Financial news

• Why it’s not quite back to the 70s with talk of food price controls

  30-05-2023 22:25
  
  Statutory caps were brought in under Heath, now the government wants a voluntary store scheme to meet Sunak’s pledge to halve inflationA cost-of-living crisis. Pressure on the government to step in to help hard-pressed consumers. Calls for supermarkets to cut prices on staple food items. Substitute Rishi Sunak for Ted Heath, step into a time capsule and journey back to Britain in 1972.Let’s be clear: ministers are not considering imposing the sort of statutory price controls on a loa
  
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• Parents claiming universal credit will receive hundreds of pounds more

  30-05-2023 20:34
  
  Government is raising amount parents can claim by almost 50% from 28 JuneParents claiming universal credit will receive hundreds of pounds more from the end of June, the government has announced.The Department for Work and Pensions is raising the amount parents can claim by almost 50% from 28 June, it said on Tuesday. Continue reading...
  
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• Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes turns herself in for 11-year prison term – video

  30-05-2023 20:31
  
  The Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes turned herself in for an 11-year prison sentence, marking a final chapter in a years-long fraud saga that riveted Silicon Valley. The 39-year-old tech founder entered the minimum-security federal women’s prison camp located in Bryan, Texas, on Tuesday afternoon. Holmes had been out on bail since she was indicted on fraud charges in 2018 over her role as the head of the failed blood-testing firm. She was convicted in November 2022 on four counts of defr
  
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• Illegal streaming gang jailed for selling cut-price Premier League subscriptions

  30-05-2023 20:04
  
  Five men who made over £7m streaming football matches to tens of thousands of customers jailed for total of more than 30 yearsFive members of an illegal streaming gang have been jailed for a total of more than 30 years for offering cheap subscriptions for Premier League games to tens of thousands of customers.The operation made more than £7m from at least 50,000 customers and resellers. Mark Gould, described by the judge as the driving force, was sentenced to 11 years at Chesterfield
  
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• Why are millennials so turned off by the Tory party?

  30-05-2023 19:24
  
  Amid housing crisis, post-Brexit drag and hardline migration rhetoric, most 25- to 40-year-olds think party deserves to lose next election“I do think it is pretty obvious really.” After new research suggested millennials believe the Conservatives deserve to lose the next election, former Tory cabinet minister David Willetts says the answer lies with the economy.Polling for thinktank Onward, whose director, Sebastian Payne, hopes to become a Conservative MP, found that 62% of 25 to 40
  
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• A decade after the Tories demonised disabled people on benefits, it’s happening again | Frances Ryan

  30-05-2023 19:00
  
  Never mind that the DWP itself found that some disabled people can’t afford food or heating, politicians and the media need scapegoatsFew things are ever really new. British politics – and the media ecosystem that maintains it – effectively regurgitates the same talking points on repeat, a kind of Groundhog Day where the key players may appear different but familiar destructive patterns are ever-present.It is exactly a decade since former chancellor George Osborne launched cuts
  
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• Tourists turn up at London family home mistakenly listed on Booking.com

  30-05-2023 18:58
  
  Owner of house in Plumstead calls ordeal ‘frustrating’, with some guests having to stay in her living roomA woman has spoken of her frustration over tourists continually turning up on her doorstep after her home was mistakenly listed on Booking.com.Karin Arsenius, 37, who lives in Plumstead, south-east London, with her two children and partner, said more than 20 unexpected tourists had arrived at her home, expecting to find the accommodation they had reserved on the online travel age
  
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• Almost 800 UK mortgage deals pulled as concerns mount over interest rate rises

  30-05-2023 18:44
  
  Number of residential deals down by almost 7% in a week, in echo of crisis that followed Liz Truss mini-budgetUK banks and building societies have pulled almost 800 residential and buy-to-let mortgage deals in the past few days amid growing concerns over future interest rate rises.In an echo of the crisis that engulfed the sector last autumn after the mini-budget that brought down Liz Truss, the number of residential mortgage deals has fallen by almost 7% in a week, according to figures from the
  
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• UK food inflation dips in May, raising hopes rate of price growth is slowing

  30-05-2023 16:54
  
  British Retail Consortium says rate fell from 15.7% to 15.4% even as rise in overall shop price growth hits fresh highFood inflation in the UK fell in May, lifting hopes that the rapid increase in grocery price growth may have reached its peak after keeping the broader consumer prices index painfully high so far this year.After more than a year of sharp increases in the price of food, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said annual food inflation eased this month from 15.7% to 15.4%, even as the
  
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• ‘I feel constantly watched’: the employees working under surveillance

  30-05-2023 13:09
  
  Monitoring software has become more common since the pandemic – but are activity scores the best way to measure productivity?Every 10 minutes, Mae’s computer snaps a shot of her screen, thanks to monitoring software her employer made her install on her laptop. A figure looms large over her workday: her activity score, a percentage calculated by the arbitrary measure of how much she types and moves her mouse.It’s hovering at about 62% when we speak. “That’s quite goo
  
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• 'Every man is struggling': the rising mental health crisis as UK gets poorer

  30-05-2023 10:30
  
  The north-east has suffered decades of industrial decline and a devastating cost of living crisis, which men say is having a detrimental impact on their mental health. Video producers Maeve Shearlaw and Christopher Cherry follow Earl John Charlton, who is using his experience of homelessness and drug addiction to get other men to open up. From walk and talks to open mic nights, amid the reality of working in a declining industry, he tells men in his community that it’s
  
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• UK’s 2 most popular Isa funds crashed last year. One has recovered. Do you own it?

  30-05-2023 08:00 via express.co.uk
  
  The last 18 months have been nerve-wracking for pension and stocks and shares ISA investors, with some hugely successful investment funds losing heaps of money.
  
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• UK banks shortchanging savers with ‘measly’ rates, says Which?

  30-05-2023 08:00
  
  Some instant access accounts as low as 0.1% despite Bank of England’s 4.5% base interest rateUK banks are paying savers “measly” rates on their cash even as the Bank of England has taken its base interest rate to the highest level in more than a decade, according to a study from the consumer group Which?.Consumers face rates as low as 0.1% for some instant access savings accounts, Which? found. Continue reading...
  
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• How can Saga nearly double my car insurance premium?

  30-05-2023 08:00
  
  It was raised from £1,155 to £2,044 after a year when nothing changed and I’venever had an accidentLast year my Saga over-50s car insurance policy cost £1,155, so you can imagine the shock when the renewal came through for this year and it was £2,044 – nearly double the price of last year.I phoned customer service to find out why it had gone up so much, and was advised that “prices have gone up”. I was given no other information. Continue reading..
  
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• Agreed house sales in UK at highest point this year, says Zoopla

  30-05-2023 01:01
  
  But property website warns that rebound in activity could be hit by rising mortgage ratesMore prospective house sellers are returning to the UK’s property market, pushing agreed home sales to their highest point of the year in May, according to Zoopla, although it warned that the rebound in activity could be knocked by rising mortgage rates.House prices have fallen by 1.3% nationally over the past six months, the property website found, but the speed of price falls has been decreasing as b
  
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