We’re failing to face up to the long-term crisis stirring within the NHS January 9, 2014 DO YOU think the NHS will be a significant factor at the next general election?” asked a BBC reporter last year, as we stood chatting. Never mind recent structural reforms, purely on the basis of our ageing population, it has to be. But whether there will be a realistic debate about what the NHS can [...]
Letters to the Editor – 10/01 – Pensions, Turkey’s woes, Best of Twitter January 9, 2014 Pensions [Re: Our pension system is broken. We must tear it up and start again, yesterday] Hindsight may be pointless, but if our pensions system had been ringfenced and taken out of the political arena years ago, we could have avoided the taxation devastation (taxing dividends from investment in funds), and perceived unfairness (higher rate [...]
Brutal slavery epic is destined for awards January 9, 2014 FILM 12 YEARS A SLAVE Cert 15 | By Simon Thomson Five Stars STEVE McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is a brilliant film, but its brutality makes for difficult viewing. That might be the point. Based on a memoir of the same name, the book’s subtitle offers a succinct, albeit bloodless, summary of the film: [...]
European banks face $28bn blow January 8, 2014 EUROPE’S biggest investment banks face more years of misery, a top analyst warned yesterday, with any return to normality in 2014 dashed as fines and legal bills of more than $28bn (£17bn) outpace planned cuts for years to come. The biggest six investment banks in Europe plan to shake up their businesses to cut out [...]
Rolls-Royce and Bentley drive home record global sales January 8, 2014 TWO of Britain’s luxury car brands enjoyed unprecedented global sales last year, driven by booming demand in the Middle East and parts of Asia. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars said today it delivered 3,630 vehicles in 2013, up 1.5 per cent to give the firm its fourth record-breaking year in a row. The UK has been “stable” [...]
Fed in no rush to taper but QE is losing force January 8, 2014 MOST of the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting board now believe that the positive effects of quantitative easing are diminishing as purchases continue, while insisting they were in no rush to speed up the new tapering programme. “A majority of participants judged that the marginal efficacy of (QE) purchases was likely declining as purchases continue,” according to [...]
Flying high: London’s Air Ambulance 25 years old today January 8, 2014 LONDON’S Air Ambulance service, which has been dispatched to more than 30,000 critically injured people in the capital, celebrates 25 years of service today. It is now seeking help to acquire a second helicopter and to recruit additional pilots and fire crew to extend its daylight flying hours in the summer months. “I urge people [...]
Growth creates drought of London job candidates January 8, 2014 A SKILLS squeeze is hitting London while companies across the UK are also finding it increasingly hard to find appropriate staff, a report by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG reveals today. As the economy recovers, employers are reporting a shortage of skilled candidates for vacancies. According to the survey, the drop in availability [...]
Our pension system is broken. We must tear it up and start again January 8, 2014 OUR pension system is broken. The public doesn’t save enough and is forced, for the most part, to rely on the state to finance all or a large part of its retirement years; and even though the government is being much more generous to pensioners than to any other group, and their benefits are now [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 9 January 2014 January 8, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES UK mobile services in Channel tunnel British Eurotunnel passengers will finally be able to use mobile phones under the sea following an agreement between the Channel tunnel operator and UK telecoms groups to provide the same sort of voice and data services that have been available to the French since 2012. China offers [...]
