Is your home worth over £1 million? Over half a million people in Britain are now “property millionaires” July 11, 2015 The total number of people sitting on properties worth more than £1m now exceeds half a million for the first time. There are 524,306 “property millionaires” in the UK, a rise of 8.3 per cent in a year, according to property website Zoopla. There are now 10,958 streets where the average property price is more [...]
Greek debt crisis: Greek MPs back Alexis Tsipras’ bailout plan July 11, 2015 Lawmakers in Greece voted in the early hours of the morning to back the government’s proposals in order to unlock new funds from creditors. The Greek parliament has overwhelmingly accepted the government package of economic reforms which aim to end the country’s debt crisis. Greek Prime Minister won cross-party support in the vote, saying he [...]
Where is Yanis Varoufakis as the Greek parliament votes? July 10, 2015 Lawmakers in Greece are preparing to vote in Parliament today, but Varoufakis will not be there due to family reasons. The Greek government had sent a package of reform proposals to its creditors on Thursday in order to unlock new funds and avoid bankruptcy, which parliament will be voting on in order to endorse immediate [...]
Suspected bird flu found in Lancashire July 10, 2015 A case of suspected bird flu has been found on a poultry farm in Lancashire, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says. A 10km temporary control zone has been set up around the farm, and all birds on site are to be slaughtered as a precaution. This order means all poultry farms [...]
Behind Greece’s Problems July 10, 2015 Greece will not get very far out of its present morass without coming to grips with how it got there. The country provides a textbook example of a flawed economic system. The public sector is notorious for its corporatist practice of clientelism to gain votes and cronyism to gain favours – though some say that [...]
Putin’s old pal Sergei Pugachev flees London for France in £655m fraud case July 10, 2015 A once-close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone on the run in the midst of a High Court case, saying his life is in danger. Sergei Pugachev defied a court order by fleeing the to France after he was charged with stealing more than £655m. The exiled Russian oligarch became a French citizen [...]
Bank of England asks insurers to imagine terrorist attacks and hurricanes in stress test July 10, 2015 It's rather more dramatic than the stress tests banks were asked to endure: insurers have been told to envisage "worst case" scenarios as UK regulators analyse how the industry could cope with disasters including floods and terrorist attacks. The disasters are part of a series of stress tests put together by the Bank of England’s [...]
AstraZeneca sells drug for $215m to Tillotts as it focuses on core products July 9, 2015 AstraZeneca has sold a gastrointestinal drug to Tillotts Pharma, a Swiss based pharmaceutical company, for $215m (£140m) as it slims down to focus on cancer and other core products. The British-Swedish multinational has disposed of all non-US rights for Entocort, a treatment for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, in the most recent of a string [...]
Institute of Fiscal Studies: “This was not the Budget of a tax reforming chancellor” July 9, 2015 Welfare cuts stole the limelight in the July Budget, but tax changes were more numerous and bigger, said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. While there were £14bn of tax increases in the budget, against £8bn of tax cuts, “it is rather hard to pin down a coherent narrative around the changes,” [...]
Conservative MP: “Ring-fencing pensioners is a departure from the financial reality” July 9, 2015 George Osborne’s decision to ring-fence pensioners is a departure from financial reality, according to Conservative MP Philip Lee. Speaking at a post-Budget briefing hosted by the Taxpayers' Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs, Lee said by pushing the burden of deficit completely away from pensioners, the chancellor is “sending the wrong message.” Debt was [...]
