Pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers lauds sales rise but warns of risks ahead
The All Bar One owner, Mitchells & Butlers, has lauded recent encouraging sales at the pub and restaurant group but warned that risks from rising food and energy costs lie ahead.
The hospitality chain, which also owns Toby Carvery and Harvester, told shareholders on Wednesday that like-for-like sales had increased by 6.5% since the end of its latest financial year in late September.
Continue reading...Total sales rose by 4% but figures were helped by inflation masking lower volumes, says BRC
Britain’s retailers benefited from a November sales boost fuelled by Black Friday discounts and colder weather as consumers bought winter coats, hot water bottles and hooded blankets, according to industry data.
In its latest snapshot of high street and online spending, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said sales growth picked up last month compared with October, despite mounting concern over the cost of living crisis.
Continue reading...Nationwide warns inflation and rising interest rates will weigh down housing market
UK house prices have fallen at their fastest rate for two and a half years as the fallout from Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget put buyers off according to Nationwide, which warned inflation and rising interest rates would weigh on the market in the coming months.
The price of an average home dropped 1.4% to £263,788 in November, according to the lender’s house price index, accelerating a slowdown that saw prices fall 0.9% in October. It was the third monthly fall in a row, and the biggest drop since June 2020.
Continue reading...Sydney sneaks into Top 10 as rising energy prices send inflation soaring globally, Economist Intelligence Unit survey finds
New York was the world’s most expensive metropolis in 2022, sharing the unwanted title with Singapore, as soaring energy prices doubled the inflation rate across the major global cities, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual survey.
Last year’s leader Tel Aviv dropped to third, while Sydney snuck into the Top 10 and Moscow and St Petersberg in Russia scaled the rankings by as much as 88 places as sanctions and buoyant oil prices propelled prices higher, the EIU’s Worldwide Cost of Living report found.
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Coalition is alienating young voters, PM says
Over on ABC radio Melbourne, Anthony Albanese has been asked what he thinks about the Victorian election and the lessons for the Liberal party.
One of the things that we’re seeing, I believe is an alienation from younger voters from the Coalition.
When you have a position where you have senior members of the Coalition [who] can’t say that climate change is real in spite of the floods and bushfires and all of the evidence of the heating of the planet that we’re seeing, let alone any time something is put up to take action on climate change. They dismiss it.
[It] depends where you work. There will be some businesses, for example, which refuse to bargain with their staff where they used to and their staff where they used to and the better-off-overall test became too complex. Getting rid of the red tape we got there will bring some of the businesses back to the table straight away.
Also, any businesses that are concerned, like ... that actually don’t want to be involved in multi-employer bargaining, the simple fix for them is for them to negotiate with their staff now.
Continue reading...With the RBA challenged by the pandemic, surging inflation and calls for reform, one expert says its recent report card has been ‘mixed’
The Reserve Bank review is assessing calls for changes to the central bank’s inflation target, the selection of board members and how authorities should manage shocks from asset bubbles to the climate crisis.
The review, launched in July with a reporting deadline for next March, has received more than 114 submissions, interviewed 230-plus people and surveyed almost 1,100 current and former RBA staff, the panel told a CEDA briefing in Sydney on Thursday.
Continue reading...Regulator raises cap for start of 2023 by £730 but government limits typical bill to £3,000 from April
The energy regulator Ofgem has said its price cap will reach £4,279 from January – but households will be shielded by the government’s emergency intervention to keep a lid on bills.
Ofgem said the cap, which is adjusted every quarter, will increase by £730 for the three months from the start of next year. However, the government’s energy price guarantee (EPG) will limit typical household bills to £2,500. Analysts had expected the cap to sit at about £4,200.
Continue reading...Consumer body says one in three lone parents forced to miss meals or visit food banks to make ends meet
Close to a third of single parents have resorted to skipping meals to make ends meet because of rising food costs, according to research revealing the household types worst hit by the cost of living crisis.
Three in 10 single parent households surveyed said they had missed meals as a consequence of runaway food prices. That compared with one in seven parents in couples and an overall figure of 14% in the poll by the consumer group Which?
Continue reading...Liberal MP Karen Andrews addressed the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in parliament. Follow all the day’s news
Independents to launch report on whistleblower protections
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has been arguing for more protections for whistleblowers for years. The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has proposed new laws to boost whistleblower protections, but there are still calls the law needs to go further.
Protecting Australia’s Whistleblowers: The Federal Roadmap draws on landmark research and synthesises three decades of reviews to outline a comprehensive, 12-step roadmap for better protecting and empowering whistleblowers.
Establishment of a whistleblower protection authority to oversee and enforce Australia’s whistleblower protections;
Upgraded whistleblower protections for Australian public servants in line with domestic and international best practice, including a positive duty to protect whistleblowers and steps to make it easier for whistleblowers to enforce their rights;
Consolidation and harmonisation of whistleblowing laws across the private sector in one new single law covering all non-public sector whistleblowers; and
Stronger, simpler protections for whistleblowers who make disclosures to the media and members of parliament.
The mortality ratios from Covid in Australia are quite similar to those estimated in other advanced nations. As a share of the population, fewer people died from Covid in Australia than in most other affluent nations. Yet among those who died, the same health inequalities can be seen in Australia as in other advanced countries.
What might have driven the socioeconomic disparities in Covid mortality? And why might many of those disparities have been largest in the Delta wave? As I have noted, disadvantaged people may be less able to work remotely, more reliant on public transport, and more likely to live in crowded households. Uptake of vaccination and antiviral treatments have varied across society as vaccines and treatment became increasingly available. Another factor is that successive Covid waves have had varying degrees of severity. A final factor is that in the years since Covid began, population immunity has steadily risen.”
Across all waves of the pandemic, deaths from Covid were highest among those aged 80‑89 years. The median age of those who died from Covid was 87.4 years for females and 83.6 years for males. Males had a higher number of registered Covid deaths than females. For every 100 female Covid deaths, there were 126 male Covid deaths. Around 3-quarters of all Covid deaths occurred in Victoria and New South Wales.
Continue reading...Central banks will need to adjust rates more often to respond to unpredictable levels of inflation, Philip Lowe says
Inflation is likely to become more volatile in the future as globalism retreats and climate shocks mount, requiring central banks to adjust interest rates more often, the Reserve Bank governor has said.
Philip Lowe, in a Committee for Economic Development of Australia speech in Melbourne on Tuesday, said the current spike in prices was soon expected to peak at around 8% before declining to “a little over 3%” by the end of 2024. Improving post-Covid supply chains, cheaper commodities and the effects of interest rate hikes – with more possible – would combine to rein in inflation.
Continue reading...Chancellor defends tax rises as Institute for Fiscal Studies says UK now entering a ‘new era’ of higher taxation
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has conceded that Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit deal has caused damaging trade barriers with the European Union, as he said immigration will be “very important” for the economy.
Hunt insisted the UK would find a way to improve trading ties with the EU without rejoining the single market.
His comments came after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said Brexit caused a “significant adverse impact” to trade volumes and business relationships between UK and EU firms.
Asked if rejoining the single market would boost growth, the Chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I think having unfettered trade with our neighbours and countries all over the world is very beneficial to growth.
I have great confidence that over the years ahead we will find outside the single market we are able to remove the vast majority of the trade barriers that exist between us and the EU. It will take time.
I don’t think it’s the right way to boost growth because it would be against what people were voting for when they supported Brexit which was to have control of our borders and membership of the single market requires free movement of people.
So I think we can find other ways that will more than compensate for those advantages.
There needs to be a long-term plan if we’re going to bring down migration in a way that doesn’t harm the economy.
We are recognising that we will need migration for the years ahead - that will be very important for the economy, yes.
They don’t look obviously deliverable. If you take the spending cuts that are in place and subtract out the protected departments like health and defence, you end up with really big falls in those unprotected departments.
Hard to see how given the legacy of austerity, given public sector wages are already lagging behind and given this is effectively tying the hands of governments, it’s really hard to see how those will be delivered.
What we saw yesterday was the biggest deterioration in the overall forecasts since the OBR started producing these forecasts.
What is doing the damage here is higher interest rates.
Continue reading...Lobby group says failure to tackle workforce shortages would be highly damaging for the economy
Britain’s foremost business lobby group has urged Jeremy Hunt to use this week’s autumn statement to shake up immigration rules to support companies struggling with chronic staff shortages and a looming recession.
The head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said urgent action was required from the chancellor on Thursday to bolster the economy, including “tough political choices” to allow more overseas workers in Britain as employers struggle with a desperate lack of staff.
Continue reading...One backer of ex-PM says ‘that wasn’t what was going on’, as Jeremy Hunt also appears to dispute version of events
Kwasi Kwarteng’s claims that he tried to get Liz Truss to slow down her financial plans have been challenged by her allies.
In his first interview since he was sacked as chancellor by Truss, Kwarteng said he had told the then prime minister to be more cautious with their £45bn programme of tax cuts.
Continue reading...Bureau of Labor Statistics data represents decrease from September but core inflation rate remains high
Prices of goods and services in the US were up 7.7% in October compared with the same time last year, a sign that inflation is slowly starting to cool after reaching decades-high records over the last few months.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday that in October, the consumer price index showed a 7.7% rise in prices over the last 12 months, a 0.5 percentage-point decrease from September, which saw a rate of 8.2%. The October inflation rate is the lowest since January, when rates rose to 7.5%.
Continue reading...Dollar slides and stocks rally in New York on hopes that the Federal Reserve will slow its interest rate rises
The cost of living crisis is driving UK food banks to “breaking point” with almost 1.3m emergency parcels given to people over just six months.
The Trussell Trust charity has said families face record-breaking levels of need, with one in five individuals referred to its network now coming from working households.
Continue reading...Decades of bailouts have convinced some that the Fed will always come to the rescue – but this only papers over the fundamental flaws of the US economy
With the Federal Reserve leading the world’s central banks in a tightening cycle of interest rate rises, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2006, commentators across the political spectrum are noting the fondness of the Fed chair, Jerome “Jay” Powell, for his legendary predecessor, Paul Volcker. On the left, the comparison is fearful; on the center and on the right, it’s one of admiration. But circumstances don’t really support the comparison.
On taking office in October 1979, Volcker declared “the standard of living of the average American has to decline” as a consequence of the war against the chronic inflation of the 1970s. He quickly set to work making that happen by driving interest rates up towards 20% and creating the deepest US recession since the 1930s.
Continue reading...Rise of 11.6% in October from 10.6% a month earlier comes as milk, teabags and sugar become more expensive
Food prices in the UK soared by 11.6% in October – the fastest rate on record – as staples such as teabags, milk and sugar became more expensive along with fresh food, data shows.
Annual food inflation rose from 10.6% in September, the latest monthly report from the British Retail Consortium and the data firm Nielsen showed.
Continue reading...Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe says half percentage point increases to cash rate possible if economic conditions do not improve
Interest rates will be rising for the foreseeable future and the Reserve Bank of Australia will not hesitate in making higher increases than predicted if inflation does not begin to settle, the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, has warned.
Tuesday’s seventh interest rate hike saw the cash rate increase by the standard quarter of a percentage point, taking rates to a nine-year high of 2.85%, and Lowe said the RBA board would not hesitate to move to half percentage point increases if economic conditions didn’t improve.
Continue reading...Coalition of 40-plus charities and groups launches amid fears of spending cuts to plug public finances
Pressure is building on the leaders of Britain’s two biggest political parties to support higher taxes on wealth amid growing fears over the impact that a renewed austerity drive would have amid the cost of living crisis.
In an intervention which comes as the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, considers options for filling a £35bn black hole in the public finances, a new coalition of 40 charities and campaign groups – including Oxfam, Save the Children and Christians Against Poverty – said Britain’s tax system was broken and those who paid the most should “pay their proper share”.
Continue reading...With fiscal statement deferred and mixed government messaging on tax and spending the BoE has little to go on
The Bank of England will next week consider how much to raise interest rates without having received any guidance from the government about its tax and spending policies, after Jeremy Hunt pushed back the date for this year’s “autumn statement”.
Its policymakers meet on 3 November to decide the increase in the cost of borrowing required to tackle a rate of inflation that climbed above 10% in September.
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