Financial news

• Revealed: car industry was warned keyless vehicles vulnerable to theft a decade ago

  24-02-2024 18:08
  
  Experts ​alerted motor trade to security risks of ‘smart key’ systems which have now fuelled highest level of car thefts for a decade• Gone in 20 seconds: how ‘smart keys’ have fuelled a new wave of car crimeThe car industry ignored warnings more than a decade ago that keyless technology on modern vehicles risked a surge in vehicle thefts, an investigation by the Observer can reveal.Legal and computer researchers claimed keyless entry and vehicle software would
  
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• Like many of us Hunt has dreams, but can’t afford them | Phillip Inman

  24-02-2024 18:00
  
  As the budget looms, the chancellor has very little scope to deliver the sort ofmeasures that might make people vote ToryFor many of us, the dream is a detached home with a garage and an acre of land, according to the most searched property terms of the last year. The dream is out of reach for most people, and so is another popular item – an annexe – which entered the top four in Rightmove’s list for the first time in 2023.This could be one reason why the gambling industry gene
  
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• Could ‘Great British Railways’ finally build up a head of steam?

  24-02-2024 17:00
  
  The government is again trying to create a ‘guiding mind’ for UK train travel – and despite the delays and inertia, almost everyone wants itRail’s great zombie hope lurches on. Great British Railways, the future once unveiled by Boris Johnson – declared at times dead, or alive, or simply locked in stasis – came juddering back into the picture last week.The late arrival of a draft reform bill could, rail minister Huw Merriman claimed, still mean that plans for
  
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• Farmers storm agriculture fair and scuffle with police in Paris – video

  24-02-2024 13:31
  
  A group of angry French farmers stormed into a Paris agriculture fair on Saturday before a planned visit by Emmanuel Macron, amid anger over costs and regulations. Facing dozens of police officers inside the fair, the farmers shouted and booed, calling for the French president’s resignation and using expletives aimed at him. There were some clashes and police arrested at least one protester, a Reuters witness saw. Farmers have been protesting across Europe, calling for better income and le
  
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• ‘It makes moving pointless’: why stamp duty is the biggest downside to downsizing

  24-02-2024 13:00
  
  Many older people in large homes would like to release them to growing families, but the financial hit can be hugeWhat’s standing in the way of downsizing for Gail, 58, from Manchester – who is self-employed and lives with her partner in a five-bed house she would like to swap for a smaller home? “Simply the cost of stamp duty. We live in an expensive area, so downsizing will cost us a lot in stamp duty, far more than we would save by having lower bills.”In England and No
  
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• I was a hedge fund billionaire’s PA. It nearly killed me

  24-02-2024 12:00
  
  It was sold to me as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – but as the demands increased, so did the personal costsIt was early evening on an almost-spring day, six months after I started working as sole personal assistant to Boone R Prescott, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Carbon. Boone had left the office, so I stepped on to a treadmill. For years, I had run for an hour five or six days a week. I had mostly kept up the running at Carbon, but in the office gym, because it was more
  
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• Analogue switch-off: BT customers left for weeks without a landline

  24-02-2024 11:00
  
  Amid growing opposition to the move to a digital service readers tell of being sent bills to fix problems the company causedBT customers who have been moved to the controversial Digital Voice system have described being left for weeks and even months without a working landline, and then been sent bills for fixing the problem.Despite a growing opposition to the change, from December 2025 all the old but reliable analogue telephone lines that many of us have grown up with are to be switched off. C
  
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• UK lender trials ban on new holiday let mortgages for tourist hotspots

  24-02-2024 08:00
  
  Leeds building society believes it is the first to restrict new lending for holiday homes in Norfolk and YorkshireA leading building society is trialling a ban on new holiday-let mortgages in some popular tourist destinations.Campaigners say the move by Leeds building society could improve the situation for local residents currently struggling to buy or rent in parts of Norfolk and Yorkshire that have seen a surge in the number of properties turned into holiday rentals. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Ruinously expensive’: record number of inheritance disputes in England and Wales

  24-02-2024 08:00
  
  As many as 10,000 people are disputing wills every year, according to estimates by specialist solicitorsThousands of families are becoming embroiled in a soaring number of inheritance disputes leading to a record volume of “ruinously expensive” and emotionally gruelling court cases.As many as 10,000 people in England and Wales are disputing wills every year, according to estimates by specialist solicitors. In 2021-22, 195 disputes went in front of judges, up from 145 in 2017, but the
  
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