Financial news

• Tackle poverty’s roots with a living income, put children first and tax the wealth of the 1% | Letters

  02-04-2024 19:14
  
  Readers respond to Gordon Brown’s plan to get Britain out of a doom loop of poverty and despairGordon Brown’s article is certainly timely (Britain seems stuck in a doom loop of poverty. I have a plan to raise billions to address that, 27 March). However, his proposal for a new, temporary partnership of communities, charities, companies and government, creating “headroom” to fix our social security system, risks further institutionalising a charitable response to pove
  
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• £100,000 may not go far in Jeremy Hunt’s world – but child poverty is getting worse there too | Letters

  02-04-2024 19:13
  
  Les Bright and Pete Stockwell on the chancellor’s suggestion that a salary of £100,000 ‘doesn’t go as far as you might think’, and Trevor Lyttleton on the state pension triple lockJeremy Hunt may be accurately reflecting the position of some of his constituents in South West Surrey when he says that an income of £100,000 per year “doesn’t go as far as you might think” (Jeremy Hunt doubles down on ‘£100k a year doesn’t go far
  
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• Taylor Swift among 141 new billionaires in ‘amazing year for rich people’

  02-04-2024 18:46
  
  Combined assets of $14.2tn are more than the GDP of every country except China and the USThere are more billionaires than ever before. The world has 2,781 people with fortunes exceeding $1bn (£800m), an increase of 141 on 2023, according to Forbes’ annual ranking of the world’s richest people – with Taylor Swift among those making the list.The billionaires are also collectively worth more than ever, with combined assets estimated at $14.2tn – a $2tn increase on 2023
  
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• ‘It’s money’: the Britons who want children but feel they can’t

  02-04-2024 15:47
  
  Fertility rate in England and Wales has fallen to lowest rate since records began in 1939Elizabeth, 29, a sales executive from Surrey, would very much like to have children, but feels she is unable to do so for the time being.“Simply – it’s money,” Elizabeth says. “I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, and we would have children already but for the cost of living.” Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I only had £5’: what happened to the 3.8 million people denied furlough at the start of Covid?

  02-04-2024 15:00
  
  Four years ago, about 11.7 million UK employees were furloughed, their jobs and wages protected by a government scheme. Those who had just changed job were left out – and that hardship still affects them todayIn March 2020, Mark Edwards was excited to start a new job running a venue that hosted weddings and hospitality events. Before that, the 47-year-old had been working as a general manager at an independent group of hotels for the past nine years. He was living with his partner and dog
  
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• Look at the Thames and know the time for metaphors is over: our politics is drowning in effluent | Marina Hyde

  02-04-2024 14:38
  
  It took a sewage-plagued Boat Race to do it, but people can now see the appalling state of England’s water industry and waterwaysFire up a Chariots of Fire-style theme tune for the speech of the defeated Oxford captain in last Saturday’s Boat Race, beamed edifyingly around the world: “We had a few guys go down pretty badly with E coli,” declared Lenny Jenkins (the university’s boat club itself says it can’t be that specific on precisely what caused the gut-rot
  
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• Sunak rejects claim nurseries do not have capacity for free childcare plan

  02-04-2024 12:20
  
  PM claims staffing levels have increased but says it will take time for the sector to growUK politics – latest updatesRishi Sunak has dismissed claims nurseries do not have capacity to deliver on a major expansion of free care as concerns were put to him about whether the sector could cope with the influx of children.The prime minister used a series of interviews to answer doubts over the free childcare policy, which is starting this week with the rollout of 15 hours of free childcare avai
  
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• UK house prices fall for first time in three months amid ‘subdued’ market

  02-04-2024 08:41
  
  Average price of home down 0.2% from February to March, to £261,142, says NationwideThe UK housing market was “subdued” in March with prices edging down on the previous month as high mortgage rates continued to affect the market, according to Nationwide building society.It is the first time in three months that house prices have fallen, after gains of 0.7% in the previous two months. Continue reading...
  
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• I’ve been taken for a ride by Halfords’s price-match promise

  02-04-2024 08:00
  
  It has made it practically impossible to make a claimHalfords’s price-match policy promises to refund the difference within seven days if you find the same item cheaper from elsewhere. Unfortunately, it makes it practically impossible to actually make a claim. I ordered a Xiaomi Mi Smart electric folding bike online at Halfords for £899.10. I then found it on scan.co.uk for £599.99. Halfords first told me I had to claim in store, and when I pointed out that this was not in the
  
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• Boom and bust in the industrial north-east – in pictures

  02-04-2024 08:00
  
  A new exhibition brings together Chris Killip and Graham Smith’s seminal shots of England’s north-east from 1975-87, when heavy industry and working-class life were transformed Continue reading...
  
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• Ethical shopping on the rise in UK despite cost of living crisis

  02-04-2024 07:00
  
  Increase in Fairtrade income to £13m shows shoppers still prioritising environment and workers’ wellbeingBritish consumers might have faced the sharpest increase in living costs for four decades, but despite the cost of living crisis, concerns over the environment and the treatment of farmers in poorer countries has fuelled a steady increase in ethical shopping.As households across the country rein in their spending to deal with rising bills, Michael Gidney, the chief executive of th
  
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• What is Reddit really worth? - podcast

  02-04-2024 04:00
  
  The popular social media site has never made a profit and relies on an army of unpaid moderators to keep order. So what difference will a stock market listing make? Alex Hern reportsReddit is one of the last mainstream social media platforms that still resembles something of how the internet used to be. A place where humour abounds, niche interests are obsessed over, gossip is traded and viral videos are spread. Think of it as Facebook’s subversive cousin, or Wikipedia’s anarchic lit
  
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