The Debate: Is university now a waste of money? Opinion As graduates struggle to find jobs, let alone those that are well paid, is university still worth the cost? We hear the case for and against.
Bingo giant takes hit from rising employment costs Leisure The country’s biggest bingo hall operator has hit out at the “significant” hikes to employment costs which dragged down its earnings despite surging Gen-Z interest in the pastime. Buzz Bingo, formerly Gala, blamed recent increases in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) and the minimum wage for its six per cent dip in underlying earnings, to [...]
Lord Walker calls for Healey to cut business taxes Politics Iceland boss Lord Richard Walker has urged Andy Burnham and John Healey to cut taxes for businesses and to stop focusing on the cost of living. Walker, who backed Labour at the last election, said Healey should ease costs for employers. The supermarket chief was the cost of living tsar under Sir Keir Starmer’s government [...]
Top business group urges Healey to cut NICs to ‘solve Neets crisis’ August 25, 2026 One of Britain’s most influential business bodies has urged Chancellor John Healey to cut taxes for employers at the Budget in order to “solve” the crisis facing Neets, who are young people not in employment, education or training. In a report published on Tuesday, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said Britain’s youth unemployment crisis [...]
Inflation leaps to 2.9 per cent in blow to Burnham August 19, 2026 Inflation has leaped up following the reset of the energy price cap, official data has revealed, marking the likely beginning of a long run of increases in price growth. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) put the consumer price index inflation reading at 2.9 per cent for the 12 months to July. The previous inflation [...]
Industry chief warns ‘resilience not enough’ for growth August 18, 2026 The boss of Britain’s largest industry body has warned the government that “resilience alone” would not boost growth in the UK, firing the starting gun on two months of policy lobbying ahead of a pivotal Autumn Budget. Writing exclusively for City AM, the boss of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has urged the government [...]
Public sector makes wage growth higher than expected August 18, 2026 Wage growth was higher than expected as pay offers in the public sector far outweighed growth in the private sector, new data has revealed. Official statistics have shown that wage growth, including bonuses, reached 4.1 per cent between April and June compared to a market forecast of four per cent. This was still lower than [...]
War and tax: How the UK economy could get knocked off course August 13, 2026 Labour ministers may have some reason to be cheerful about the UK economy’s performance. Torsten Bell, the pensions minister who has long desired top jobs in the Treasury, lambasted “gloomsters” shortly after official data revealed growth in the second quarter of the year was 0.4 per cent. Even Rachel Reeves, who has remained largely silent [...]
Burnham should go on a ‘cost of doing business’ tour August 11, 2026 An alarming note from one of the City’s top economists warns that October’s Budget could see taxes rise by almost the same amount as they did last year when Rachel Reeves cooked up £26bn worth of fresh hikes. Ruth Gregory, Deputy Chief UK Economist at Capital Economics, suggests that higher taxes “perhaps worth up to [...]
‘Cost of business crisis’ as government drives up overheads by 70 per cent in a decade August 11, 2026 British companies are facing a “cost of business crisis” as a string of controversial government policies have pushed up an average firm’s expenses by 70 per cent in a decade, one of the country’s largest industry bodies has found. A typical-mid-sized firm is now paying roughly £827,000 more a year than they were in 2016 [...]