Black hole in Miliband plan, say the Tories September 23, 2010 THE Tories have stepped up their attacks on the Labour leadership candidates, claiming bookies’ favourite David Miliband must find £55bn of cuts to pay for his campaign promises. Ed Miliband, who is also within touching distance of winning the leadership contest, will have to find £67bn of spending cuts to fulfil his pledges, the Tories [...]
Unions can’t agree on how to fight cuts to spending September 13, 2010 WHEN Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trade Unions Congress (TUC), addressed the organisation’s annual summit yesterday, he sounded more like Neil Kinnock than the heir of militant miners’ leader Arthur Scargill. “The government is pursuing a political agenda, so our response must be political,” Barber told delegates, as he sought to distance himself from [...]
The airline boss with a hit list of 12 bid targets in his desk drawer September 13, 2010 It is clear that British Airways (BA) chief executive Willie Walsh always likes to keep his foot hard on the pedal. The Dublin-born airline boss is in the middle of a bitter 18-month dispute with his cabin crew, and only a few weeks ago received US and European regulatory clearance to pursue a transatlantic tie-up [...]
Cuts the best way to ensure growth June 21, 2010 TODAY is D-day for George Osborne; his first Budget, presented to Parliament at 12.30pm today, could be remembered as a turning point in modern British economic history. If he flunks it, Osborne is finished; if he pulls it off, stabilises the national debt, begins to unwind the excess of the Labour years and ensures that [...]
Labour and Liberals move to the left April 14, 2010 NEW Labour isn’t dead: about that Alistair Darling could not have been any more emphatic in his interview with City A.M. today. We asked him whether Labour’s manifesto – with its 50p tax, restrictions on hostile takeover bids, increases in regulation and no clear plan to reduce the size of the state – should be [...]
The brewing boss who says pubs have to clean up their act to survive March 21, 2010 Thirty-nine pubs close a week in the UK and the economy may be only crawling towards recovery, but the chief executive of pub company Marston’s thinks this is just the right time to build bigger and better outlets. The FTSE 250 business – which runs 2,200 pubs and five breweries – raised £140m from investors [...]
Defender of business says a hung parliament would be disastrous February 7, 2010 HE MIGHT have parted company with the CBI four years ago, but Lord Digby Jones is still one of the staunchest defenders of the private sector. When he gives me his business card at the opening of a Vodafone store in the City, it is emblazoned with a motto that sums up his philosophy: “Only [...]
Retail is a sell as customers desert the UK’s high streets January 10, 2010 THE BRITS lived up to their reputation as a nation of spenders and splashed their cash with abandon over the festive period. Major retailers swept up and some, like fashion chain Ted Baker, saw sales rise 20 per cent in the latter part of 2009. John Lewis, Next, Marks & Spencer and J Sainsbury also [...]
The City lawyer who argues that banking has become even riskier November 4, 2009 T o David Morley, the phrase “it is better to travel than to arrive” must sound pretty strange, an expression invented only for those unfortunate souls who have not learnt to move at speed. For Morley, who joined top law firm Allen & Overy in 1980 and has led it as senior partner since last [...]
Pay cuts loom as prices fall to 61-year low May 19, 2009 AN ESTIMATED 80 per cent of workers face the prospect of a pay freeze or cut, after the measure of inflation used for the majority of wage settlements plunged last month. The Retail Prices Index (RPI), which is used for workers’ wage settlements and includes mortgage and rent payments, shrank to -1.2 per cent year-on-year [...]