More than 3 million women who believe they have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after steep increases to the state pension age are being promised compensation by Labour as part of a £58bn scheme designed to end a “historic injustice”.
Related: ‘The Tories stole my state pension when I was 60, now I want it back’
Continue reading...Motorist filled up, popped into the attached M&S, used the car wash, then received a parking charge
First it was retail parks, then came station car parks. Now drivers who fill their car up at garages, or use the car wash are being hit with £100 demands from private parking companies for staying too long.
Both BP and Shell have been quietly signing up parking firms to install CCTV cameras at the entrances and exits to petrol stations, which are then used to enforce a maximum stay limit – which can be 30 minutes at a BP station and as little as 20 minutes at a Shell station. Fail to comply, and you’ll face £100 demands and the threat of debt collectors.
Continue reading...PM’s apparent blunder over £12,500 threshold could benefit him amid ‘factchecking’ row
Boris Johnson has said he wants to raise the national insurance threshold to £12,500, letting slip a major Tory tax cut from the manifesto as he was speaking to workers in Teesside.
The prime minister blurted out the key announcement as he was pressed by an employee at a fabrication yard about whether he would help “people like us”, not just the rich.
Continue reading...Haircuts for rough sleepers. Beauty treatments for cancer patients. Boilers for disabled people. A wave of specialists are providing skills – and hope – for those in need
Goodwill, it appears, is in high demand. One thing all the altruists I met while researching this article have in common is that they’re on the phone the whole time. Perhaps if mobiles had been around in Robin Hood’s day he would have had one pressed constantly to his lughole. “Marion … yes, love. I’m just having a fight on a bridge with Little John … sorry, you’re breaking up, terrible reception in here, all the oaks... What, the Sheriff’s abducted you? OK, I’m coming!”
Continue reading...European court of justice says origin must be identified in decision likely to anger Israel
The European Union’s top court has ruled that EU countries must oblige retailers to identify products made in Israeli settlements with special labels, in a ruling likely to spark anger in Israel.
The European court of justice (ECJ) said in a statement that “foodstuffs originating in the territories occupied by the state of Israel must bear the indication of their territory of origin”.
Continue reading...Offers from Spain and Turkey to save firm reportedly had no support from Westminster
The government has been accused of sealing Thomas Cook’s fate, as claims emerged that the Spanish and Turkish governments had offered to help save the stricken tour operator, only for the deal to disintegrate due to a lack of support in Westminster.
As recriminations flew, government-chartered aircraft began flying 150,000 stranded Thomas Cook customers back to the UK after the 178-year-old tour operator collapsed into liquidation in the early hours of Monday under the weight of its debts.
Continue reading...It’s neat, easy – and a staggering £2bn global market. But as plastic grass takes over our cities, some say that it’s green only in colour
If your attention during the Women’s World Cup was on the pitch rather than the players, you might have noticed that the matches were all played on real grass. That was a hard-won change, made after the US team complained to Fifa that they sustained more injuries on artificial turf.
In private gardens, however, the opposite trend is happening: British gardens are being dug up and replaced with plastic grass. But this isn’t the flaky, fading stuff on which oranges were once displayed at the greengrocer. Today’s artificial grass is nearly identical to the real thing.
Continue reading...The authors Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung are part of a movement called Fire that encourages people to save intensively to retire early
Growing up in poverty in rural China, where her family collectively lived on as little as $0.44 a day, Kristy Shen learned to make decisions based on pragmatism rather than passion from a young age.
On her first ever trip to a toy shop aged eight, after her family moved to Canada, she declined the offer of a teddy bear in favour of a cheaper one and requested that her father send the remainder of the money to their family in China. As a teenager, she chose to be a computer engineer, ignoring her dream to be a writer, based on a formula she devised to rank the best value university courses based on tuition fees versus future pay. And as an adult, any domestic disagreements with her husband, Bryce Leung, are generally won or lost based on who makes the best mathematical case.
Continue reading...Proposal could provide cheaper funding for charities, says finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, but critics warn against greater government control of welfare projects
India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has called for the creation of a “social stock exchange”, allowing ethically minded investors to buy stakes in social enterprises, volunteer groups and welfare organisations.
The proposal would be a radical experiment in a country characterised by stark inequality and rapid economic growth.
Continue reading...Some staff in London reported to be in tears after hearing their jobs have gone
Deutsche Bank started slashing thousands of jobs in the City of London and in New York only hours after announcing a drastic plan to reduce its global workforce by 18,000.
Germany’s biggest lender employs almost 8,000 people in the UK, with 7,000 in London, which is one of the main hubs for its global investment bank, where the bulk of the job losses will be focused. The jobs being cut make up about a fifth of Deutsche’s global workforce of 91,500.
Continue reading...It is a simple question with an incredibly complex answer – not even the Land Registry knows the exact ownership of all parts of the country. Guy Shrubsole set out to solve the mystery. Plus Alex Hern on the police’s use of facial recognition technology
For nearly 1,000 years, there has been no comprehensive answer to the question of who owns England. Ever since William the Conqueror ordered the “great survey”, the issue has not been satisfactorily resolved. Even the central body that should know, the Land Registry, can only pin down the ownership of about 80% of the country.
Using creative techniques and old-fashioned detective work, Guy Shrubsole set about solving the mystery. The author and campaigner looked at the prime suspects: royalty, the church, the aristocracy, foreign oligarchs and major companies. He tells Anushka Asthana that although some of the names have changed, we still live in a country recognisable from the middle ages, one in which a small elite owns the majority of the land.
Continue reading...A Guardian/ITV News undercover investigation raises concerns about Gavin Woodhouse, who is behind project endorsed by Bear Grylls
A new £200m outdoor adventure park, which is being launched with the support of the celebrity adventurer Bear Grylls, is being fronted by a financier who has raised millions of pounds from private investors and whose businesses have a multimillion-pound “black hole”.
Related: How Gavin Woodhouse raised millions for a string of stalled projects
Continue reading...Rise in bars stocking 0% beers to meet demand of drinkers who wish to ditch the hangover
During last year’s sweltering summer in Europe, workers of the Störtebeker beer brewery stood at the doors of the bottle depot eagerly awaiting the empty returns so they could be washed and refilled as quickly as possible. A bottle shortage swept the country due to the rate at which beer was being consumed to quench the overheated nation’s thirst.
But it wasn’t the demand for their classic range of beers that surprised the brewery bosses most, rather the rate at which its alcohol-free varieties were being drunk.
Continue reading...Banknotes of 10,000, 20,000 and 50,000 bolívar denominations will begin circulating on Thursday, the central bank said
Venezuela is releasing new banknotes for the second time in less than a year, the central bank said on Wednesday, after hyperinflation eroded the effects of an August 2018 monetary overhaul meant to improve availability of cash.
Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, last year cut five zeroes off the currency and prices. The move was supposed to ease shortages of cash that pushed most of the economy toward debit and credit card operations and put heavy strain on digital commerce platforms.
Continue reading...The article (Big regional gaps revealed in disposable incomes across UK, 23 May) is very misleading. It makes no allowances for the increased housing costs most Londoners face.
In February 2019, Londoners spent the biggest proportion of their income on rent as compared to other areas of the UK; more than one third of a household’s income. The average monthly rental was £1,599 as compared to a £940 UK average. Over a year, this amounts to £7,908 extra housing costs: which pretty much wipes out the “extra money” that Londoners have to spend post-tax as compared to the UK average. This data is from statistica.com.
Continue reading...With flexible hours the norm, and almost two years’ parental leave for every child, Sweden’s capital boasts a happy and efficient workforce. What can other cities learn?
It is 3.30pm, and the first workers begin to trickle out of the curved glass headquarters of the Stockholm IT giant Ericsson.
John Langared, a 30-year-old programmer, is hurrying to pick up his daughter from school. He has her at home every other week, so tends to alternate short hours one week with long hours the next.
Continue reading...Research by author reveals corporations and aristocrats are the biggest landowners
Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.
The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.
Continue reading...Lawsuit could benefit 46 million people even if they have never owned the credit card
Almost every adult in the UK could receive a payout of up to £300 from Mastercard after a court ruling paved the way for a £14bn class action lawsuit.
The legal action taken by former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks claims that 46 million UK consumers paid higher prices in shops over a 16-year period because of allegedly excessive transaction fees charged by Mastercard.
Continue reading...Legal adult minimum of £8.21 an hour still leaves millions struggling, say campaigners
Almost 2 million workers in the UK are in line for a pay rise on Monday as the legal minimum wage increases by nearly 5%.
Adults on pay rates rebranded as the “national living wage” will receive a 4.9% rise from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour, worth an extra £690 over a year and affecting around 1.6 million people. The hourly rate for 21- to 24-year-olds will go up from £7.38 to £7.70, and for 18- to 20-year-olds from £5.90 to £6.15 in increases that cover about 230,000 people.
Continue reading...Commission set up by Scottish government recommends new powers to split monopolies
Scottish land ownership rules must be radically reformed to reverse the concentration of the countryside in the hands of a small number of ultra-wealthy individuals and public bodies, a major review has warned.
The study by the Scottish Land Commission, a government quango, says that in extreme cases where landowners abuse their power they could face compulsory purchase or community buyouts.
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