Financial news

• UK government aims to streamline house sales with new measures

  08-04-2018 17:58 via theguardian.com
  Professional qualifications for estate agents and protection from gazumping among plansEstate agents will be required to obtain a professional qualification and disclose payments for referring customers to solicitors, surveyors or mortgage brokers under government plans aimed at streamline property sales.The measures announced by the housing secretary, Sajid Javid, will also discourage agents from taking part in gazumping, whereby higher offers are accepted after a deal has already been agreed.
  
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• Homebase's Australian boss flies in to tour troubled DIY chain

  08-04-2018 16:54
  Chairman to evaluate what has gone wrong after £340m takeover ‘with all options open’The chairman of the Australian owners of Homebase is flying to the UK for a whistlestop tour of its stores this week as the future of the struggling DIY chain hangs in the balance.The Wesfarmers chairman, Michael Chaney, is being accompanied on store visits by Archie Norman, the retail turnaround expert who chairs Marks & Spencer and advises the Australian group. Continue reading...
  
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• UK living rooms have shrunk by a third, survey finds

  08-04-2018 12:49
  Average lounge in new-build homes are now 32% smaller than equivalent homes built in the 1970s
  The living rooms of newly built homes in Britain are nearly a third smaller than equivalent homes built in the 1970s, according to research that charts how living space has shrunk to levels last seen 80 years ago.The research, by LABC Warranty, which provides warranties for new-build homes, found the average living room in a house built since 2010 was 17.1 square metres (184 sq ft), compared with 24.9
  
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• Why the UK trade deficit with the EU is woeful and widening | Larry Elliott

  08-04-2018 11:22
  The single market benefits manufacturers far more than providers of services. Guess which Britain excels inAt the time it was big, big news. Three days before the general election, official figures showed that Britain’s trade had taken a marked turn for the worse. Government claims that the economy was healthy took a knock.That was June 1970, a time when the size of Britain’s trade gap was front page stuff. Headlines screamed about the UK being back in the red. The TV news bulletins
  
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• Taxing times ahead … it’s all change for your bank balance and pay packet

  08-04-2018 09:00
  As a new tax year starts, everyone from savers, graduates, landlordsto married couples will be affectedAnother tax year has started and the ripples will be seen across pay cheques in the coming weeks.Last Friday marked the first day of the new financial year and with it came changes that will affect income taxpayers, savers, married couples, recent graduates and buy-to-let landlords, among others. Continue reading...
  
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• Fashion forward – Asos has ambitions for big expansion

  08-04-2018 08:00
  The successful – and occasionally mocked – online fashion chain is branching out into make-up and maybe moreNick Beighton may be a chartered accountant but his typical work attire is more smart casual than beancounters’ suit. Which is highly appropriate since he is the chief executive of online fashion juggernaut Asos, which specialises in supplying the latest trends at the click of a mouse or tap on a phone screen.Despite being listed on the London stock exchange’s junio
  
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• The ‘will of the people’ can change. Ask Clement Attlee

  08-04-2018 07:59
  A lesson for Brexit: the postwar Labour government was elected, re-elected and humiliated in the space of six years. Each time, the people ‘spoke’On 5 July 1945, the British people “spoke”. Churchill had been a great war leader, but memories of the unemployment and penury of the interwar years were strong. Labour was elected by a resounding majority. On 23 February 1950, the Attlee government went to the country, and, again, the people “spoke”. The government
  
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• The stakes aren’t as high, but this cold trade war could be very destructive

  08-04-2018 07:59
  Memories of the 60s have come flooding back as the US and China face off on tariffs, but a cool-headed White House could stop the dispute heating upDuring the cold war, the US and the Soviet Union had the potential to obliterate each other with their nuclear arsenals. Both sides knew a conflict was unwinnable, and that explained why the missiles remained in their silos. It was known as mutually assured destruction.The closest the world came to MAD was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which ende
  
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