In a world first: New Zealand imposes lifetime tobacco ban on anybody born after 1 January 2009 December 13, 2022 New Zealand today passed into law a unique plan to phase out tobacco smoking by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes. The law says that tobacco cannot ever be sold to anybody born on or after January 1, 2009. It means the minimum age for buying cigarettes will keep going up and [...]
ITV scores best Saturday night ever as record 23m Brits witness England getting trashed by France December 13, 2022 England’s World Cup Quarter Final match was watched by a peak audience of 23m across ITV and ITVX on Saturday evening as the Three Lions were narrowly defeated by France. The game drew the biggest audience of the tournament and the highest peak on any channel this year, the biggest since the final of last [...]
City darling Hg Capital pockets £1.6bn as LSE-listed fund sells cloud business to German rival December 13, 2022 City investor Hg confirmed to City A.M. this morning the sale of Transporeon, a cloud-based transportation management software platform, to rival Trimble in a transaction valuing the business at around €1.88bn, or £1.62bn. Transporeon provides cloud-based logistics and transport management platform, enabling automation, real-time insights and collaboration on €48bn of annual freight. The sale marks the [...]
Energy bosses laughing all the way to the bank as Brits face record energy bills amid cold weather December 13, 2022 Millions of British households are expected to rake up record energy bills as have been warned their energy bills may skyrocket over the next few days as the cold weather continues to dominate the UK. It comes as the Met Office and UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued a severe cold weather alert for England [...]
Exclusive: Change in capital gains allowance causes mass exodus of landlords looking for quick sale December 11, 2022 THE reduction in Capital Gains Allowance is an “unwelcome blow” and has seen the number of landlords looking to sell up hit a 13-year high. Jeremy Hunt announced that the amount you can make from the sale of certain assets before paying tax will fall from £12,300 to £6,000 in April and then to £3,000 in [...]
Saturday Spotlight: Cost of living crisis is giving Buy Now Pay Later shot in the arm December 10, 2022 Buy Now Pay Later offerings may be controversial and much-criticised, it seems the cost of living crisis is giving the format a major boost. In fact, it has emerged that nearly half of all Brits are more likely to or are already using Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services compared to a year ago, according [...]
Government to spend tens of millions more to crack down hard on tax fraud December 9, 2022 The Autumn Statement revealed that the government will spend an additional £79m to fight tax fraud in the next five years, as HMRC is promised greater resources to tackle the tax gap. This marks a 27 per cent increase on the £292m investment announced at last year’s Budget. Through the extra £79m, HMRC expects to raise an [...]
Royal Family holds its breath as controversial Harry and Meghan Netflix series goes live December 8, 2022 The royal family are bracing themselves for bombshells from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix documentary as it streams across the world on Thursday morning, going live at 8am UK time. As the King and the Queen Consort breakfast in their own home and the Prince and Princess of Wales deal with the school [...]
Millions of Brits to pull back on pension to ease unprecedented ‘financial squeeze’ December 7, 2022 Close to one in four Brits with a pension are considering withdrawing money from it, or stopping paying in, or reducing the size of their contributions, to ease the pressure on their finances, according to a survey. More than two-fifths of 16 to 24-year-olds and just under two-fifths of 25 to 34-year-olds are likely to [...]
Five ‘shameful’ firms fined hundreds of thousands of pounds for preying on older Brits December 7, 2022 Five “shameful” companies have been fined a total of £435,000 for targeting people over 60 with nearly half a million unlawful marketing calls. The firms were “deliberately targeting” those signed up with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) – a register for those who do not want to receive marketing calls – to sell insurance for [...]
