Financial news

• The Guardian view on the housing crisis: Fiscal Phil’s last chance

  19-11-2017 20:18
  The chancellor claimed there were no unemployed people. That’s 1.4m reasons to do something bold about the catastrophic shortage of homesThe chancellor approaches his second budget on Wednesday from a position of vulnerability. A little like the polar bear on the thawing iceberg, but less cuddly, he is a lonely figure marooned in a shrinking world, the political climate set against him, fundamentally ill-equipped to change it. His unsuitability for the political times in which he finds him
  
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• The ‘no unemployment’ chancellor needs a budget of compassion | Matthew d’Ancona

  19-11-2017 18:29 via theguardian.com
  The failing Tories are wrong to see Wednesday’s budget as their saviour. But by showing some humility, Philip Hammond can start the rehabilitationLike one of those gloomy American highways lined with liquor stores and gun shops, the road this government limps along is distinguished only by a series of last-chance saloons. Since the Conservatives’ disastrous performance in the election, we have been told that the prime minister’s Florence speech on Brexit would restore her autho
  
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• Monaco builds into the Med to house new throng of super-rich

  19-11-2017 17:48 via theguardian.com
  The tax haven has a luxury housing crisis – it doesn’t have enough land for the 2,700 multimillionaires forecast to settle there over the next decadeConstruction has begun on a $2bn (£1.5bn) scheme to reclaim land from the sea around Monaco so that more luxury apartments can be built for the thousands of extra millionaires expected to move to the principality in the next 10 years.Nearly 35 in every 100 Monaco residents are millionaires and more of the global super-rich want to
  
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• UK trade minister lobbied Brazil on behalf of oil giants

  19-11-2017 17:38 via theguardian.com
  A telegram obtained by Greenpeace shows that Greg Hands met a Brazilian minister to discuss relaxation of tax and environmental regulationBritain successfully lobbied Brazil on behalf of BP and Shell to address the oil giants’ concerns over Brazilian taxation, environmental regulation and rules on using local firms, government documents reveal.The UK’s trade minister travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo in March for a visit with a “heavy focus”
  
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• Top Mirror editor warns of deeper job losses if Express deal fails

  19-11-2017 16:08 via theguardian.com
  Lloyd Embley says failure to buy Richard Desmond’s papers would lose cost-savings and admits looming gender pay gap data could be ‘embarrassing’The editor-in-chief of the Mirror titles has indicated that their parent group will face deeper job losses across its 5,000-plus workforce if it fails to seal a £130m deal to buy Richard Desmond’s Express and Star newspapers and celebrity magazine OK!Lloyd Embley also said Trinity Mirror was preparing to reveal an “emb
  
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• How Brexity is your vacuum cleaner?

  19-11-2017 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Staunch leaver James Dyson has said Britain should walk away from talks with the EU. Here’s where other dust busters stand on the issueAs well as vacuum cleaners, Dyson is famous for gadgets that blow hot air, from fans to hairdryers. These days, that list also includes the company’s billionaire founder James Dyson, who regularly blasts unsuspecting Britons with his gung-ho view on Brexit.Most recently, the outspoken British inventor argued we should walk away from talks with the EU.
  
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• Christmas shoppers to continue splashing out on goods despite slowdown in spending

  19-11-2017 14:26 via feedproxy.google.com
  SHOPPERS will continue to splash out this Christmas despite fears about the health of the High Street and a slowdown in spending, Waitrose managing director Rob Collins predicts.
  
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• Low pound hits profits at easyJet as boss sets to step down

  19-11-2017 14:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  EASYJET'S outgoing chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall will bow out by unveiling that the airline’s full-year pretax profits have nosedived 18.9 per cent to £401.3million on Tuesday.
  
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• Philip Hammond must ditch deficit reduction and invest. But he won't | Larry Elliott

  19-11-2017 13:39 via theguardian.com
  The chancellor should change course but with no majority, no money and no productivity growth there’s no hope of thatPhilip Hammond did not get his nickname of “Spreadsheet Phil” for nothing. The chancellor is a cautious man, who thinks that tackling Britain’s productivity challenge is a better use of his time than trying to wrongfoot his opposite number, John McDonnell, with political gimmicks.Hammond’s instinct in the run-up to his second budget has been to hunker
  
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• Are you safe online? Government still failing to tackle astonishing rise in fraud

  19-11-2017 13:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  THESE days nobody is safe from fraud, and anybody who mistakenly thinks they are an exception is putting themselves at risk.
  
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• The Government need to keep a very close eye on 'horror show' Carillion, says GEOFF HO

  19-11-2017 13:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  CARILLION, one of the construction firms working on HS2, is a “horror show” in the words of analysts and even its supporters would have to agree, given its ghastly trading update on Friday.
  
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• There are no unemployed in UK, says Hammond in TV gaffe

  19-11-2017 12:05 via theguardian.com
  Chancellor is accused of being out of touch after making slip-up as he prepares for politically difficult budget later this week Philip Hammond has claimed “there are no unemployed people” in the UK in a major slip-up as the chancellor prepares to fight for his political life in this week’s budget. Hammond’s gaffe came as he made the case on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that driverless cars will not necessarily lead to more unemployment. Continue reading...
  
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• Philip Hammond could 'cut pension tax relief' and 'punish savers' in budget plans

  19-11-2017 11:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond may punish savers and prudent people by cutting pension tax relief and hiking insurance premium tax to plug a hole in the country’s finances, City experts warn.
  
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• Disneyland Paris set for huge makeover with £1.9billion investment

  19-11-2017 11:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  DISNEY plans to invest £1.9billion in facilities at Disneyland Paris over the next decade to maintain the glow from the theme park’s 25th anniversary earlier this year.
  
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• Gig economy ruling has Deliveroo riders without rights and buying their own kit

  19-11-2017 08:00
  A tribunal said couriers were ‘self-employed’ and not eligible for certain protections. But they counter that the firm is ducking its liabilitiesWhen 21-year-old Nathaniel Shaughnessy needed to find flexible paid work, he took a courier job with fast-food delivery firm Deliveroo, and for two years biked take-away meals from restaurants to customers. In February, the Deliveroo-branded food box that clipped to the back of his bike snapped off and he was given a second-hand backpack wit
  
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• Brexit lacks credibility – but Remainers lack leadership | William Keegan

  19-11-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Past generations of British politicians proved equal to the crises that faced them. This time, there is a strong whiff of panic in the corridors of powerTo say that the lunatics have taken over the asylum would doubtless be termed politically incorrect. But the uncomfortable truth is that a bunch of ideological Brexit clowns have perpetrated a coup on the British government and the majority of the British people.Seldom – or, to be more precise, never – in half a century of covering B
  
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• As Norway sells out of oil, suddenly fossil fuels are starting to look risky

  19-11-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Experts are not predicting the end of drilling quite yet: but the decision in Oslo has sharpened the debate over the future profitability of the industryDespite the rise of electric cars and stronger action on climate change, it’s still too early to write the obituary of oil. That was the verdict last week of one of the world’s leading energy experts, economist Dr Fatih Birol.The International Energy Agency, which he leads, is expecting growth in appetite for oil to slow over the nex
  
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• Is Alexa to blame for a costly doll’s house being sent to me by mistake?

  19-11-2017 07:59
  I’m worried how they got my address but all Amazon says is ‘keep it’I received a Melissa and Doug Victorian Doll’s House – original price £120, now reduced to £89 – from Amazon which I did not order. The address is my own and it was delivered by DPD, but there was no packing note in the box.I contacted Amazon but hit a brick wall. Firstly, it is not shown on my orders and, up to this point, there hasn’t been a charge. Secondly, Amazon says it
  
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• John McDonnell: ‘The Tories have no mission, no objectives’

  19-11-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  As the budget looms, the shadow chancellor is even taking advice from Gordon BrownWith the government in choppy waters and the economy heading for Brexit turbulence, John McDonnell has been practising his captaincy skills. To relax away from Westminster and clear the mind, the would-be chancellor of the exchequer reveals that he and his wife, Cynthia, have been heading for the Norfolk Broads for sailing breaks.“We decided we needed to do a sport together, some activity, so we took up dingh
  
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• Natwest set to launch service for businesses in bid to reduce bill costs

  19-11-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  NATWEST is to launch an energy audit service for businesses, aimed at reducing their power bills and increasing efficiency and supply security.
  
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• Goldilocks: Your five-minute guide to the UK's steady economy

  19-11-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  ECONOMISTS must have been reading bedtime stories again because suddenly they are all talking excitedly about Goldilocks.
  
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