Supermarket wars: Lidl and Aldi gain ground on Tesco as bargain-hunting Brits battle grocery inflation March 28, 2023 Lidl is the UK’s fastest growing supermarket as bargain-hunting Brits turn to the discount grocer during the cost of living crisis. With grocery inflation now at 15 per cent, new figures published by Kantar this morning show value outlets have seen an uptick in sales last month. Sales in the German supermarket Aldi rose 25.8 [...]
Budget: Why Jeremy Hunt needs you back at work to prevent a recession March 15, 2023 This was a budget for the workforce. It showed signs of sparking the supply side revolution that Liz Truss championed, but crashed hard in trying to get there too quickly. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) thinks so. It projects the government’s collective policies designed to boost the labour market will provide a 0.2 per [...]
FTSE 100 close: ASOS and Centrica pop to crystalise strong start to 2023 January 12, 2023 London’s FTSE 100 built on gains yesterday that propelled to its highest level since 2018 after a series of British bellwether retailers posted a decent set of results this morning and the owner of British Gas skyrocketed. The capital’s premier index closed up 0.89 per cent at 7,794.04 points, while the domestically-focused, mid-cap FTSE 250 [...]
Lost decade of growth leaves Brits nearly £9k worse off than French and Germans July 13, 2022 Anaemic economic growth since the financial crisis has left the average UK household £8,800 worse off compared to families in Germany and France and other comparable countries, reveals a study published today. Widening income gaps between Britain’s poorest and richest, compounded by flatlining productivity growth since the financial crisis, has led to families missing out [...]
Tesco joins petrol pump war with 6.5p cut to unleaded after Asda’s 9p drop August 2, 2022 Tesco has slashed its prices for petrol to help customers manage with the cost of living crisis. The supermarket giant said the price of unleaded is set to fall by 6.5p and diesel by 4.5p, as many consumers and businesses continue to struggle with rising energy costs. “We know how tough rising fuel bills have [...]
Fuel duty expected to be cut as cost of living continues to spiral March 21, 2022 Fuel duty is expected to be cut by the Chancellor this week, as the cost of living crisis continues to spiral and onlookers call for political intervention. Soaring energy bills and inflation, as well as record high petrol prices, have significantly dampened consumer spending power amid the UK’s post-pandemic and Brexit recovery. Chancellor Rishi Sunak [...]
National Express revenue makes full pandemic recovery amid pent-up demand April 26, 2022 National Express’ revenue has made a full pandemic recovery, as pent-up demand and a domestic travel boom saw a greater take-up of coach travel last month. The group’s revenue has finally swung back to 2019 levels in the three months to 31 March, with last month’s earnings coming in ahead of pre-pandemic figures. While the [...]
Shock result as Paul Scully MP fails to make Tory mayoral candidate shortlist June 11, 2023 Conservative MP Paul Scully has failed to make it onto his party’s shortlist in the race to take on Sadiq Khan for mayor of London. The upset saw the minister for London – widely thought of as the likely Tory favourite – snubbed in favour of assembly member Susan Hall, former No 10 advisor Daniel [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Macron gears up for the first hurdle of the election April 5, 2022 France will head to the first set of polls this Sunday, with Emmanuel Macron widely expected to be re-elected – but not without a challenge. He currently sits with a projected 27 per cent lead, followed by right-wing Marine Le Pen who has around 20 per cent, hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon with 15 per cent and [...]
The Notebook: Kokou Agbo-Bloua on fashionomics, inflation musings and our broken food system July 25, 2023 Where interesting people say interesting things. Today it’s Kokou Agbo-Bloua, global head of economics, cross-asset & quant research and UK head of research at Societe Generale Fashionomics: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Since the dawn of time, clothing has been an important part of our human experience. We lost our fur at least [...]