House of Lords allowances surge in ‘rolling expenses scandal’ February 23, 2020 Expenses and allowances claimed by peers in the House of Lords rose by one-third last year in what has been described as a “rolling expenses scandal”. Analysis, by the Sunday Times, found that peers’ daily attendance allowance and expenses rose by 29 per cent to £23m in the year to March 2019. The analysis found [...]
Murdoch’s media empire hit by phone hacking charges as Sun suffers hefty loss February 23, 2020 Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspapers have posted another year of deep losses after the publisher was forced to pay out millions of pounds to settle phone hacking cases. News Group Newspapers (NGN), which publishes the Sun and the Sun on Sunday, reported a pre-tax loss of £68m in the year to the end of June 2019. [...]
Mayoral candidate Siobhan Benita wants to ‘Love London Better’ February 22, 2020 For a brief moment in 2019, the Liberal Democrats looked a serious chance of upending Britain’s two-party political hegemony. After years in the political wilderness, the party rode a wave of Brexit uncertainty and parliamentary division to top Westminster YouGov polling in late May, eliciting cries of jubilation from long suffering Lib Dem supporters. It’s [...]
HMRC sets up secret unit to probe inheritance tax avoidance February 22, 2020 HM Revenue & Customs has implemented a secret unit to investigate the use of family investment companies (FIC) by the very wealthy to avoid paying inheritance tax. It puts family offices with a combined total of more than $1tn in assets within its sights. The tax authority set up the team in April last year [...]
JPMorgan Chase set to launch UK digital consumer bank this year February 22, 2020 JPMorgan Chase is close to launching a range of personal banking products in the UK. The world’s biggest lender by market capitalisation is set to introduce savings and loans products using the Chase brand in the next few months, according to Sky News. The New York-listed bank is due to hold an investor day next [...]
Waitrose ranked best UK supermarket in annual Which survey February 22, 2020 Waitrose has been ranked as the best supermarket in the UK in an annual satisfaction survey conducted by Which. The chain, which is owned by John Lewis, hit five stars on most categories, but did come joint-last in value for money. Budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl continue to be ranked highest in terms of value. [...]
Coronavirus: Two dead in Italy while cases in South Korea more than double February 22, 2020 The number of coronavirus cases outside of China continues to grow as the virus claimed its first two lives in Italy on Saturday. In South Korea the number of confirmed cases has more than doubled in one day bringing the total to 433. World Health Organisation chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said the spread outside [...]
Wells Fargo agrees $3bn settlement in fake accounts investigation February 22, 2020 Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $3bn (£2.3bn) to settle an investigation by the US government into its fraudulent sales practices. The US bank admitted to opening millions of fake customer accounts as well as wrongly collecting millions of dollars in fees, misusing customer information and harming the credit rating of customers. It brings to [...]
Brexit: Blue passports to return from March 2020 February 22, 2020 British passports will return to their original blue colour for the first time since 1988 from next month, when the UK government will issue the first blue passports since the Brexit vote. The first blue passports will be issued from early March and from mid-2020 all new passports issued to Brits will be blue. The [...]
Royal Mail to raise price of stamps from 23 March February 21, 2020 The Royal Mail will raise the prices of its stamp from 23 March as the former postal monopoly continues to struggle against a “challenging business environment”. A first class stamp will increase by 6p to 76p, while the price of a second class stamp will increase by 4p to 65p. The postal service said that [...]