Financial news

• Real terms average pay lower in most UK local authorities than in 2008, TUC finds

  28-04-2024 23:30
  
  Union body says austerity is to blame for longest squeeze on wages since Napoleonic era with most ‘wage black spots’ in LondonPay packets are smaller than they were in 2008 in most local authority areas in the UK, according to analysis by the Trades Union Congress, which described the findings as a “damning indictment” of the Conservatives’ economic record.The TUC, which includes 48 unions with more than five million members, said stagnating wages meant British work
  
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• Thames Water collapse could trigger Truss-style borrowing crisis, Whitehall officials fear

  28-04-2024 21:00
  
  Exclusive: Concerns over effect on UK’s finances lead officials to believe utility should be renationalised before general electionSenior Whitehall officials fear Thames Water’s financial collapse could trigger a rise in government borrowing costs not seen since the chaos of the Liz Truss mini-budget, the Guardian can reveal.Such is their concern about the impact on wider borrowing costs for the UK, even beyond utilities and infrastructure, that they believe Thames should be renation
  
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• The Guardian view on the price of chocolate: cocoa producers face bitter truths | Editorial

  28-04-2024 18:55
  
  Farmers, even more than consumers, need a stable and predictable global food systemThe small indulgence of chocolate is becoming a more costly one. Soaring prices for cocoa beans recently hit a record $12,000 a tonne: roughly four times last year’s price. Many think they will go higher. That means smaller or more expensive bars and reformulated recipes for many consumers, and may put out of business small specialist producers. Yet it is bringing little reward to struggling growers.The imme
  
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• BHP’s pursuit of Anglo American has a major obstacle: South Africa

  28-04-2024 17:35
  
  The De Beers owner is a longstanding jewel in the African' state’s economic crown – it would be a ‘big blow’ to see it sold offThe world’s largest mining company has a problem. Australia’s BHP has set out its intention to snap up the rival miner Anglo American in a multibillion-pound deal that would reshape the global industry. Its proposed £31bn takeover plan has already been rebuffed as a lowball offer that undervalues the company. But Anglo’s de
  
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• ‘No one’s being honest about it’: how NHS crisis forces patients to go private

  28-04-2024 14:00
  
  Long waiting lists are creating a boom in the medical insurance market, leading to fears of a long-term change in attitudes to the health serviceWhen Rosemary Duff heard how long she would have to wait for a hip replacement operation on the NHS, she felt she had no choice but to dip into her savings.“I waited a month to see my GP, then another four months to see a consultant. His opening words were ‘unless you go private, there’s an 18-month waiting list’, which was a bit
  
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• ‘Nervous of its own boldness’: the (almost) radical rebirth of King’s Cross

  28-04-2024 14:00
  
  The two-decade transformation of the industrial site north of King’s Cross station in London, once notorious, now a pleasant enclave of offices, homes, shops, bars and boulevards, is essentially complete. It’s a huge success – and yet is there something missing?The near quarter-century, kilometre-long, 67-acre project to redevelop King’s Cross in London is a monument of its age. It is the urban embodiment of the Blair era in which it was conceived, of the third way, of th
  
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• From welfare to warfare: Sunak’s spending shift imperils local services again

  28-04-2024 12:35
  
  Council budgets look a likely target when the Tory government seeks to balance the books and pay for its promisesTalking tough on “sicknote culture”, stopping the boats and offering billions of pounds extra for defence spending. Ahead of local elections in England and Wales this week, Rishi Sunak has been in campaign overdrive.With the prime minister suffering the joint-lowest satisfaction rating of any Conservative or Labour leader since 1978, experts are predicting a drubbing for t
  
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