Everything revealed in the Autumn Statement December 5, 2013 New cringeworthy slogans "Responsible recovery" and "fixing the roof while the sun is shining" have become popular with chancellor George Osborne's speechwriters. "Hardworking families" also got a mention. OBR growth estimates are up 2013: 1.4 per cent, up from 0.6 per cent in March2014: 2.4 per cent, up from 1.8 per cent in March2015: 2.2 [...]
Largest upwards revision to UK growth forecasts for 14 years December 5, 2013 As expected the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has revised up its growth estimates. The 2013 GDP growth forecast has been revised up from 0.6 per cent to 1.4 per cent.The 2014 GDP growth forecast has been revised up from 1.8 per cent to 2.4 per cent. Chancellor George Osborne says these are the highest [...]
Osborne is using a brand new (and horrible) slogan December 5, 2013 We've heard it a couple of times already at the Autumn Statement – "Responsible recovery". It's a new addition to the arsenal of cringeworthy (and probably extensively focus grouped) slogans including "hardworking people" and "alarm clock Britain". Didn't take long for Chancellor George Osborne to also utter the critical "hardworking families" line.
The 10 best selling cars in the UK December 5, 2013 Car registrations jumped by a whopping seven per cent in November, to 159,581 units – the month's best performance since 2004, according to new SMMT data. That brings the total registered to date up to 2,111,819 – up 9.9 per cent and already ahead of 2012's full year registrations of 2,044,609. "Motorists have bought more [...]
These three huge events could overshadow Osborne’s Autumn statement December 5, 2013 While investor and media attention will hang on what chancellor George Osborne will unveil at today's Autumn statement – we're not expecting anything significant. We'll probably see some token giveaways, and ever more complexity added to our tax regime in the form of hikes. The composition of measures that Osborne selects will be telling, but [...]
Hewlett-Packard to axe 1,100 UK staff December 4, 2013 Hewlett-Packard is to cut 1,124 jobs at Bracknell, Sheffield and Warrington at the start of 2014, according to union Unite. The downsizing will reportedly also affect staff who work from home. The union says that HP is a "long-term addict to a culture of job cuts".
There’s finally a good reason to take a selfie December 4, 2013 Passwords get forgotten and are easily discovered, fingerprint recognition won't work if your hands are sweaty, and you might not want to get your hands out to unlock your phone in the cold. So why not have another later of protection, and keep your data safe with a selfie password? For the uninitiated, that's a [...]
Are you a Three customer? You can now use your data and minutes in the US and these three other countries December 4, 2013 If you're a Three mobile customer you're already able to use your data and minutes in seven destinations with no extra charge – the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong, Australia, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark. Now you'll be able to use them in four new areas – the USA, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Macau. That brings [...]
The UK’s service sector is still outshining the rest of Europe December 4, 2013 New data from Markit shows that the service sector activity is continuing to swell in November. New business activity in particular is seeing record highs. It's now the fifth successive month that the purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the sector is at 60 or above. Any number above 50 implies expansion – readings this high [...]
This morning’s data shows how divergent an economic “union” the Eurozone is December 4, 2013 The Eurozone shares a common currency. That's about all it shares, as illustrated nicely by this morning's Markit purchasing managers' index (PMI) figures. November's service sector activity across the currency bloc is all over the place. Germany's is growing at a tremendous pace, with a headline PMI of 55.7 (any number above 50 implies expansion), [...]
