The financial burden on the average consumer seems to be increasing daily. Food prices are rising, energy bills are on the up and National Insurance is about to increase. At the same time, businesses are struggling with issues such as rising transport costs and labour shortages, which have been linked to both Brexit and the …
There have been a thousand-and-one articles written since the pandemic on people’s changing attitude to work. Millennials and the generations that follow them – so we are told – want different things from work. Flexibility, the option of working from home and, above all, to work for a company that shares their values: that values …
At the end of August the CEO of Australian airline Qantas said that the pandemic had cost “billions” in lost revenue. No shock there – but on the same day another airline did come out with a surprising announcement. America’s third-largest airline, Delta, said that it would impose a $200 (£145) monthly surcharge on employees …
As we look back on the months passed since the UK first went into lockdown one thing is abundantly clear – financially, the last couple of years have been good for some people. We’re not talking about the billionaires who have seen their shares rocket during lockdown but rather the many, many people who have …
You may use it for beer or bread, for razor blades, watching films or even for the simple act of reading books on Amazon. The subscription economy is something that has taken a hold on a large and growing portion of the population. It used to be said that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers. …
One of the great themes of the past 16 months has been accidental savings: the amount people in the UK have “saved” by the simple expedient of not being able to go out and spend. “Thrifty Brits stash the cash in lockdown” has been a typical headline, quickly followed by an estimate of how much …
Setting out the government’s tax and spending plans for the year ahead, the Chancellor announced new measures to help business and jobs through the pandemic and to support the UK’s long-term economic recovery and a series of tax-raising plans to help rebalance the public finances. Here is a summary of the main points. Coronavirus support …
Introduction It is interesting to look back 12 months to Rishi Sunak’s first Budget: it was followed by a year none of us could have predicted or imagined. The Conservatives had won a comfortable majority in the December 2019 General Election. As expected, Sajid Javid became Chancellor and, in January, announced that the Budget would …
Back in 2018 Mike Ashley, owner of Sports Direct and other high street brands, famously declared that ‘the British high street will be dead by 2030.’ The targets of his anger were MPs in general and the then-Chancellor Philip Hammond in particular. Any more taxes on the high street, Ashley argued, and it would collapse …
In February, the Daily Telegraph had a headline which must have alarmed savers up and down the land: ‘Savers face threat of negative interest rates.’ According to the story, the Bank of England had told the clearing banks that they ‘must be ready to introduce the policy in the next six months.’ What are negative …
