Iain McNicol, Labour’s general secretary, has stepped down February 24, 2018 Labour’s general secretary Iain McNicol has stepped down to “pursue new projects” on behalf of the party and the wider Labour movement, the party announced last night. McNicol, who was in charge of employing staff, running campaigns and organising conferences, thanked his staff for their work during a “tumultuous seven years”. “I will continue to [...]
Plastic tenner: You’ve got less than a week to spend your old paper £10 notes February 24, 2018 Time to get shopping: there’s now less than a week to go until the paper £10 note is no longer legal tender. The Bank of England has said the old tenner, which features Charles Darwin, will officially have its legal tender status withdrawn as of one minute before midnight on 1 March. The Bank earlier [...]
Easyjet’s billionaire founder has launched fintech platform Easymoney offering an Innovative Finance Isa February 24, 2018 Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the billionaire who founded low-cost airline Easyjet, has today launched a financial services business called Easymoney in the UK. Haji-Ioannou said the fintech platform’s first product, an Isa targeting a 4.05 per cent annual interest rate, that will “take on the big boys” and offer something new. “Financial services in the UK [...]
Dominic Chappell fined £87,000 for failing to give information about BHS pension schemes February 24, 2018 Dominic Chappell, the businessman who bought BHS for £1, has been ordered to pay a total of £87,000 for failing to hand over information to The Pensions Regulator (TPR). Chappell was sentenced yesterday after being found guilty of three charges of refusing to provide information about two of BHS’s pension schemes in January. District judge [...]
FTSE 100 closes lower as the pound sterling (GBP) rises and company results disappoint February 23, 2018 The UK’s blue-chip index closed slightly lower today as investors picked apart a string of companies’ full-year results. There were a couple of reasons for the FTSE’s decline today though, according to Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at Spreadex. “Primary among them was the fact sterling found itself 0.2 per cent higher against the dollar [...]
Opinion: London’s buyers market is a consequence of estate agents irresponsibly over-pricing properties February 23, 2018 The average London home is now sold at 4 per cent below its original asking price, according to the Hometrack Cities Index, up from just 0.5 per cent in 2014. Many are taking it as a sign that homeowners are desperately discounting their homes in an effort to sell, and that the capital has now [...]
Donald Trump announces the “largest ever” set of sanctions against North Korea February 23, 2018 US President Donald Trump has said the US will launch the “largest ever” package of sanctions against North Korea. During a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump said: “The Treasury Department will soon be taking new action to further cut off sources of revenue and fuel that the regime uses to fund [...]
What is fibre art and where you can see it in London? February 23, 2018 The boundary between art and craft is often blurred. Visit Collect at the Saatchi Gallery this weekend and there will be likely be wall hangings and fibre art in the mix. Curators and historians coined the term fibre art to describe the emerging work of artist-craftspeople after WWII. These mid-century weavers began to create non-functional [...]
Gender pay gap: Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) pays women 37 per cent less than men February 23, 2018 Royal Bank of Scotland Group may have announced its first annual profit in a decade this morning, but it wasn’t all good news for the state-backed lender. RBS said it pays women about 37 per cent less than men on average, largely due to men holding more senior roles. The bank announced that women held [...]
Kylie Jenner’s Snapchat shun shows “financial fragility” of social media February 23, 2018 US celebrity Kylie Jenner yesterday wiped around $1.3bn (£900m) off the market value of Snap. She did so by using another social media platform, namely Twitter. Snap shares fell around seven per cent after Jenner tweeted: “So does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.” While [...]