Saga profits slump as travel business wanes September 19, 2019 Saga posted a sharp fall in profits during the first half of this year, as challenges in its travel business dragged down the over-50s tourism and insurance giant. Pre-tax profits at the firm tumbled year-on-year by more than 50 per cent from £109.7m to £52.8m. Read more: Lloyd’s of London bosses ‘devastated’ at company misconduct [...]
Cinema box office sales at half of pre-pandemic levels August 20, 2021 Cinema sales have been slashed in half compared to pre-pandemic levels despite the easing of lockdown restrictions a month ago. According to Comscore’s Box Office tracker, £65.7m was spent at the cinema in the four weeks after lockdown released on July 19. Cinema-goers paid £129m over the same period in 2019. The weekend after lockdown [...]
Boris Johnson set to ban on MPs acting as paid political consultants or lobbyists November 16, 2021 Boris Johnson is set to ban MPs from holding paid consultancy jobs that allow them to act as a “parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant” in the wake of the Owen Paterson sleaze scandal. The Prime Minister wrote to House of Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to say he wanted any outside job by MPs to [...]
Starmer tells Boris Johnson to ‘stop lying’ over lockdown-busting Downing Street parties January 11, 2022 Sir Keir Stamer has launched fresh attacks on Boris Johnson over his involvement in lockdown-breaking Downing Street parties, telling the Prime Minister to “stop lying to the British public”. The Labour leader said that Johnson’s “deflections and distractions are absurd” in the wake of fresh evidence he knew about illegal mass events in Downing Street [...]
Labour takes lead in the polls in wake of Tory sleaze scandals November 14, 2021 Labour has taken the lead in two major polls amid the Tory second jobs and sleaze row that has engulfed Westminster. Labour leads the Conservatives by 37 to 36 per cent in today’s Observer/Opinium poll, while a Savanta ComRes survey two days ago gave Sir Keir Starmer’s party a 6 per cent lead. The Opinium [...]
UK lobbying regulator investigating Philip Hammond August 11, 2021 Former chancellor Philip Hammond is being probed by the UK’s lobbying regulator, after contacting a Treasury official on behalf of a bank he was working for. The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists is investigating whether Hammond should have disclosed his contact with senior Treasury mandarin Charles Roxburgh in July 2020. Hammond was contacting [...]
Spotify faces the music amid Rogan row January 31, 2022 How the streaming giant may have taken its podcast push too far
Gove has signed a cladding deal – but it could kickstart a fight over affordable homes April 14, 2022 Political tensions enmeshed in the cladding crisis have raised their ugly heads again this week, as developers have come out and argued they won’t be able to build enough affordable homes if they’re made to pay even more for cladding remediation. Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has secured his first real win, with a deal [...]
After the Woodford saga, here are four signs that your fund is in trouble October 29, 2019 The industry is still reeling from the news of the Woodford fund closure, with investors left in limbo as to when they will get their money back. But the saga has also brought two more general considerations into sharp focus: first, whether star fund managers are the answer at all, and second, what red flags [...]
Nightmare Alley is another sumptuously dark tale from Guillermo Del Toro January 21, 2022 The 2010s were an interesting time for Guillermo Del Toro. The first half of the decade was spent in blockbuster land, exiting The Hobbit before making divisive sci-fi blockbuster Pacific Rim. The second half was devoted to two eerie period fables in Crimson Peak and The Shape of Water. The latter was a surprise hit, [...]