Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has confirmed that a freeze on income tax thresholds, meaning an effective tax rise when people’s pay goes up, will continue for the next three years. Mr Hunt told the BBC that the freeze on thresholds – agreed in response to Covid – will continue, but said it will end after 2028....
Bombshells, blackholes and pledges – this morning’s announcements are part of a fiscal phony war ahead of the release of party manifestos in a fortnight. On tax and spend, at least for now, the main parties are more concerned with what they are not going to do rather than setting out actual plans. They are...
Rail passengers in Cumbria have been told not to travel after a train derailed. There is disruption between Carlisle and Oxenholme Lake District due to the derailment near Shap on Wednesday. Avanti West Coast, which operates the impacted line between Preston and Glasgow and Edinburgh, said services north of Preston were cancelled on Thursday and...
A lobby body representing thousands of UK firms has urged the next government to forge closer ties with the EU after years of “choppy times” for British business. The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which represents over 19,000 companies and 18 million employees, said businesses are “not getting used to” post-Brexit trading rules. The BCC...
8 minutes ago Elna Schutz,Business reporter Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar uses an AI chatbot to help with her writing While for many of us AI chatbots are perhaps just an interesting novelty, for some people they are proving to be transformational. Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar, from North Yorkshire, has dyslexia, dyspraxia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)....
21 minutes ago Jennifer Meierhans,Business reporter Getty Images New supermarket “challenges” that reward shoppers with extra loyalty points for buying more could lead to overspending, consumer groups have warned. Four of the UK’s biggest supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – are now offering members of their loyalty schemes bonus points if they hit...
It is not just styles from the 1990s that are making a comeback. One of the decade’s biggest brands is too. Abercrombie & Fitch appears on track for a second year of double digit sales growth – its first such streak in more than a decade. The company, which also owns Hollister, has told investors...
Mining giant BHP has urged its UK-based rival Anglo American to extend the looming deadline for a final offer on a proposed £39bn merger. In a statement this morning, the Australian BHP attempted to ease concerns about its plans for Anglo American’s business in South Africa, ahead of elections in the country on Thursday. It...
But at least there is some wheat growing. The other half of the field has tiny shoots of beans, which will eventually grow into much cheaper cattle feed. Here the winter wheat, sown in autumn 2023, drowned under the long winter rains. “You sort of watch it die,” Mr Wilkins reflects, ruefully. “You put so...
Another former executive of FTX has been jailed over his part in the cryptocurrency giant’s implosion in late 2022. Ryan Salame, who was the co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary, was sentenced to 90 months in prison, US federal prosecutors said. Salame – who was a top lieutenant to Sam Bankman-Fried, the bankrupt crypto exchange’s founder...