Osborne’s previous budget highlights: November 30, 2014 2010: THE EMERGENCY BUDGET The chancellor announced a range of deep cuts and freezes, including a two-year public sector pay freeze, housing benefit cap and a VAT increase to 20 per cent. The bank levy was introduced and corporation tax cut from 28 per cent to 24 per cent. 2011: THINGS ARE LOOKING TRICKY In [...]
Autumn Statement 2014: George Osborne could pull a small rabbit out of the hat November 30, 2014 STAMP DUTY George Osborne could choose to reform stamp duty on Wednesday – a crowd-pleasing policy that wouldn’t have to hit Treasury coffers hard. The most likely option for the chancellor would be to change the slab-like structure of the tax by only charging a higher rate on the amount spent over each threshold, rather [...]
Chancellor and shadow duel ahead of big day November 30, 2014 CHANCELLOR George Osborne will give his Autumn Statement this Wednesday. It is the last chance before the election for both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to sneak in any crowd-pleasing announcements they want to include in their election leaflets. It will be tough for Osborne to offer much cheer though, with public finances worse [...]
Swiss vote no on immigration curbs and gold November 30, 2014 SWISS voters yesterday rejected tighter immigration curbs, a minimum gold requirement for the central bank, and the abolishment of certain tax perks. The immigration curbs would have required the government to cut net immigration to 0.2 per cent of the population – yet 74 per cent of voters opposed the change. It was labelled the [...]
Golds bugs are swatted away November 30, 2014 THE RULE to force the Swiss central bank to hold 20 per cent of its assets in gold was proposed by the Swiss People’s Party. The SWP are sometimes known as “gold bugs” – people who believe gold to be one of the best stores of value and that money should be backed by a [...]
Altice moving into Portugal November 30, 2014 FRENCH multinational cable and telecoms group Altice has agreed to buy the Portuguese operations of Brazil’s Grupo Oi for about €7.4bn (£5.8bn), it said last night. “Altice announces that it has entered into an exclusivity agreement with Oi to agree the purchase of the Portuguese assets of Portugal Telecom,” said Altice. Altice beat out a [...]
BMW launching London car rental scheme November 30, 2014 BMW will launch a pay-as-you-go car hire scheme in London on Thursday where users can pay on their smartphone to drive an electric i3 or Mini in Hackney, Haringey and Islington. The scheme mirrors those already launched by BMW in San Francisco and Berlin.
Vodafone eyes up Tesco’s video service Blinkbox November 30, 2014 Vodafone is eyeing up Tesco’s video streaming service Blinkbox following its chief executive’s comments that the firm intends to push into home broadband and TV in the UK next year. While the mobile operator is looking at Blinkbox, along with a number of other interested parties, it is “nowhere near final terms on a deal,” [...]
Cargiant’s Old Oak Common plans threaten QPR stadium expansion November 30, 2014 Cargiant, the west London-based vehicle warehouse, is teaming up with the Livingstone brothers’ London & Regional Properties group on one of London’s largest redevelopment projects. The plan to regenerate the west London Old Oak Common site with 20,000 new homes is set to clash with rival plans from Queens Park Rangers (QPR) football club chairman [...]
Just half of Britain’s boardrooms expect the economy to improve November 30, 2014 CONFIDENCE in the economy in Britain’s boardrooms is collapsing, with a third of board members believing that global economic conditions will decline, up from just five per cent last year. Meanwhile just 45 per cent of board members expect the UK economy to improve over the next year, down from 80 per cent in December [...]