Ashcroft is in clear after donor probe March 4, 2010 LORD Ashcroft was yesterday cleared of making illegal donations to the Tory party. The Electoral Commission said that £5.1m of donations made through one of Ashcroft’s firms were “legal and permissible”. Following a fourteen month investigation, the commission concluded that Bearwood Corporate Services was “carrying on business in the UK” – a key condition for [...]
Scottish & Southern cuts prices March 4, 2010 SCOTTISH and Southern Energy (SSE) became the second British energy supplier to cut gas prices, lowering household bills by between 4-9 per cent from 29 March, the utility said yesterday. Its planned pricing adjustments equates to a four per cent or £30 reduction in annual gas bills for standard credit or direct debit customers. Single [...]
London firms prepare for modest recruitment rise March 4, 2010 LONDON employers are not expecting to significantly increase headcount within the next three months, according to new research. Recruitment and outsourcing specialist Manpower found in its quarterly survey that London employers were looking at slow-paced recruitment growth of about two per cent. The survey, which speaks to 2,102 employers across the UK, found that companies [...]
Toyota quick fix may not have worked March 4, 2010 A FRESH wave of pain is threatening to submerge troubled carmaker Toyota after complaints its “quick fix” on faulty accelerators may have failed. At least 10 complaints have been lodged claiming the fault that led to the recall of more than nine milion cars worldwide was still present after being serviced. The US National Highway [...]
China Development Bank to review Barclays tie-up March 4, 2010 CHINA Development Bank (CDB), a former policy lender that has become a commercial bank, yesterday said it will review its strategic tie-up with Barclays, including its equity stake in the British bank. “We are now reviewing our ties with Barclays,” China Development Bank president Jiang Chaoliang said on the sidelines of the Chinese People’s Political [...]
Politicians have ignored the City for too long – it’s time to make your voice heard March 4, 2010 THE City is the engine room of the British economy, but you wouldn’t know it from the policies of the main political parties. Few politicians are interested in reflecting or listening to the concerns of the hundreds of thousands of people who work in London’s business and financial sectors. With an election just weeks away, [...]
UK housing recovery running out of steam March 4, 2010 THERE were yet further concerns yesterday over a double-dip downturn in the UK housing market when mortgage lender Halifax reported that house prices fell 1.5 per cent in February, the first decline in this index since last June. The survey, which comes just days after Nationwide reported that UK property prices fell one per cent, [...]
Wait-and-see MPC leaves monetary policy unchanged March 4, 2010 THERE was little surprise yesterday when the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) chose to keep interest rates on hold and the stock of asset purchases unchanged at £200bn. After it chose to pause its emergency quantitative easing policy last month, the Bank was widely expected to be in a wait-and-see mood this month. [...]
CITY VIEWS: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HOUSE PRICES IN 2010 ? March 4, 2010 ROBERT NUNN | RESOURCES GLOBAL “I think house prices will continue to go down. Demand is simply not there at the moment and inflation has gone up. If the Tories get in they’ll cut expenditure and the public sector. This leaves a huge portion of the population unable to buy and as a result prices [...]
Sluggish growth in the Eurozone March 4, 2010 It was confirmed yesterday that the 16-country eurozone only grew a paltry 0.1 per cent in the last three months of 2009, slower than the 0.3 per cent seen in the UK. Growth in the eurozone was driven by net exports with domestic demand still mired firmly in recession.
