinese officials that the measure would be in place “until the trajectory of the US-China relationship improves and stabilises”. - The Times
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has told Chris Grayling to “get off his backside” and strike a deal with the EU to avoid flights being grounded by a no-deal Brexit, in a swipe at the transport secretary’s overtures to individual countries. O’Leary, who has transformed the no-frills airline into Europe’s largest during his 25-year tenure, referred to Grayling’s efforts to convince 27 EU member states to prepare bespoke aviation deals with the UK. - Guardian
British Airways has been named as the most polluting transatlantic airline, amid concerns over its reliance on “inefficient” long-haul aircraft such as the jumbo jet. A study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) placed BA bottom out of 20 leading airlines, finding that the British flag carrier burnt more fuel per passenger than any of its competitors, and 22 per cent more than the industry average on busy flight routes between North America and Europe. - The Times
Jean-Claude Juncker has called on the European Union to champion the euro as a global currency to rival the dollar and demanded more powers for Brussels to flex its muscles on the world stage. In his annual flagship speech, the president of the European Commission also said EU governments should lose their individual veto over tax laws from Brussels. - Telegraph