Next’s share price falls as retailer reports disappointing sales, with warm weather deterring shoppers January 5, 2016 High street giant Next's share price fell this morning after it reported disappointing sales in the run up to Christmas, as the warm weather took its toll alongside growing competition online. The figures Sales over the 60 days to 24 December nudged up 0.4 per cent across the group, with Next Directory growing two per cent, [...]
Official figures are underestimating London’s population growth: Housing, transport and general infrastructure can’t keep up January 4, 2016 Official estimates for London's population growth are wide of the mark, a new report claims, with the capital requiring "major improvement" if it is going to meet the challenges of its swelling number of residents. Research by consultancy Atkins, in partnership with Oxford Economics and the Centre for London, claims that London will become home to 12m people by [...]
Permanent secretary to Treasury Sir Nicholas Macpherson to step down in March after 10 years in role January 4, 2016 Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, is stepping down after 10 years in the role. Macpherson, who has worked alongside three chancellors in that position, will step down on 31 March, the Treasury confirmed today. He was appointed permanent secretary in August 2005, following the departure of Sir Gus O’Donnell. Before that he [...]
Jeremy Corbyn attends Kings Cross protest over rail fare increases as 62 per cent of commuters say they’d support train nationalisation January 4, 2016 Jeremy Corbyn was among a number of people protesting against the increase in rail fares at Kings Cross this morning. The Labour leader paused for photos as the #RailRipOff campaign got under way, following the 1.1 per cent rail fare increase, which came into effect on 2 January. He was joined by representatives of union TSSA, [...]
Travel disruption on Southern, Southeastern, Thameslink and South West Trains as rail fares rise 1.1 per cent January 4, 2016 Signalling failures, engineering works and unspecified "problems" meant it was back to work (or rather, not) with a bump for commuters this morning, as a number of London trains were delayed and cancelled. South West Trains said a "problem" at the depot near Guildford meant some trains to and from London Waterloo were being cancelled "as [...]
Sports Direct clarifies property boss Michael Murray’s role after reports surface of close family ties and no experience January 4, 2016 Sports Direct has been forced to issue a clarification around the role of Michael Murray at the company, after reports surfaced that he was a relatively inexperienced boyfriend of one of Mike Ashley's daughters. The 26-year-old has been hired to head up Sports Direct's property empire – no small task given that the retailer has 470 [...]
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is going to build an AI butler to help around at home and work January 4, 2016 Mark Zuckerberg has announced one ambitious new year's resolution for 2016: he wants to build a butler robot. The Facebook founder announced late last night his plan for the year was to create "a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work", comparing it to the AI butler character Jarvis from Iron Man. "I'm [...]
Train fare increases 2016: Here’s how much your Tube, train and bus, Oyster and Travelcards are going up by in January December 31, 2015 Good news, commuters. The new year is going to usher in one of the lowest increases in Tube, train and bus fares in recent years. Travelcard season tickets will increase by less than one per cent, while pay as you go single bus fares will be frozen at £1.50. Those living in Stratford "and a number of [...]
UK weather: Storm Frank, Storm Eva and Storm Desmond bring record rain to UK in December December 31, 2015 Storms including Frank, Eva and Desmond have contributed to make one of the wettest Decembers on record, while temperatures have risen to smash previous highs for the time of year. Early provisional statistics from the Met Office suggest the UK mean temperature between 1 and 29 December was a record-breaking 8 °C which is 4.1 °C above the long-term average, beating [...]
BBC down: Broadcaster suffers major tech issue on New Year’s Eve as digital services go offline December 31, 2015 The BBC was this morning suffering from a major technical issue, with its digital services going down across the board. All of its websites and several of its digital services, including radio, were offline on the morning of New Year's Eve, with no word as to what was causing the outage. BBC sources said the site had [...]
