Lydiate voted top player March 22, 2012 RUGBY UNION: Wales flanker Dan Lydiate has been named player of the tournament for the Six Nations. Lydiate, who helped his country complete the Grand Slam on Saturday, pipped Ireland fly-half Jonathan Sexton and Italy captain Sergio Parisse. Meanwhile, Ireland hooker Jerry Flannery has retired after failing to recover from a back injury.
50P tax rate goes at last March 22, 2012 GEORGE Osborne yesterday announced he was scrapping the 50p rate as he unveiled a raft of tax cuts for individuals and businesses – but he decided to stage a raid on pensioners, banks, buyers of £2m properties and other groups to fund his headline grabbing measures. In what he described as a Budget that “unashamedly [...]
What was in Osborne’s red box: our quick summary March 22, 2012 THE ECONOMY/PUBLIC FINANCES The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts that UK GDP will grow by around 0.8 per cent this year, the same rate as in 2011, up from its earlier forecast of 0.7 per cent. The beneficial effects of falling inflation are expected to be offset by uncertainty over the Eurozone and tighter [...]
Good tax cuts drowned out by a series of silly errors March 21, 2012 SOMEBODY like me – a believer in lower taxes and less government intervention – ought to love this Budget. I certainly like the fact that the top rate of tax will fall by five percentage points (even if this will only happen in 13 months’ time), and that corporation tax is being cut to 24 [...]
Handbags at dawn: George declares war March 21, 2012 AT SOME point during his Budget response yesterday, Ed Miliband inquired as to “what planet the chancellor is on”. It turns out that George is on a planet where it’s surprising when the mob goes crazy over policies that cut taxes on rich people, steal candy from babies and go to war with Gillian Duffies. [...]
Politicking Osborne falls into a granny trap March 21, 2012 AS always with George Osborne, yesterday’s Budget was first and foremost about politics. Having spent years on the wrong side of Gordon Brown’s famous dividing lines, the current chancellor has become pretty adept at drawing his own. First, there was the business-friendly cut in the headline rate of corporation tax. Labour, you see, has a huge [...]
Game over as group calls in administrator March 21, 2012 GAME Group is set to go into administration after the crisis-hit retailer admitted talks with stakeholders had stalled and that equity in the group was worthless. The video games retailer, which employs 10,000 staff, requested that its shares be suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange yesterday before filing its intention to appoint an [...]
Exane poaches highly-rated oil experts from BoA Merrill March 21, 2012 THE problems at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s (BAML) UK equities franchise deepened yesterday as it emerged that two key members of the group’s oils team were leaving. City A.M. has learned that the highly regarded analyst Alejandro Demichelis, co-head of the bank’s oil and gas team, and his sales trading colleague Andy Crispin are [...]
Surprise jump in deficit as welfare spending goes up March 21, 2012 BORROWING unexpectedly doubled in February, official figures showed yesterday, as tax revenues dropped and welfare spending rose sharply. The deficit on current spending hit £11.05bn last month and investment spending pushed net borrowing to £15.18bn – up from £8.88bn in the same month of 2011. Excluding the bank bailouts, the national debt now stands at [...]
Solvency II reforms clear major hurdle March 21, 2012 AN influential European Parliament committee has overwhelmingly backed a draft proposal for a new capital regime for insurers, including amendments that make the new rules more industry friendly. The 37-to-five vote makes it virtually certain the changes will survive in the final version of the so-called Solvency II regime, potentially saving insurers billions of euros, [...]
