Published: 24 August 2023
By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight
Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch is visiting India for a meeting of G20 trade ministers this week, and while there is expected to push forward Anglo-Indian trade deal negotiations. She will also meet with the Confederation of Indian Industry, and business leaders, including Tata Group boss Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who heads up the so-called B20, the business equivalent of the G20, and whose company is building a £4bn electric car battery 'gigafactory' in the UK. Although “good progress” has already been made towards securing a trade deal with India, Government sources say the next, 12th round of talks will be the hardest yet, with agreements still to be reached on goods, services and investment. There had been speculation the deal might be done by the time Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visits India next month, although that is looking unlikely now. Sunak will nevertheless be warmly welcomed: his appointment as the first British Indian prime minister was one of the top stories across Indian media at the time.
Senior NHS doctors in England will strike for three consecutive days during Conservative Party Annual Conference in October, their trade union the British Medical Association (BMA) said in a statement issued yesterday. The strikes from 2nd -4th October would be the longest period of action so far, BMA consultants committee chair Vishal Sharma said, adding: "Consultants are clear that they're prepared to take regular action and politicians must be left in no doubt that our dispute will not go away simply because they refuse to negotiate". Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said last month that that "no amount of strikes will change" the Government's decision on public sector pay.
Citizens Advice says it was contacted by a total of 46,431 people with energy debts in the first six months of 2023, a 17% increase on the same period last year. Those contacting the charity for help and advice had debts averaging £1,711, a third on 2019. The new energy cap will be revealed on Friday this week, and is expected to set a typical annual household bill at around £1,926 from October, down from the current £2,074.
Wilko administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) yesterday warned employee representatives at the store that it was “likely that there will be redundancies and store closures in the future” because there was no buyer for the whole group. "While discussions continue with those interested in buying parts of the business, it's clear that the nature of this interest is not focused on the whole group,” PwC said in a statement. Meanwhile, various media outlets report their understanding that Pepco Group, the owner of Poundland, is in talks to buy roughly a quarter of Wilko's 400 stores, while B&M European Value Retail is potentially looking to acquire more than 40 shops as part of a carve-up of the value retailer, which went bust two weeks’ ago.
Asda announced this morning that it is making a fresh round of price cuts. Britain's third largest supermarket said it had lowered the prices of 425 branded and own-label products, such as nappies, bread, cereals and sausages, by an average of 11%, in a move that would cost it £23m. Rivals Ocado Retail and Sainsbury's have also announced cuts this week, adding to the downward trajectory in UK food inflation, which stands currently at 12.7%, down from a recent peak of over 19% in March, the highest it had been since 1977.
Which? has asked Ofcom to investigate whether Virgin Media may be breaking the law by hiking customers’ broadband bills whenever it chooses. The consumer champion says it believes Virgin Media “is the most egregious example of unacceptable price hiking practices across the broadband industry” and that the firm’s terms and conditions are an attempt to “have its cake and eat it”. Which? cites the company’s “aggressive” inflation-linked annual mid-contract price increases, and contractual conditions stating it can “change our charges at any time”. Another clause says that in future, customers will face annual price rises based on Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation plus an additional 3.9%. However, affected consumers cannot cancel their contacts without paying substantial exit fees. Which? is therefore urging Ofgem to examine whether Virgin Media’s contract clauses are in breach of the Consumer Rights Act by creating “a significant imbalance” between the rights Virgin Media has granted itself and those of the customer. The regulator is already reviewing inflation-linked, mid-contract price rises amid concerns that they do not give consumers sufficient certainty and clarity about what they can expect to pay.
AstraZeneca is facing two lawsuits at the High Court in London, including one from the husband of a woman who died after receiving the drugmaker's COVID-19 vaccine, in the first of potentially dozens of cases. The UK was the first country to roll out the at-cost AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in early 2021, although it later restricted the use of it among under 40s due to the risk of blood clots. Anish Tailor, whose wife Alpa died in March 2021 after receiving her first dose of the vaccine, filed a product liability claim against AstraZeneca on 4th August, according to court records. His lawyer Peter Todd, from Scott-Moncrieff & Associates, told Reuters that he has nearly 50 other clients who will formally sue AstraZeneca in the coming months. AstraZeneca declined to comment on active legal cases, but a spokesperson said in a statement: "Patient safety is our highest priority and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines. Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems." The Anglo-Swedish pharma company is facing a similar lawsuit from Jamie Scott, who was diagnosed with vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia, which can cause fatal blood clotting, after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. He filed his case on Monday.
Nigel Farage last night slammed as a “sick joke” a £2.4m payout to former NatWest CEO Dame Alison Rose. In a note to investors yesterday, NatWest said it would pay her a £1.15m salary for the year and £1.15m in NatWest shares, which she will receive over the course of five years. She is also in line for £115,566 in pension payments. Rose was forced to quit in disgrace after talking to and giving the BBC false information about the reasons Farage’s bank account with Coutts was closed, but she is currently working out her 12-month notice period at the part-state owned banking group, which says her pay will remain under review while it investigates the scandal. “This is the corrupt British establishment looking after its own,” Farage said on X, formerly known as Twitter, later adding: “How can it be right that NatWest closes hundreds of branches, restricts the use of cash and shuts down accounts without reason — but disgraced CEO Dame Alison Rose gets a £2.4 million payout from the taxpayer?” “Any employee of NatWest that had done what she'd done would have been out the door, fired and would not even have received their month's money,” he also claimed.
Post Office CEO Nick Read is to return all of his bonus payment for work on the Horizon inquiry into how hundreds of sub-postmasters became victims of a grave miscarriage in which some 700 of them were wrongfully convicted for theft and false accounting, with some going to prison, when in fact it was the Horizon software issued by The Post Office that was faulty, and led to them being put under suspicion. Read has apologised for "procedural and governance mistakes made" in the firm between 2000 and 2014, and was last year paid a total bonus of £455,000 last year, of which some £54,400 was payment for his participation in the inquiry. In May, he agreed to pay s£13,600 of that back, but has now agreed to return the whole amount. Business and Trade Committee Chair Darren Jones MP said he was "pleased" Read had decided to return all of the bonus payments, but called for 100% of the bonus payments to be returned by all senior executives, and asked them "to apologise for the morally bankrupt bonus scheme having ever existed in the first place". "The Post Office's engagement with a statutory public inquiry should never have needed bonus incentives for senior executives to do their day job, for which they are already paid," he said. The BBC says The Post Office has not said whether other workers who received bonus payments linked to the inquiry will also return their bonuses. The Horizon inquiry is ongoing, with a conclusion expected next year.
Liverpool FC CEO Billy Hogan has said he does not know when the £80m redevelopment of its Anfield Stadium will be completed as constructors the Buckingham Group have ceased trading and called in administrators. Building work the club had hoped would be completed on its Anfield Road Stand by October has now been abruptly halted, at a cost of around £600,000 in lost income per home game, City AM says. The Buckingham Group has also been working on earthworks on the HS2 and East-West Rail lines, as well as the redevelopment of Northampton Town’s Sixfields Stadium. The employee-owned company said it had suffered “deep losses and interim cash deficits on three major stadium and arena contracts, and a substantial earthworks contract in Coventry”. It blamed its struggles on a combination of “extreme inflation linked to the Ukraine conflict” and “other challenges in the Sports and Leisure division”.
Loveholidays, one of Britain’s biggest online travel agents, is on a journey towards a valuation of close to £1bn as its owners plot a sale that could kick off in the first half of 2024, Sky News reports. The broadcaster says it has learnt that Livingbridge, the private equity firm which has owned a big stake in Loveholidays since 2018, is preparing to kick off a formal auction of the company, working with investment bank Evercore.
Two teenagers were yesterday convicted of computer hacking offences at Southwark Crown Court. The two, Arion Kurtaj, 18, and a 17-year old who cannot be named for legal reason, were key players within the Lapsus$ hacking group, and the jury found they had hacked Uber as well as fintech firm Revolut, and blackmailed the developers of best-selling videogame Grand Theft Auto. Kurtaj had embarked on a solo cybercrime spree in September 2022, while on police bail for earlier offences involving hacking BT Group and mobile operator EE, demanding a $4m ransom, and chipmaker Nvidia Corp, taking around one terabyte of sensitive data, releasing about 80 gigabytes and threatening to publish the rest. The Revolut hack saw him access around 5,000 customers' information, while the Uber hack two days later caused nearly $3m of damage to the ride hailing app, prosecutors said. As Kurtaj, who has autism, was assessed by psychiatrists as not fit to stand trial, the jury was asked to find whether he had committed the acts rather than deliver a verdict of guilty or not guilty. All in all, jurors found he had committed 12 offences, including three counts of blackmail, two counts of fraud and six charges under the Computer Misuse Act. The 17-year-old was found guilty of one count of fraud, one count of blackmail and one count under the Computer Misuse Act relating to Nvidia. He was found not guilty of one count of blackmail and one count under the Computer Misuse Act in relation to BT. He also admitted a Computer Misuse Act offence relating to the hacking of the City of London Police's cloud storage, weeks after the force arrested him in 2022.
A report in today’s Daily Mail cites a study suggesting working night shifts could impair memory by up to 79% in middle-aged and older adults. A team from York University in Canada analysed data on 47,811 adults which included information on employment, work schedules and results of cognitive function tests. One in five participants reported having been exposed to some kind of shift work in their careers and, of those working night shifts in their current job, 79% had higher rates of cognitive impairment compared with those who did only day work. Those who had worked night shifts during their longest job had 53% higher rates. Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience [the so-called ‘body clock’] at the University of Oxford, said: “Such findings agree with both laboratory-based and field studies – for example on long-haul airline pilots – that sleep and circadian rhythm disruption is linked to poorer health outcomes, including impaired emotional and cognitive responses.” A previous study of 283,000 people in the UK also found night shift work to be linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease, the Mail said. It also cited figures from the Office for National Statistics revealing that the number of night shift workers in the UK has dropped in recent years, from 9.5m in 2016 to 8.7m in 2022. Last year, 15% of night-time workers worked from home.
Why Media is an award-winning design, marketing, digital communications and PR agency offering tailored solutions to companies on a global scale. We have extensive experience in delivering design and marketing services to a spectrum of companies including professional services, property companies, financial institutions and shopping centres. We have offices in London UK, Hertford UK, Finestrat ES & Brescia IT.
Marketing Contact
Name: Claire White
E-Mail: claire@whymedia.com
Telephone: 01992 586 507
