News digest 28 October 2011
The digest opens with a deal on the EU
bailout, but where’s the detail, there’s a resignation at St Paul’s
while City directors feather their very extensive nests. There’s a
crisis in social care and Clarke’s crackdown breaks down, it could
be goodbye to BMI but Go-Ahead gets a boost and ex prime ministers
expenses are exposed…
Shares soar as EU accord hits the
spot – After staring into the abyss for what seemed like
ages Europe’s leaders finally brokered an agreement to deal with
the debt crisis. However many of the papers say the devil is in the
detail, and in this case the detail is sorely lacking as it will
take many more weeks to finalise the specifics; there’s a good
graphic in the Telegraph
(p4) which shows the complexity of the deal. Evenso the trillion
euro bail-out to save the single currency could remain in danger of
unravelling after Germany’s central bank warned that the rescue
measure was too dependent on the high-risk deals that caused the
economic crisis in the first place, despite that stock markets
around the world soared and the euro rose against other currencies,
the question is how long that will last (Mirror p6-7, Sun p2, Express p8-9, Mail p2/10-11, Times p1/6-8, Indie p1.6-9, Guardian p1/36-39, Telegraph p1/b1/b4-5, FT p1/6-7, Morning Star p7).
St Paul’s canon
fired? – Canon chancellor Giles Fraser sensationally quit
his post at St Paul’s yesterday in support of the anti-capitalist
camp. The senior clergyman said that he could not allow
“violence in the name of the church”
after the authorities started to draw up plans to forcibly remove
protesters who have spent a fortnight camped outside the cathedral
as part of their peaceful protest (Mirror p7, Sun p35, Express p13, Mail p5, Times p10-11, Indie p1/3, Guardian p1/16-19, Telegraph p29, FT p1, Morning Star p3).
Business as usual for the
City – The bosses of Britain’s largest companies were
condemned after figures from Income Data Services showed that the
directors of Britain’s biggest companies pocketed a whopping 49 per
cent increase in pay in the past year. Unite general secretary Len
McCluskey said: “This damning report shows just how
much these pampered directors are removed from the lives of working
people struggling to hold onto their jobs and paying soaring
energy, food and transport costs. This is an astonishing display of
boardroom greed. It is exactly why people have been occupying St
Paul’s to protest against the behaviour of the City elite and a
government which is turning a blind eye to these
abuses.” (Express p2, Mail p8, Times p59, Indie p1, Guardian p41, FT p4, Unite
release)
Fewer pay into pension
schemes – Many of the papers report that the number of
people saving for their retirement is at the lowest level since the
1950s with the country facing a pensions time bomb as the amount of
money invested in schemes drops. Just 8.3 million people are paying
into pensions and five million of those are public sector workers
who face the threat of being priced out of their schemes due to
government changes. The Unite ballot on public sector pensions
opened this week and will close on Wednesday 16 November; a 'yes'
vote will see Unite members take a day of industrial action on 30
November as part of the national day of action against pension cuts
(Mirror p14, Sun p2, Express p2, Mail p19, Indie p70, Telegraph p2, FT p4, Morning Star p3, Unite
release).
Social care crisis – The
Mirror (p21) and Telegraph (p1) report figures
from the House of Commons that show more than £1.3 billion has been
removed from councils’ annual spending on help for the over-65s.
The massive reduction in funding stretches from home help to
daycentres. Figures from Age UK also found that two thirds of
councils were increasing charges for services.
Apprentices up, or not? – The
Indie (p29) and
FT (p4) report that there has been
a 50 per cent rise in apprentices. According to official figures
the total hit 442,700, however the Guardian (p4) notes that a leaked
report shows that many of the new apprentices are just existing
jobs which have been rebranded, and that the main beneficiaries of
the rise are the over 25s.
Clarke’s crackdown breaks
down – And justice secretary Ken Clarke’s pledge to get
tough on crime unravelled within 24 hours after it emerged his
plans would actually put 2,500 high risk criminals back on the
streets (Mirror p4, Mail p12, Times p5, Indie p21, Telegraph p6, Morning Star p1).
Gloom at three year peak –
And on the high street consumer confidence plunged to its lowest
level for three years according to GFK while there was another
month of falling sales in September (Sun p62, Times p62, Guardian p41).
Oil price puts sheen on Shell’s
results – Better news for the oil industry as a ramp up in
production and higher oil prices saw Shell generate profits of £4.4
billion in the last quarter (Mirror p65, Sun p62, Express p77, Mail p88, Times p60, Indie p66, Guardian p42, Telegraph b1, FT p17).
New life for old nuclear idea
– The Indie (p28-29)
reports that a nuclear programme that was abandoned two decades ago
is being looked at once again by the government. Ministers are
considering using ‘fast reactors’ to dispose of more than 100
tonnes of waste plutonium stored at Sellafield in Cumbria.
G4S deal to fail? – The
Telegraph (b1) reports
that hedge funds are betting G4S’ £5.2 billion acquisition of ISS
will collapse due to overall debt levels at the Danish target.
Bye bye BMI? – From debt to
losses and the Times
(p65) reports a surge in losses to €154 million for the first nine
months of the year at airline BMI has prompted speculation that the
UK airline with be sold or broken up by its German parent
Lufthansa.
Hello captain? – The Sun (p17) reports on possible
trouble at BA after the airline ordered cabin crew to get ‘close
and personal’ with pilots to improve morale. Crew have been told to
include cockpit colleagues while socialising on stopovers.
Best of British – The
Mail (p91) focuses on the
Boeing 787 Dreamliner - which took its first commercial flight this
week – and notes that more than 25 per cent of the aircraft is
built in the UK.
Go-Ahead boost – Down on the
ground and bus and train company Go-Ahead reported growth across
all its businesses, and a rise in revenues of four per cent over
the past four months, as higher motoring costs drove passengers out
of their cars (Express p76,
Mail p91, Indie p70, FT p18).
Ex-PMs expenses – And finally
the Sun (p9) and Guardian (p21) report that an
awful lot of chauffeur driven cars and secretarial support must be
needed by former prime ministers after government figures revealed
that Lady Thatcher heads a list of former prime ministers who have
claimed £1.7 million from the taxpayer funded allowance over the
past four years. Thatcher received £535,000, Major received
£490,000 and Tony Blair received £273,000. Interestingly Tony Blair
received £169,076 in 2008-9, more than in his final year as prime
minister in office, wonder what his successor thought of that?
Edited by Mik Sabiers
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