Financial news

• UK accused of hypocrisy on overseas tobacco control

  27-01-2018 23:00 via theguardian.com
  Embassy relationships with companies such as BAT undermine anti-smoking policiesThe UK government is lobbying on behalf of UK-based tobacco giants operating overseas, despite spending millions of pounds trying to curb smoking rates abroad.Freedom of information requests reveal that the Foreign Office and the Department for International Trade have been championing the interests of British American Tobacco. This is despite the government being forced to draw up new guidelines for UK embassy staff
  
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• Sex and the City: life as a hostess in London’s gilded halls

  27-01-2018 21:39 via theguardian.com
  In the wake of the Presidents Club scandal, a 19-year-old relives an evening she would rather forget serving guests at a City banquetThe job looked good on paper – serving guests at an exclusive banquet in a City of London livery hall. The pay was good, too – £10.20 an hour, the London living wage and significantly more than the £7.05 for similar jobs. For Lucy, a 19-year-old corporate catering assistant, it was far too good an opportunity to turn down.Later, she wished s
  
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• National Audit Office to investigate East Coast rail 'bailout'

  27-01-2018 19:35 via theguardian.com
  Watchdog to look at decision to allow Virgin and Stagecoach to hand back franchise early
  A controversial decision to allow two companies to hand back a rail franchise three years early is to be investigated by Britain’s public spending watchdog.Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, was accused of effectively bailing out Stagecoach and Virgin’s joint venture Virgin Trains East Coast by allowing them to cut short their deal to run trains on the East Coast mainline. The termination o
  
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• Pound up as factory output grew at fastest rate for three years in 2017

  27-01-2018 18:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  THE POUND rose as factory output grew at the fastest rate for three years in 2017 to boost Britain’s growth prospects, yesterday.
  
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• Savings: where's the best place to put £30,000-plus?

  27-01-2018 17:58
  I want to use an accident payout for a deposit on a flat – where should I put it in the meantime?Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.This week’s question: Continue reading...
  
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• Can YOUR bitcoin be hacked? Security expert warns cyber attacks WILL get worse

  27-01-2018 17:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  BITCOIN trading is the current craze among tech-savvy investors trying to make the most of its soaring price, but behind the scenes the world of cryptocurrency is rife with cyber criminals, cryptojacking and money laundering.
  
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• Nail-biting drama for Sky and Disney as new rivals eye entertainment arena

  27-01-2018 17:00 via theguardian.com
  As the Disney and Fox/Sky deals rumble on, some question the value of pay-TV in a world ruled by Netflix and AmazonOne of the biggest surprises about Rupert Murdoch’s decision to sell his entertainment assets to Disney was his willingness to part company with Sky, the UK’s biggest pay-TV broadcaster. But some analysts are now asking whether Disney, which has agreed to buy a 39% stake in Sky as part of a $66bn deal to buy most of the tycoon’s 21st Century Fox group, needs the pa
  
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• Bitcoin price WARNING: THIS mistake will CRIPPLE bitcoin as cryptocurrency leader - CEO

  27-01-2018 14:25 via feedproxy.google.com
  THE CEO of a leading investment company has admitted that bitcoin made a crucial mistake in its development that could allow other cryptocurrencies to pass it by, as he explained the reasons behind the currency's volatility.
  
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• UK tax returns: here’s how to tackle yours now

  27-01-2018 13:28
  Millions of people have not filled in their HMRC forms. Here’s a helping handAs Winston Churchill famously put it, “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”Churchill was actually speaking about the threat posed by the rearmament of Germany, but he could just as easily have been talking about the lengths people go to put off doing their self-assess
  
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• SKI holidays expert SNO expands into the Caribbean

  27-01-2018 12:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  ONLINE travel agent SNO is heading for the beach after a peak performance in the mountains. The ski holiday specialist saw 87 per cent growth as it turned over £6 million last year and and is the fast growing in the sector.
  
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• 'It takes balls of steel': fighting UK supermarkets for equal pay

  27-01-2018 10:00 via theguardian.com
  The women behind the largest corporate equal pay claim in the UK• The campaigners shaking up film and TV• The MP activists cleaning up Westminster• Actors, directors and producers changing theatre• Sportspeople pushing for a level playing fieldFour days a week, sometimes five if she can get an extra shift, Zahra Hussein, 21, gets up at 1.30am and heads to work at her local Sainsbury’s, where she clocks on at 3am.
  Currently in her second year of studying for a science de
  
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• Car insurance: could you be in for a nasty surprise?

  27-01-2018 09:41
  The ‘average’ premium now stands at £481, with the north-west the costliest region followed by Northern Ireland and LondonWhen your car insurance renewal letter next lands on your doorstep, you could be in for a nasty shock.Costs have risen to a new high, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), which says average premiums now stand at £481, up 9% on the previous year. Continue reading...
  
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• Coffee bug: could your machine get infested with cockroaches?

  27-01-2018 09:22
  De’Longhi buyer sends £1,200 product for repair – but baby bugs scuttle out when it returns When Adrian Turner went to refill the fresh beans in his £1,195 De’Longhi coffee machine, he was stunned when bugs began scuttling out. Although he and his wife, Emma, were not familiar with the tiny dark-bodied insects, it emerged later, to their horror, that they were baby cockroaches. These nasty crawlers may be known and unwelcome residents of damp New York kitchens, they
  
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• Where to move for good primary schools

  27-01-2018 09:00
  Do you need to start spouting Corinthians or become a Tory to get your tot in?There’s nothing like picking a primary school for your child to reveal the real you. Friends who could barely recite the Lord’s prayer spout Corinthians to get into the local C of E. Closet Tories emerge from beneath socialist hairshirts. Some even move in with their mother-in-law, just to get their tot’s tootsies into a catchment area.But where to look? Ofsted reports? Too obsessed with maths and lit
  
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• Five things we learned at Davos 2018

  27-01-2018 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Overshadowed by Trump and the Presidents Club scandal, could Davos have outgrown itself? Continue reading...
  
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• Insured to cover your mortgage repayments? You’re probably losing a fortune

  27-01-2018 08:00
  While income protection policies are good for the self-employed, for people in their 20s and 30s they really aren’t necessaryWere you sold insurance to “cover” your mortgage? Were you told you had to have insurance, even though you’d rather not? You may well be wasting thousands of pounds.Our “How I spend it” column this week features Rebecca Parkin, a champion money saver, who managed to pay off her mortgage by the age of 42 and live debt-free. But she admits
  
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• Diesel cars: cheap but less reliable than petrol

  27-01-2018 08:00
  Reasearch finds diesels are more than three times more likely to break down than petrol vehiclesDiesel cars are more than three times as likely to break down as their petrol counterparts and will typically cost 20% more to fix when they go wrong.Based on analysis of 30,000 faults on three- to eight-year-old petrol and diesel cars over 12 months, car maintenance firm MotorEasy found the average engine repair bill for a diesel was £517, compared with £433 for a petrol model. Diesel car
  
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• Teacher: I’m 42, paid off my mortgage and I only work two days a week

  27-01-2018 07:45
  Rebecca Parkin, an ‘obsessive money saver’, bought her Audi TT car for cash last yearI’m 42 years old and mortgage-free. I’ve also managed to downshift so that I now work only two days a week full-time. It helps, I suppose, that I’m single and don’t have kids. I’ve always been an obsessive money saver but not in a way that’s really tight. I have a nice car and take one or two foreign holidays a year. For me it has always been about keeping my expen
  
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• Dirty Money review – Alex Gibney left choking with rage by VW

  27-01-2018 07:30 via theguardian.com
  To open a new series about business malpractice, the film-maker presents a thorough – and thoroughly angry – investigation into the Volkswagen emissions scandalI thought I knew the VW emissions scandal story quite well. But I’ve never seen it so well laid out as in this documentary, Hard NOx, one of a new investigative Netflix series from Alex Gibney about scandal and corruption in the business world.It is mainly told from a US viewpoint but the story is a global one, from 2015
  
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• Why building more homes will not solve Britain’s housing crisis | Ann Pettifor

  27-01-2018 07:00
  The problem of inflated prices lies in property speculation. That’s what we need to clamp down onEveryone – from the government, to housing charities, to housebuilders – has bought into the conventional wisdom that the dysfunction that racks our housing market is a matter of demand and supply. We’re not building enough houses, so house prices have been sent rocketing, taking home-ownership out of reach for growing numbers of young people. But in reality, our housing probl
  
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• Bitcoin: FBI issues stark warning of TERRIFYING internet scam to blackmail investors

  27-01-2018 06:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  THE FBI has issued a stark warning about an online scam in which people are threatened with death unless they hand over all of their bitcoin, and have revealed a terrifying email sent to one victim.
  
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• Bitcoin SNUBBED after value plunge as Starbucks announces plans to accept cryptocurrencies

  27-01-2018 01:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  STARBUCKS is set to become one of the first major high street shops to accept cryptocurrency after it announced plans to incorporate blockchain as part of its payment strategy, but in a snub it has ruled out using Bitcoin.
  
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