Letters: Will someone let the dogs out to get the Covid fraudsters? February 15, 2022 [Re: HMRC inertia to claw back stolen furlough money to leave taxpayers with £4bn bill, Feb11] The report that taxpayers will be forced to shoulder a £4bn burden as a result of HMRC failing to collect the money is frankly preposterous. Every time this is brought up Rishi Sunak claims it was as a result [...]
Letters: Bailey and Boris need to talk February 10, 2022 [Re: Boris Johnson lashes out at Andrew Bailey: Do not show pay restraint, Feb 5] Boris Johnson’s vocal disagreement with Andrew Bailey last week was quite a startling development. The Prime Minister was right to distance himself from the comments made by Bailey, which lacked any empathy for the plight of people trying to make [...]
Letters: Don’t mask the variant problem February 9, 2022 [RE: Javid calms new variant fears as government announces NHS vaccine U-turn, Feb 1] The new variant is rightly being treated with great caution by the WHO. There is evidence that the sub variant could be more infectious than the earlier strain of Omicron, but it does not appear to lead to more hospitalisations. The recent [...]
Letters: No time to call fin on fintech February 8, 2022 [RE: UK fintech investment hits £27.5bn, a sevenfold increase in just twelve months, yesterday] The sevenfold increase in UK fintech investment shouldn’t come as a surprise. If anything, the turmoil of the past year has highlighted the glaring need to move away from pre-pandemic infrastructure and embrace technology as the UK builds more efficient trading [...]
Biden: US has taken ISIS leader “off the battlefield” in special forces operation February 3, 2022 US President Joe Biden has said American military forces have “taken off the battlefield” the leader of ISIS. Abu Ibrahim-al Hashimi al-Qurayshi was targeted in an operation in northwest Syria. “All Americans have returned safely from the operation. I will deliver remarks to the American people later this morning. May God protect our troops,” the [...]
Letters: A smart way to slice the cake February 3, 2022 [Re: Cake Box shares recovering after plummeting when blogger found accounts errors, Jan 22] Ever noticed a correlation between high profile “accounting errors” and the reality of a firm’s financial performance? Cake Box recently lost almost a fifth of its market value after “inconsistencies” in its annual report were spotted by a blogger, including an [...]
Behind the story: Boris Johnson and the false Savile claim against Starmer February 2, 2022 Boris Johnson, hardly a man for backing down, apologised on Monday for the allegations of parties in No10. The words had hardly escaped his mouth when he wound up in another scrap, this time after repeating a false claim – originally pedalled by right wing conspiracy memes – that Keir Starmer had failed to prosecute [...]
Rebel clubs’ lawsuit against Spanish football chiefs gets green light January 31, 2022 MADRID, Jan 31 (Reuters) – A civil lawsuit against LaLiga filed by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao over a €2bn private equity deal agreed by the administrators of elite Spanish football has been admitted by a Madrid court, the court said on Monday. The judge investigating the case called the parties to a hearing of [...]
Letters: Music to my ears – if I want it January 31, 2022 [Re: Competition watchdog shines spotlight on music streaming, Jan 28] Leah Montebello wrote last week that the UK competition watchdog will “look at the roles played by record labels and streaming platforms” and decide if the market leaders hold excessive power. Music streaming has been around in some form for decades and even before the [...]
Letter: Time to fund our fraud office January 27, 2022 [Re: UK is losing fight against fraud as anti-corruption watchdogs are ‘under-resourced’, Jan 25] This week’s report from Spotlight on Corruption correctly highlights the need for the Serious Fraud Office to be properly funded if we are going to see action in the fight against corruption. The Serious Fraud office was established with the primary [...]
