The UK property market’s secret north-south divide: It takes three times as long to sell your house in London’s Kensington or Mayfair than in Carlisle or Glasgow November 23, 2015 Selling a house in London? Good luck: it’s likely to take you three times as long as the average house sale in northern Carlisle, according to new figures revealing a different kind of north-south divide in the UK’s property market. House sellers in Carlisle, Cumbria, can expect to seal the deal after just six viewings. [...]
House of Lords select committee questions Google over attitude towards competition November 23, 2015 Representatives from Google were questioned today by a House of Lords select committee, including about whether the technology giant’s search engine market prominence gave it an unfair level of control over the access of online content. Adam Cohen, head of competition and economy policy for EMEA at Google, and Jon Steinberg, external relations manager, EMEA, were giving [...]
Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria and Lithuania budget plans criticised as Eurogroup stresses flexibility in the wake of the migrant crisis November 23, 2015 Eurozone finance ministers piled pressure on their counterparts in Austria, Lithuania, Italy, Spain and Portugal last night as they were criticised for their spending plans. At a meeting in Brussels the 19-strong Eurogroup backed the European Commissions recent analysis of these countries hitting their budget targets. “For these countries more work needs to be done,” [...]
Black Friday 2015 shoppers beware: Cybercrime and online fraud cost the UK over £16m last Christmas – and Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the worst days of all November 23, 2015 Christmas spirit? Forget it: When it comes to cybercrime, online fraudsters are the biggest Grinches of all. Online shopping fraud over the holiday season soared by 42 per cent last year, with £16.4m lost to cyber criminals according to statistics from the City of London police compiled by non-profit organisations Get Safe Online and Action [...]
Parabis Group administrators appointed, as business broken up and sold on November 23, 2015 AlixPartners has today revealed that three of its directors have been appointed joint administrators for legal services provider Parabis Group. Peter Saville, one of the administrators, said: “Despite the receipt of further support from its financial stakeholders, the Group was unable to resolve its cash flow issues and sought to market itself for sale. As [...]
John Lewis, Amazon & Lush: UK shoppers’ favourite retailers revealed as Black Friday 2015 draws near November 23, 2015 Amazon, John Lewis and Lush are UK shoppers’ favourite retailers, according to a new ranking showing that customer service has beat out price to become our top priority when shopping. Amazon held the top spot in the hearts of the 10,000 shoppers surveyed by OC&C for its annual Retail Propositions Index, with an approval rating [...]
Online shoppers abandon Tesco and Asda as website traffic drops at Britain’s biggest grocers November 23, 2015 Tesco and Asda have seen a sharp drop in traffic to their websites over the last year, new research shows, in a sign that supermarkets are facing fierce competition online as well as on the shop floor. Visits to Tesco’s website through desktop computers and mobile devices dropped to 35m in November from 49m the [...]
Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Babcock share prices rise on David Cameron’s Defence Review and £12bn spending increase November 23, 2015 The shares of big name defence firms have surged in the wake of an announcement by David Cameron that government spending on new equipment will increase by £12bn to deal with "diverse" threats. Rolls-Royce has closed up 3.08 per cent, the FTSE's biggest riser while BAE Systems climbed 1.02 per cent and Babcock closed 1.62 per cent higher. The Prime Minster [...]
Three-quarters of top judges are privately educated, compared to seven per cent of the population overall, raising concerns over diversity and social mobility in the legal sector November 23, 2015 Three-quarters (74 per cent) of top judges, defined as those who sit on the High Court and the Court of Appeal, received a private education, compared to just seven per cent of the UK population overall. A report by the Sutton Trust and PRIME – an alliance of more than 80 UK law firms and [...]
European Stability Mechanism approves €2bn Greek bailout slice November 23, 2015 The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Eurozone-run agency that manages the Eurozone's bailouts, has put the final touches on the deal that will grant €2bn (£1.4bn) to Greece. The €2bn is the second slice of an initial €16bn portion of Greece's bailout approved in August 2015 after months of brutal negotiations between the country and [...]