Financial news

• Bottom of the housing ladder: 'I feel like a squatter in my home'

  28-01-2018 17:36
  Over 2 million people in the UK live in rented homes that actively damage their healthCarley Jones has seen the rent on her crumbling one-bedroom flat in Medway in Kent rise 40% in just three years, but she hasn’t got much for her money. A hole in her seven-year-old son’s bedroom wall lets in cold air so the heating is on non-stop. The plaster is coming away in the kitchen where the hot tap dribbles constantly. Jones sleeps in the living room, a broken smoke alarm hangs from the ceil
  
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• A BT pension fund deficit of £14bn? Bosses need a new 'ology'

  28-01-2018 17:05 via theguardian.com
  The telecoms group is trying to modify the defined benefits it promised staff in the 1980sWorrying times for the family of Beatrice Bellman, better known as Beattie, Maureen Lipman’s carping character in those old British Telecom advertisements.Henpecked son Melvyn will now be approaching retirement (and, boy, did he earn it). Meanwhile, grandson Anthony, whom we last heard of when grandma was memorably making light of his woeful exam performance, should now be in the prime of his career a
  
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• A Brexit deal looms: Hammond and May's darkest hour is up | Larry Elliott

  28-01-2018 15:19 via theguardian.com
  The UK public and the CBI want clarity, and they may get it soon via a customs unionEvery year in Davos, there is a lunch organised by the CBI at which the keynote speech is invariably given by one of the senior government ministers in town. The guest list includes the bosses of a good cross-section of FTSE 100 companies as well as representatives of smaller but fast-growing firms. Invites are extended to the media so it is not hard to find out what business leaders are thinking about.Last Thurs
  
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• Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad dies aged 91

  28-01-2018 12:43 via theguardian.com
  Company says Kamprad died peacefully at his home in Småland, SwedenThe founder of Sweden’s Ikea furniture chain, Ingvar Kamprad, has died at at the age of 91.“The founder of IKEA and Ikano, and one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Ingvar Kamprad, has peacefully passed away, at his home in Småland, Sweden, on the 27th of January,” the company said in a statement.Continue reading...
  
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• Salford block residents must pay £100,000 for fire wardens

  28-01-2018 11:04
  Court rules that owner can enforce charges at building with cladding similar to GrenfellResidents in an upmarket apartment block with cladding similar to Grenfell Tower have been told they must foot a £100,000 bill for fire wardens.
  Leaseholders said they feared they would no longer be able to afford to live in the new-build Fresh building in Salford following a court ruling on Friday. Continue reading...
  
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• Why isn’t our rusting Dacia Duster suitable for the UK?

  28-01-2018 09:35
  It was made in India and we can’t get it changed for one manufactured in RomaniaWe bought a new Dacia Duster car in 2013 and, one year later, it was subject to a paint recall for surface rust. The fix, we were promised, was a robust one – once treated, the car wouldn’t require further work.Since the first recall, it has been treated for rust every year since, sometimes twice in the same year, and this year it will be three times. Often they re-treat the same areas, the rust hav
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn convenes ‘away day’ to discuss Brexit policy shift

  28-01-2018 09:22 via theguardian.com
  Labour leader under pressure to back permanent membership of customs unionJeremy Corbyn has called key members of his shadow cabinet to an “away day” to re-examine the party’s policy and strategy on Brexit amid growing frustration in Labour ranks that it is failing to exploit mounting Tory turmoil over Europe.Party sources confirmed to the Observer that the meeting, scheduled for early February, would look at adapting and developing Labour’s approach during “phase t
  
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• Jobs and growth figures won’t be steady and resilient without a Brexit deal

  28-01-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Better-than-expected employment and GDP statistics disguise over-reliance on consumer spending and a lack of investment. Then there’s the problem of an EU transition deal …Taken at face value the latest employment figures and last year’s GDP growth defied the doomsayers. They were better than the City expected and, for those sitting inside the Treasury, supported the view that Britain’s economy remains, in the finance ministry’s parlance, steady and resilient.The n
  
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• BT retirement fund managers get an ‘F’ in pensionology

  28-01-2018 08:00
  Faced with a £14bn deficit, the telecoms group is trying to modify the defined benefits it promised staff in the 1980sWorrying times for the family of Beatrice Bellman, better known as Beattie, Maureen Lipman’s carping character in those old British Telecom advertisements.Henpecked son Melvyn will now be approaching retirement (and, boy, did he earn it). Meanwhile, grandson Anthony, whom we last heard of when grandma was memorably making light of his woeful exam performance, should n
  
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• The big tech backlash

  28-01-2018 01:05 via theguardian.com
  Tech giants are drawing political fire over fake news and Russian meddlingNicholas Terry understands the internet’s darker side better than most. A history lecturer at Exeter University, Terry is an expert on antisemitism and runs a blog examining Holocaust denial and its dissemination online.“You’ve got three separate phenomena converging,” he says. “One is the fake news stuff, promulgated by the likes of Facebook and Twitter, which is trying to promote specific fa
  
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• Freedom? We have plenty of that inside the EU | William Keegan

  28-01-2018 01:05 via theguardian.com
  Out of Schengen, out of the euro, with a budget rebate and still at the top table: we are already ‘having our cake and eating it’The ghost at the feast during the annual Venice seminar held by the Italian government for British and Italian journalists last weekend was the shadow of Brexit. While Italian officials were scrupulously reticent about voicing opinions on the subject, the undercurrents were obvious – not least because the Italians value the UK as an “outward-loo
  
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• An eco-friendly cuppa? Now teabags are set to go plastic-free

  28-01-2018 01:04 via theguardian.com
  Co-op announces initiative to reduce Britain’s plastic wasteThe war on plastic waste is extending to the UK’s favourite beverage, with a major retailer in the final stages of developing a fully biodegradable paper teabag that does not contain plastic.The Co-op is to make its own-brand Fairtrade 99 teabags free of polypropylene, a sealant used industry wide to enable teabags to hold their shape, and the guilt-free brew is due to go on sale by the end of the year. Continue reading...
  
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• Bottled water is a nonsense. Just ban it and fill our towns with drinking fountains | Sonia Sodha

  28-01-2018 01:03 via theguardian.com
  Plastic-free aisles just don’t go far enough – the government must be decisive if it is to fulfil its green pledgesThe airport: not the most fun place to while away a couple of hours. Most modern airports seem to prioritise row after row of fancy shops over providing enough seats at the gate. One of my pet peeves is how hard they make it to get your hands on free drinking water once you’ve dutifully chucked yours out before security. More than half of UK airports don’t pr
  
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