Asda, Boots and Primark among retailers urging officials to prioritise crime against shop staff August 11, 2022 High street staples including Tesco, Aldi and Primark have signed a letter urging police commissioners to prioritise tackling crimes against shop staff. Some 105 retailers have written to police and crime commissioners in England and Wales, calling for more help with increasing violence and anti-social behaviour towards workers. Reports of abuse towards shop staff have [...]
Recession fears outweigh tight supplies as oil market rally remains elusive August 9, 2022 Oil prices edged up today, even though both major benchmarks remain weighed down by fears of a drawn-out economic downturn.
Don’t rule out even more rate rises, Bank of England’s Ramsden warns August 9, 2022 The Bank of England will have to build on the biggest rate rise in nearly 30 years to sweep inflation out of the UK, a senior official at the monetary authority said today. Dave Ramsden, deputy governor at the Bank, told Reuters “it’s more likely than not that we will have to raise Bank Rate [...]
Calls grow to introduce energy bill ‘furlough’ and to fight cost of living crisis with ‘wartime mentality’ August 9, 2022 The UK Government should treat the cost-of-living crisis with a “wartime mentality” and issue an energy bill “furlough”, according to the Liberal Democrats. The party’s Scottish leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, made the call on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme on Tuesday. “Families right across Scotland, and indeed the UK, will be looking towards the coming [...]
High street names including Tesco and Greggs call on Tory leadership candidates to slash ‘shop tax’ August 9, 2022 A coalition of retailers including Morrisons, Greggs and Tesco, have called on the Conservative party leader candidates to slash business rates. The Retail Jobs Alliance has called on both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to pledge to cut business rates, which it said were “killing our high streets”. The group, consisting of Co-op, Greggs, Kingfisher, [...]
The Week in Review August 5, 2022 Bitcoin has been bouncing around a little over the last week, but always within its well established range around $22,000.
More than 3m UK households now live in fuel poverty as fears grow this number will double July 29, 2022 The chairwoman of the Committee on Fuel Poverty, Caroline Flint, said this morning close to 3.2m households are living in fuel poverty according to official statistics. “But those statistics were before these price increases happened and there are a number of organisations – National Energy Action and others – who are predicting it could double [...]
Hefty £1.5bn trading error legal charge erodes Barclays profits July 28, 2022 A £1.5bn legal charge for a trading error has eroded British bank Barclays’s profits, it announced today. Hefty litigation and regulatory costs to deal with selling too many financial products dealt a major blow to Barclays’s first half earnings. Pre-tax profits dropped by a quarter to £3.7bn in the six months to June, down from [...]
London markets jump ahead of expected big US Federal Reserve rate rise July 27, 2022 London markets shrugged off bets on the US Federal Reserve hiking rate steeply later today to jump during opening exchanges. The capital’s premier FTSE 100 index added 0.43 per cent to reach 7,337.93 points, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, increased 0.07 per [...]
IMF economy warning reverses FTSE 100 gains despite Unilever’s best efforts July 26, 2022 A bleak set of projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pegging UK growth as the worst in the G7 weighed on London markets today. The capital’s premier FTSE 100 index remained unchanged, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, dropped 1.18 per cent [...]