MPs urge watchdog to probe BBC jobs cuts amid fears over local output August 10, 2020 A group of MPs has urged Ofcom to probe the BBC’s plans to cut hundreds of jobs in its local news division amid concerns the broadcaster is failing in its public service obligations. In a letter to Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes, the MPs called for an urgent response to the proposed cuts before [...]
Government urged to pay £5bn of retailers’ rents after lockdown August 10, 2020 Retail, hospitality and leisure firms have urged the government to pay up to £5bn to cover a proportion of rents for struggling businesses to avoid further high street job losses. Trade bodies, including the British Property Federation (BPF), British Retail Consortium (BRC) and UK Hospitality, have called on the government to launch a Property Bounceback [...]
Jeremy Corbyn trying to ‘wreck’ Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, says David Miliband August 10, 2020 Former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband has accused Jeremy Corbyn of trying to “wreck” Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership as the party descends into a factional civil war. Members of the far-left faction have been vocal over the past week in blaming party moderates for Labour’s 2017 election defeat, with Corbyn accusing officials of sabotaging the [...]
Whatsapp update to allow users to sync chats between devices August 10, 2020 Whatsapp is reportedly developing a new update that will allow users to sync chats between multiple devices at once. The Facebook-owned messaging app currently limits its service to one main device, meaning users can only be logged in on one device at a time and messages cannot be synced. Whatsapp Web also requires a phone [...]
L&G boss: We must ‘break down’ the fear of using public transport August 10, 2020 Legal & General chief executive Nigel Wilson said it is vital to “break down” the fear of using public transport to get workers back to the office. Wilson told City A.M.’s The City View podcast that public confidence in the safety of cities and public transport networks needs to be restored to get workers back [...]
HMRC triples number of tax probes into footballers August 10, 2020 The UK’s tax authority has tripled the number of investigations into professional footballers in the year to March as a part of a wider tax avoidance crackdown. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) opened 246 probes into professional footballers in the year to March 2020, which was an increase from 87 in the previous year. The [...]
A third of UK firms plan job cuts by October as furlough scheme ends August 10, 2020 As many as one in three UK firms plan to slash jobs by October as the government winds up its coronavirus furlough scheme, a new survey has revealed. Roughly 33 per cent of companies, charities and public sector bodies said they expected to make redundancies in the third quarter, according to a poll from the [...]
Capita extends £355m deal to manage congestion charge August 10, 2020 Outsourcing giant Capita today announced that it had extended three contracts with Transport for London (TfL) in a deal worth £355m. Under the contracts, Capita will continue to run London’s Congestion Charge, Low Emission Zone (LEZ) and Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) until October 2026. Shares in the firm rose three per cent this morning [...]
What is Decentralized Finance (DeFi)? August 10, 2020 Decentralized finance, also known as DeFi, is a fast-growing sector of the cryptocurrency industry. While cryptocurrency coins create a decentralized store of value separate from any government-backed fiat currency, DeFi creates decentralized financial instruments separate from traditional centralized institutions. Although still small when compared to the global economy, DeFi has seen rapid growth in 2020. [...]
The world may seem bleak right now, but Team Human can still have the last laugh August 10, 2020 “A day without laughter is a day wasted.” Words of wisdom from the twentieth century comic genius that was Charlie Chaplin. But whatever 2020 is ultimately remembered for, it seems set to be a year where very few of its days will have been characterised by cheerfulness. The epic challenge presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, [...]