News digest 12 July 2011
Another packed digest starts with
Cameron’s call to flog off UK plc, while Southampton council is
stashing cash, support for cuts drops, Southern Cross finally
collapses there’s a spending squeeze, markets tumble, more strikes
in the air, bad news for BA pensions and bonuses for Network rail
are rightly condemned, coke is not it, Rebekah’s still there and it
seems Blair no longer cares about fair pay…
Roll up, roll up – Lord
Stockton accused Margaret Thatcher of selling off the family silver
back in the 1980s, but yesterday prime minister David Cameron went
much further and effectively put the UK up for sale as he outlined
his plan to effectively sell off all of the UK’s public services.
Citing local government as an example Unite’s Gail Cartmail said:
”Our councils, for good or ill, are elected to spend
our money - and when we lose faith in them we can dispatch them at
the ballot box. So why break this fundamental relationship of
accountability - or is the real intention to replace the state with
the private sector?” (Mirror p15, Sun p2, Mail p19, Times p10, Guardian p12, Telegraph p8, FT p4, Morning Star p1, Unite
release)
Southampton stashes away
millions – The council at the centre of a row over forcing
all its staff to sign inferior contracts or face the sack suffered
yet another challenge yesterday after unions said following the
report exposing council plans to axe a quarter of the workforce
over the next three years the council’s statement of accounts shows
it has added £4.5 million to its reserves in the past year, workers
will march through the city tomorrow to demonstrate at the council
meeting (Morning
Star p4, BBC News,
ITV
News).
Support for cuts
drops – And the FT (p2)
publishes the results of a Harris poll which was carried out as
spending reductions started to bite, the result is that support for
the cuts has dropped from 69 per cent to 55 per cent and a
significant rise - to 45 per cent - of people who think the cuts
will harm the recovery…
Three more years of economic
misery – And the Mirror (p8) and Sun (p2) report on a grim forecast
from the influential Centre for Business Research which says the
chancellor may be forced to borrow more to meet demands as the
recovery is much slower than predicted by the Office of Budget
Responsibility.
NHS redundancy bill could top £1
billion - The Mirror (p24) reports £23 million has
already been paid out to 600 NHS workers who were made redundant,
but with up to 50,000 NHS employees expected to lose their jobs
those figures could be just the tip of the iceberg…
Southern Cross collapses –
Landlords walk away from company leaving 31,000 OAPs in limbo and
up to 44,000 jobs at risk after the company announced its impending
closure. The company intends to hand back the homes to private
landlords, although research has found that over 336 of the homes
are owned by companies outside Britain, many in tax havens. Wonder
where all the millions have gone (Mirror p26, Sun p4, Express p15, Mail p4/69, Times p10, Indie p8, Guardian p12, Telegraph b1/4, FT p15/17, Morning Star p2).
80 universities to charge maximum
£9,000 – The average charge for students in 2012 is
expected to be £8,393 over £900 more than ministers predicted and
none of the universities that chose to charge the top amount has
been told to think again contrary to claims by Clegg and Cameron
(Sun p2, Mail p12, Times p11, Indie p15, Guardian p10, Telegraph p2, FT p4, Unite
release).
Quarter of Neets considered
suicide – And the Mirror (p31) has the shocking
results of a poll by youth support body FutureYou which said that a
quarter of unemployed people aged under 25 have considered suicide
to escape their situation. More than three quarters of Neets (not
in education, employment or training) feel their lives are ‘wasted’
and more than half of Neet women think they have no chance of
getting a job…
Not enough staff at the Bank of
England – The Times (p37) reports that the
Bank of England has said it has not got enough qualified staff to
carry out its new job of overseeing the City of London.
Banking reforms not far
enough – The Mail (p66) reports that the
banking reforms to be unveiled later this year will not go far
enough with the Independent Commission on Banking too narrow
according to the New Economics Foundations’ Good Banking
Summit.
Spending squeeze – The
Mirror (p48) reports that
Lloyds reports that ordinary people saw a sharp slowdown in
spending power as bank’s tracking of flows in and out of current
accounts found incomes slumped again.
Fox flies – Talking of
spending the Sun (p2)
reports that defence secretary Liam Fox has been blasted for taking
30 costly foreign trips while presiding over drastic cuts to the
military, in the past year Fox is estimated to have spent £100,000
on foreign jaunts…
Libya talks – And while
£100,000 would barely pay for some of the munitions that have
rained down on Libya since the conflict started the Mail (p2) reports that the French
defence minister Gerard Longuet has said the bombing has failed and
it is now time for peace talks with Libya, Cameron and Fix disagree
but the French defence minister was backed by Italian foreign
minister, Franco Frattini…
Markets tumble – With
mounting fears that the eurozone debt crisis will suck in Italy
sent stock exchanges tumbling yesterday with both the euro and
sterling dropping against the dollar (Express p42, Mail p2/67, Times p31, Indie p33, Guardian p22, Telegraph b1, FT p1).
Another air strike – Over in
Paris and Lyon flights could be grounded as easyJet staff – members
of the UNAC union – started 48 hour strike action in a dispute over
sick pay and bonuses (Mirror
p27, Sun p14, Express p9, Times p38).
Qantas pilots join in – And
it seems to be the season for aviation action as the Morning Star (p6) reports
that 2,500 Qantas pilots have voted to take industrial action over
concerns related to job security.
Heathrow record – However
more positive news as the UK airport had its busiest June ever with
6.1 million passengers using the airport last month, a rise of 6.3
per cent on the previous year (Mirror p48, Sun p36, Mail p69, Indie p38, Telegraph b2).
BA pensions – Bad news for BA
staff as the airline says it has been forced to shift uprating
pension payments from RPI to CPI which could cut the value of
pensions by as much as 20 per cent. The chair of the pension
scheme, Paul Spencer, was branded ‘unsympathetic’ towards the
members (Guardian p24,
Telegraph b5).
Rail bonuses – Telegraph (p12) and Morning Star (p2) report
that the House of Commons public accounts committee says bonuses
enjoyed by Network rail bosses were ‘simply unacceptable’, no
argument there.
Siemens denial – And as more
details of the march to keep UK rail manufacturing on track on
Saturday 23 July are unveiled Unite general secretary Len McCluskey
said: "The workers at Bombardier face a very uncertain
future but they have Unite's full support. We are going to fight
for them and back them all the way. The government's excuses just
do not stand up to scrutiny and we believe the coalition should
re-think its disastrous decision.” while Siemens has
denied that it was trying to hire Bombardier staff saying it only
has preferred bidder status and has not won the order yet (Express p7, Morning Star p3,
Recruiter, Unite
release).
Northern water goes east –
From Derby and north to Northumberland where the north east water
utility – Northumbrian – looks likely to be snapped up for some
£4.7 billion by Cheung Kong infrastructure, part of Hong Kong based
Li Ka-Shing’s empire (Mirror
p48, Sun p36, Times p35, Indie p34, Telegraph b3, FT p16).
Nestle looks east – Swiss
chocolate maker Nestle is looking to acquire 60 per cent of the
Chinese chocolate maker Hsu Fu Chi for $1.7 billion (Sun p36, Indie p34, FT p19).
Coke battle fizzes up – Back
in the UK and up to 200 Coca-Cola Enterprises distribution workers
could strike over an ‘insulting pay offer’ after national officer
Jennie Formby said Unite is balloting its members at Coca-Cola
Enterprises in response to a paltry pay offer: "It is
insulting to the workforce that this vastly profitable
multinational is refusing to listen to its employees and
acknowledge their contribution to the success of the
organisation.” (Morning Star p4,
PA, Unite
release)
Still there – And as more
revelations in the phone hacking scandal are revealed, the latest
show that former prime minister Gordon Brown was hacked with the
paper gaining access to his personal finances, health records and
details of his family. Allegations spread to include the Sunday
Times and senior police officers are also thought to have been
hacked, could that be why the Met closed the case too early?
Yesterday Milly Dowler’s family said Rebekah Brooks should resign,
but Murdoch is still backing her as the deal to buy BSkyB starts to
unravel (Mirror p1/4-7,
Sun p6-7, Express p1-5, Mail p1/6-7, Times p1-7, Indie p1-7, Guardian p1-9, Telegraph p1/4-7, FT p1/3, Morning Star p5).
Still counting the pennies –
And finally the Telegraph
(p3) reports that Tony Blair, who has built up a £25 million
fortune since stepping down as prime minister, is asking for
interns to work unpaid at one of his charities, this from the man
who led a government that introduced the minimum wage in his first
term, how times – and people – change…
Edited by Mik
Sabiers
Subscribe to this post's comments using
RSS
Comments
