Lord Carter to quit the government June 11, 2009 COMMUNICATIONS minister Lord Carter is to quit the government, it emerged last night, in the latest high-profile resignation to hit Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Carter, who was made a peer following a brief spell coordinating strategy at Number 10, is thought to be planning a return to the private sector once he has published his [...]
King Cantona plays it for laughs in Ken Loach charmer June 11, 2009 FilmLOOKING FOR ERIC AS everyone knows, this film stars Eric Cantona, but the Eric of the title is not the famous French footballer. It is Eric Bishop, a Mancunian postie in his forties whose life is falling apart as he loses control of the two stepsons he is bringing up after his second wife left [...]
Lebedev eyes Independent June 11, 2009 RUSSIAN oligarch, and Evening Standard majority stakeholder, Alexander Lebedev is understood to be mulling a deal to buy The Independent and Independent on Sunday. Simon Kelner, the Independent titles’ managing director, and Lebedev have been in discussions over a possible deal for some months, but the process is said to have been accelerated this week. [...]
West Brom in eleventh hour creditor deal June 11, 2009 WEST Bromwich Building Society has avoided collapse by convincing creditors to swap the money they lent it into equity-style holdings, enabling it to boost its depleted capital levels. The mutual asked creditors to let it swap £182.5m of subordinated debt into “a new instrument, which will qualify as tier one capital”. If the debt swap [...]
City set for summer of discontent June 11, 2009 RMT boss Bob Crow threatened further industrial action last night, if London Underground (LU) refuses to meet union demands, as the City prepares itself for a summer of discontent. The City hit out at the union, saying further action would be a threat to the recession-hit capital. “The last thing the business community wants to [...]
ONE IN TEN HIT BY NEGATIVE EQUITY June 11, 2009 MORE than one in 10 British homeowners have been plunged into negative equity, with their property now worth less than the value of their mortgages, the Bank of England will warn today. Writing in its latest Quarterly Bulletin, the Bank’s analysts said that the collapse in prices since the peak of the housing market in [...]
From Russia with laughs June 11, 2009 TheatreTHE CHERRY ORCHARDThe Old VicTHIS new production by Sam Mendes is one half of a double bill under the title of The Bridge Project, conceived by Mendes and Old Vic artistic director Kevin Spacey to bring together an Anglo-American company touring two productions at once. The other show is Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. It might [...]
FIRST WOMEN GATHER AT GALA TALENT SHOW June 11, 2009 THERE’S nothing a bunch of hard-working businesswomen like better than listening to one of their own knowing how to send herself up in style. So it should come as no surprise that the star of this year’s First Women Awards, held last night in the luxurious surroundings of the Marriott Grosvenor Square, was Deloitte veteran [...]
CITY VIEWS: IS THE UK BEGINNING TO EMERGE FROM THE RECESSION? June 11, 2009 MARK WARBURTON 7FIFTYTWO SOLUTIONS“It’s a bit of a false dawn. We’re seeing an uplift but its just confidence coming from the first quarter of the year. There will still be uncertainty about jobs for instance. When the jobs market starts flowing again it will be a sign that things are improving.” ALLISTER AUGUSTIN ABN AMRO“When [...]
Bernanke and Paulson to be called to testify by Congress June 11, 2009 FEDERAL Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson will be asked to testify before the US Congress on their role in Bank of America’s (BoA) acquisition of Merrill Lynch. At a congressional hearing into the US government’s role in last year’s purchase, the Democratic chairman of a key House panel said Bernanke [...]
