It’s 2020 — why are we still debating whether period products are essential? October 27, 2020 On Monday, while alcohol was vital enough to feature in a Tesco branch only providing essential items in Cardiff, period products were nowhere to be found. The supermarket giant explained to a confused customer on Twitter that period products simply weren’t considered essential enough to be stocked for the duration of the fire break lockdown [...]
Labour shortages make light work of fears of a post-Brexit unemployment surge – CityAM : CityAM September 1, 2021 In the two decades before the Brexit referendum, there was a large increase in the number of people moving from the EU to the UK. In the mid-1990s there were less than one million EU citizens living in the UK. By the mid-2010s, this had risen to 3.6 million. The bulk of the increase came [...]
Heathrow calls for green list expansion as passenger numbers sink by 92 per cent May 11, 2021 Heathrow Airport has called for an expansion to the travel green list in the next government review in three weeks’ time, including the United States, to boost trade and reunite friends and family. The number of passengers passing through Heathrow Airport was down by 92.1 per cent in April, compared to pre-pandemic figures. After the [...]
Asda faces ‘multimillion pound’ hit if supermarket loses equal pay claim March 25, 2021 Asda could be forced to make a “multimillion pound” payout if it loses an appeal on equal pay at the UK’s top court tomorrow. The supermarket is waiting for the Supreme Court’s judgement after it appealed against a ruling that workers in Asda stores – who are mainly female – could compare their pay with [...]
Serious Fraud Office ends investigation into Airbus individuals May 4, 2021 The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has ended a criminal investigation into individuals associated with Airbus, after it agreed to a record €3.6bn global settlement 16 months ago. Three sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters the SFO had written to former suspects to say it would take no further action. Overseas prosecutors could, however, take [...]
Extinction Rebellion: City of London to be next climate campaign target August 19, 2021 Environmental activists have said they will begin a fresh campaign next week in the heart of the capital’s financial district. The fortnight-long campaign targets the City of London, which Extinction Rebellion activists blame for stoking climate change with fossil fuel investment chains. Extinction Rebellion (XR) has regularly staged demonstrations across the UK – targeting banks [...]
Facebook down again: How persistent is the problem and which sites crash the most? October 9, 2021 Facebook and Instagram were down again for millions of users across the UK last night. The platforms apologised on Twitter for the outage, doing so for the second time this week after another, prolonged down time on Monday. Websites go down all the time from more serious issues like cyber attacks to problems in-house, with [...]
Ocado sales dip as pre-pandemic habits return, supermarket data finds August 17, 2021 The UK’s return to normality has been accompanied by a return to pre-pandemic shopping habits, with online and overall grocery sales declining. The latest grocery market share figures from Kantar for the period ending 8 August show that grocery sales fell by four per cent. The latest twelve weeks saw the lowest level of online [...]
Morrisons suitor CD&R gears up to beat Fortress bid August 16, 2021 New York bidder Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) is gearing up to place its counter-bid to the leading £10bn Fortress offer for Wm Morrison supermarkets before its deadline next Friday. CD&R planted the seed for the ongoing private equity bidding war for the British supermarket in June, when it placed a 230p per share offer [...]
Business rates relief snub costs Sainsbury’s £400m as profit slumps despite lockdown sales boost April 28, 2021 The last year saw most Brits spend up large at the supermarket, but despite a sales boom Sainsbury’s first quarter profit has slumped because it chose to say no to business rates relief. Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second largest grocer after Tesco , said it made an underlying pretax profit of £356m in the year to [...]