Displaying items by tag: Business

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that the proportion of UK residents' disposable income that goes into savings has fallen to a record low. The general secretary of the TUC said, ‘The figures make grim reading. People raiding piggy banks is bad news for working people and the economy.’ With falling wages as living costs rise, many families are running down their savings or relying on credit cards, loans and even foodbanks to get through the month as working households struggle to make ends meet. Vince Cable said, ‘Families are increasingly unable to live within their means or save for the future. Our economy's reliance on consumer spending, propped up by debt, is not sustainable.’ Recently, Moneyfacts said that savers have had a ‘never-ending battle’ to get a decent return on their cash over the past few years, and savings rates are failing to keep pace with the rising cost of living.

Northern Ireland bakery Ashers has refused to make an engagement cake with a same-sex marriage slogan for a man and his partner. Joe Palmer, who is to wed long-term love Andy Wong this summer, says he’s hurt by the refusal to bake the cake ordered. This has happened just weeks after a landmark Court of Appeal ruling against Ashers, a bakery run by the McArthurs, a Christian family. The ruling was that Ashers had discriminated against a customer due to his sexuality when they refused his order for a cake with a pro-gay marriage motto. This time a friend, Grainne McCann, ordered and paid for the cake online, only to have the order rejected the next day. The wording requested for the cake was ‘Gay marriage rocks! Happy engagement Andy and Joe! Lots of love xxx’. Grainne said, ‘The cake was refused because it celebrated gay marriage.’

A new study on British cultural attitudes at the workplace has found that religion has become the butt of jokes. Workers who would never make sexist or racist jokes feel free to mock faith instead. The recently released ComRes study warned that as many as a million workers may have faced harassment, discrimination or bullying because of their religious beliefs, with some saying they're uncomfortable about mentioning they pray or go to church. James Orr, a fellow in theology, ethics and public life at Oxford University, wrote a report titled ‘Beyond Belief: Defending religious liberty through the British Bill of Rights,’ saying that such targeting is clearly a problem, but questions of humour are not clear-cut. If one is confident in one's belief, one should be able to accommodate and put up with a bit of mocking and humour.

Donald Tusk once warned, ‘UK leaving could cause destruction of not only the EU but Western political civilisation in its entirety’. He now has to keep Europe's leaders united in negotiations. He will also prepare the draft letter to the 27 states that will be the negotiating guidelines and response to Britain’s Article 50 letter. Others involved: Michel Barnier goes head-to-head with David Davis in tough negotiations. Sabine Weyand, his deputy and a formidable veteran at representing the Commission’s best interests, will not give much ground in trade talks. Didier Seeuws will head negotiating, keeping 27 governments happy and shaping EU / UK future relationships: he is modest and obliging, grasping complex technical issues and political stakes. David Davis, UK Brexit Secretary and a champion of civil liberties, helped to negotiate the Brussels agreements which he is now charged with unpicking. Oliver Robbins is a popular senior EU adviser who may put free movement of people at the heart of negotiations. Tim Barrow, UK ambassador to the EU, knows Brussels corridors and people.

In a confident and hard-hitting speech on Tuesday, Theresa May spoke of a ‘bold’ approach to the UK’s Brexit negotiations. She said that the UK will leave the European single market, retake control of immigration, strike its own trade deals, and refuse to be bound by rulings from the European Court of Justice. She also confirmed that MPs will put the final deal to a vote in both Houses of Parliament. In reaction to her speech, which one commentator described as ‘some of the most important words she will ever utter’, the value of the pound jumped sharply as traders were reassured that a firm strategy is now in place. However, others were much more critical, with a number of European leaders accusing the PM of attempting to ‘blackmail’ the EU. Also, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that a second Scottish referendum on independence is now ‘all but inevitable’; her government has repeatedly stressed its desire to stay in the EU single market. See

The director of the US office of government ethics has criticised Donald Trump's plan to hand control of his business empire to his sons before his inauguration next week. Walter Shaub said that the plan does not match the standards of US presidents over the last forty years, and would not remove conflicts of interest. ‘Every president in modern times has taken the strong medicine of divestiture’, he said, referring to a process whereby Mr Trump would sell off his corporate assets and put the profits into a blind trust run by an independent trustee. The Trump Organisation is an umbrella company for his hundreds of investments in real estate, brands and other businesses. Another problem for the president-elect is the huge and very public rift between himself and the US intelligence community, over its recently-published conclusion that the Kremlin sought to support Trump’s election. Neither side is likely to back off and both may come out damaged. See: