Sabah Meddings
@sabahmeddings
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Covering UK business for @Business . Senior fellow @JSchofieldTrust . Previous: Chief Business Correspondent at The Sunday Times. DMs open.
London, England
Joined June 2009
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Pinned Tweet
Grimsby, once Europe's biggest fishing port, voted 70% for Brexit. But now voters say Brexit was rhetoric and broken promises.
“The fishing industry in the UK is smaller than the lawnmower industry,” says Patrick Salmon. “Nobody gives a toss, really.”
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Please buy a newspaper today or subscribe: the owners of the ExCel centre have backed down after this story, and are now offering it free to the NHS 👏🏻.
The Abu Dhabi owner of the ExCel centre in east London (now the Nightingale Hospital) is charging the NHS millions in rent - in contrast to Blackstone which has handed over Birmingham’s NEC for free. Story with
@olivershah
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Fujitsu is coming under renewed pressure over its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Lord James Arbuthnot: "It’s hardly fair for the taxpayer to bear the cost of this entire saga. Fujitsu should bear its part of the blame, and of the cost.”
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Former Tory donors are backing the Labour Party, handing tens of thousands to Kier Starmer.
Starmer, Wes Streeting and Jonathan Reynolds have been holding meetings with business.
One donor said: "Conservatives are lurching from one crisis to another".
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For those puzzled about why it has taken an ITV drama to give the Post Office Horizon scandal due prominence, journalist
@Rebeccathomson_
wrote the first story for Computer Weekly in 2009.
But nothing happened.
An interview with Rebecca here:
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⭐️Some professional news: after more than five years at the Sunday Times, I’m leaving for pastures new next month.
I’ll be joining the team at
@business
on October 31 as UK business reporter.
I’ve worked with the best team
@ST_Business
, but I can’t wait to get started.
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The Abu Dhabi owner of the ExCel centre in east London (now the Nightingale Hospital) is charging the NHS millions in rent - in contrast to Blackstone which has handed over Birmingham’s NEC for free. Story with
@olivershah
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Interview: Astra Zeneca’s Pascal Soriot says the Oxford vaccine will be shown to be “right up there” with rival jabs (which reported 90%+) when further data is released - likely to be far above the existing 62% efficacy for its two-dose regimen.
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EXCL: Mick Lynch, of the RMT, has called for coordinated strikes involving thousands of public sector workers including teachers, firefighters and nurses.
The TUC will lead a meeting of unions on Tuesday. Scoop from
@EamonFarhat
from the picket line.
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Post Office scandal: They took away our chance to be grandparents. Gordon Martin was left bankrupt when an auditor turned up at the Post Office branch that he ran in Falmouth, Cornwall to take back the keys. His dreams of retiring in Australia were ruined
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He is convinced that AZ has achieved an efficacy close to Pfizer/BioNTech at 95% and Moderna at 94.5%. “We think we have figured out the winning formula and how to get efficacy that, after two doses, is up there with everybody else. I can’t tell you more because we will publish.”
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Christmas party cancellations are near Omicron levels, say restaurant and pub bosses.
@UKHospKate
says 30% of bookings for next week have been called off. One City site is down 65% on Dec 13.
Rail strike is predicted to wipe £1.5bn from revenues
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At 26,
@Rebeccathomson_
was the first journalist to expose the Post Office scandal in 2009, but nobody listened. 13 years on, she tells the story:
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My little sister (aged 10) has been told the local library in Norwich is closing tomorrow and kids are allowed to take out up to 45 books - she’s taken a trolly.
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Franco Manca announces it will offer free pizza to all blue-light workers, front-line staff and food banks.
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EXCLUSIVE: Should those who sent the sub-postmasters to prison now face court themselves?
Jarnail Singh, a Post Office prosecutor who built evidence against victims, speaks out and says: “It’s all very well in hindsight.”
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Fujitsu beginning to feel the heat:
More than $1 billion has been wiped off the value of Fujitsu after the company’s European chief said it had a moral responsibility to provide compensation for its role in the UK Post Office Horizon scandal.
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The expert witness, the whistleblower and the secret memo - Fujitsu’s role in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
Thanks to
@SeemaMisra7
for speaking to me for this piece.
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The Post Office knew that the Horizon computer system was not reliable years before the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history unfolded, an inquiry has been told.
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Don't ask for a big pay rise, says man on £570,000 a year: .
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Post Office Horizon scandal: Rishi Sunak has declared that all sub-postmasters will be compensated by the taxpayer. But with the bill likely to stretch beyond £1 billion, there are demands for Fujitsu, the Japanese tech giant, to pay its share.
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“What can they do for this town now?” says retired fisherman Robert Mogg, 74. “We’ve got politicians saying, ‘Let’s make Grimsby great again,’ but you haven’t got the men.”
My dispatch from Grimsby with photography from
@floriophotoNYC
Read free here:
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EXCL: Paul Marshall, a barrister who helped Seema Misra to clear her name, has asked the DPP to investigate those who have perverted the course of justice by failing to disclose evidence. “People’s lives have been destroyed and it demands investigation.”
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Today, almost 6,000 people work in fish processing, but since last November, one has closed, and two have indicated they could soon follow. Hundreds of Grimsby jobs are now at risk.
A third of fish-processing workers are EU nationals, and some have left the UK after Brexit.
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Former Goldman economist Lord Jim O'Neill said further delays to HS2 are "ridiculous nonsense".
“If you want to really embark on big investment projects, you’ve got to do them...and just stick to the plan.”
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In the 1970s, Grimsby had hundreds of trawlers. Fishermen returned flush with cash, becoming known as "three day millionaires".
“I had a wardrobe full of suits,” said Pete Bromley, now 71, who left school as a teenager. “You don’t see anyone in a suit nowadays.”
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My beautiful little brother, age 8, at today’s
#BlackLivesMatter
protest in Norwich. Hoping he can grow up in a fairer world.
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Lives were ruined by the Post Office — and we paid for it to happen. Yesterday I spoke to Vipinchandra Patel, who remembers the shame of being forced to wear an ankle tag to his daughter’s graduation.
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Thank you to
@nickwallis
for speaking to me for this interview on how the Post Office scandal destroyed hundreds of lives: “They were hung out to dry,” he says.
@TheSTMagazine
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Sausage maker Cranswick spent more than £10,000 each to bring 400 skilled butchers to the UK from the Philippines.
CEO Adam Couch paid the £4m bill to keep “food on the plates”
Pre-Brexit, EU workers made up 65% of his staff. Many have now gone home.
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Since 1999, the Post Office has paid £2.3 billion to Fujitsu, the Japanese tech giant behind the faulty Horizon IT system. 736 saw their lives destroyed in the scandal. Fujitsu still has many questions to answer into its role. With
@emilykentsmith
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Thank you to Facebook for the reminder that it is seven years today since I broke my first story
@EDP24
with this hot scoop:
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Ministers have set aside more than £1 billion to settle claims with victims of the Post Office IT scandal, in which more than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted for crimes they did not commit. H/t to
@nickwallis
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How a small UK outfit set up by a part-time DJ from Venezuela became the source of an international fraud which has left engine makers and airlines racing to track down fake aircraft parts.
It began in Lisbon, when engineers noticed something wrong:
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Premier Inn-owner Whitbread announces that employees who have been placed on furlough will remain on full pay - meaning it will make up the additional 20% on top of the government funding.
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EXCLUSIVE: The Vatican has said it would be a “grave sin” if the church was forced to turn over texts and emails in a UK trial stemming from a €350m London real estate deal.
With
@ManySundays
and
@kathgemm
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It is continually shocking that despite an apology from the Post Office, and a blistering judgement which found there were failings in the Horizon IT system, that victims of the Post Office scandal are STILL waiting for proper compensation:
Today I have sent a letter to
@KwasiKwarteng
with concerns around the Post Office Horizon Scandal compensation scheme & that it exclusively excludes the 555 litigants, from the civil proceedings from claiming.
Thank you to the 93 MPs who have signed & supported this letter.
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🔥 Fujitsu and the Post Office knew about bugs from the start, says Fujitsu exec.
“Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects which were very well known to all parties,” Fujitsu’s Paul Patterson said.”
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This is a terrible idea:
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What an honour, thanks so much 🥰
Business journalist of the year:
Emma Agyemang
Sacha Nauta
Ashley Armstrong
Madlen Davies
Sabah Meddings
Hazel Sheffield
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SMEs have suffered a crash in exports to the EU due to paperwork, duties payments and long delivery times - driving customers away.
London's Fortnum & Masons, has given up on sales to the EU. Others said sales had crashed 80%. With
@KatieLinsell
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Having battled the injustice of being wrongly accused of theft, sub-postmasters now face the fight for compensation. But what is a fair payout for a victim who lost precious months with her children while in jail, and then lost her home as well?
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Post Office update: Sir Wyn Williams says he is minded to refuse a BEIS application to stop the names of junior officials being made public in the Horizon scandal inquiry:
"One of the issues in the List of Issues asks, if Horizon was not fit for purpose, who knew?"
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Exclusive: Stonegate, Britain's biggest pub group, plans to sell 1,000 pubs for £800m to pay off its debts.
Plus Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin says people are buying beer from shops instead of pubs.
How the pubs crisis continues, with
@JackSidders
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Directors of Novalpina, the private equity firm at the heart of the NSO Group spyware scandal are facing fresh scrutiny over a €1 million payment to a family member.
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Entrepreneur Gareth Quarry said: “As a major donor to the Tory party I have had enough of it. I looked at Labour and what I saw was a party that wanted to embrace business.”
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“When your dad’s the prime minister, it’s really easy to believe that anything is possible."
Euan Blair, founder of Multiverse, on breaking down privilege - and calling on corporates to ditch the graduate scheme for apprenticeships. With
@lizzzburden
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She was walking home. Sabina Nessa: Murdered teacher's body found hours after attack
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Coronavirus: ExCel U-turns on charging NHS for hospital site - BBC News
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Interview: Former Rio Tinto chair Jan du Plessis has a withering assessment of the UK's chances.
“It’s clear that over the last five, 10 and 15 years, we have been declining as a financial capital in almost any metric," he says.
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Speaking for the first time, Vipinchandra Patel reveals how he was forced to wear an electronic ankle tag to his daughter’s graduation after being prosecuted in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. He was also accused of being a liar and a thief.
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I spoke to Karren Brady, the aide to Lord Sugar, “first woman of football” and former chairwoman of Sir Philip Green’s retail empire. Will she finally condemn the Topshop tycoon for allegations of bullying and sexual harassment? (Clue: no).
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Raymond Blanc’a Brasserie Blanc is among the businesses to be denied a payout by insurer Hiscox. Thanks to
@munirawilson
for highlighting the case:
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In tomorrow’s Sunday Times: Cineworld set to close all of its UK cinemas as soon as this week following the delay of the new James Bond film, putting up to 5,500 jobs at risk.
Confusion reigns over Donald Trump's health as the US president is treated with powerful new drugs against Covid-19, The Sunday Times reports
#TomorrowsPapersToday
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Brexit has damaged the ability of UK companies to compete in the EU, with businesses “banging their heads against a brick wall,” according
@BCCShevaun
One firm: “Brexit was the biggest ever imposition of bureaucracy on business."
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@GrayElgin
Agree, the piece goes into the history of this and why Brexit was sold as a way to regain some of what was lost. Do give it a read if you can!
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Latest on Spectator and Telegraph sale:
Rupert Murdoch bid £50m two years ago for the Spectator and is holding meetings in London next week
Former Tel editor Will Lewis has sounded out potential investors for the Tel. With
@TW_Seal
and
@alexwickham
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Hundreds of staff at Wren Kitchens, owned by reclusive billionaire Malcolm Healey, were laid off last week due to their “performance” - but asked to reapply for their jobs when the crisis is over. They are now jobless with families to support:
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Exclusive: retail chain Wilko files notice of its intention to appoint administrations as the low-cost shops, with 12,000 jobs at risk. On
@business
terminal now.
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Interview with Wetherspoons’ founder Tim Martin, who said: get rid of the f***ing tariffs and Brexit works
“Tony Blair hit the nail on the head when he said Boris doesn’t have a plan”.
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VIDEO: Thank you to
@SeemaMisra7
who retraced her steps to the court where she was jailed after being accused of stealing - she was innocent. Our video team went on the journey with Seema back to West Byfleet’s Post Office to where it all began.
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Today's gambling credit card ban comes with a worrying comment from the Gambling Commission: “We are seeing an increase in. . . online slots and virtual sports, and our online search analysis shows an increase in UK consumer interest in gambling products since the lockdown began.
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"We've broken something that was working absolutely fine," says the boss of Tea People, a social enterprise. Sales direct to consumers in the EU have fallen 80% to just £2,000.
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NEW: Pfizer and BioNTech have begun a clinical trial for an Omicron-specific vaccine, testing the jab in healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55.
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After Seema Misra’s conviction in November 2010, Singh sent a valedictory email to his team. Her trial, he said, had been an “unprecedented attack”. “It is to be hoped the case will set a marker to dissuade other defendants from jumping on the Horizon-bashing bandwagon,” he said.
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You heard it here first! 😉
@amolrajan
Breaking: Tim Davie, the front runner and chief executive of BBC studios, to be confirmed shortly as the new director general of the BBC.
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I’m told Glaxo Smith Kline and Sanofi will announce the deal to supply the UK with up to 60m doses of their Covid-19 vaccine as soon as tomorrow, with a deal with the US to follow shortly after. Our
@ST_Business
story earlier this month:
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Kasim Kutay, who manages $106 billion in assets for the Novo Nordisk Foundation, said the Tory government had “got themselves in a pickle over constant firefighting.” He said that party is “just lurching from one crisis to another.”
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EXCL: Asos holds talks with lenders on adding restructuring expert.
Asos, being advised by PJT, is in discussions to bolster finance department.
Talks follow the exit of Asos’s interim finance chief. With
@ManySundays
and
@KatieLinsell
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Me, three times a day:
Dear PR sending me press releases, my name is Sabah not Sarah. Thanks!
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The government has announced a £19.5 interim pot for the 555 subpostmasters who helped uncover the the Horizon scandal - equivalent to an average of £35,000 each.
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Could a Norwich business be the next Google or Apple?
@YellowRocCES
#WearableTech
http://t.co/hECTwxhAPK
http://t.co/NAlbg2FPaE
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To clarify, for the benefit of
#PrinceAndrew
, staying at the house of a known sex offender is not honourable. Not ever. Never.
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Pascal Soriot on the Oxford vaccine: “We think we have figured out the winning formula and how to get efficacy that, after two doses, is up there with everybody else.” The boss of Astra Zeneca hinting new data will reveal vastly improved efficacy. Approval could be within days.
Hospitals have been told to prepare all spare capacity, but, as cases surge, the Oxford/Astra Zeneca is likely to be approved this week
#TomorrowsPapersToday
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@nickwallis
@PostOffice
@SeemaMisra7
Yes, remorse did seem to be missing from that conversation! “Hindsight is a wonderful thing”
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A new
@thetimes
podcast from me and
@DAaronovitch
as the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry continues.
On the scandal’s origins and who is accountable.
Thanks to
@SeemaMisra7
for sharing her story, and to top producer
@edfjdrummond
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Read
@michelrouxjr
on the trials of reopening Le Gavroche: “I was seriously contemplating just shutting up shop...I’ve only got a few years left on the lease here . . . [I would] just pay it off and put the key under the doormat and say goodbye.”
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In the latest sign of cost of a living crisis Compass, the FTSE 100 catering giant, is planning to offer to consolidate any high interest loans of its 50,000 UK&I employees.
CEO Dominic Blakemore said Compass would leverage its own credit rating. In today’s
@thetimes
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The bill for the Post Office Horizon scandal has now officially reached £1 billion - exposed by Nick Wallis here:
The £1bn disaster. The minimum cost to taxpayers of a scandal which saw executives given promotions, bonuses and honours from the Queen. Latest sums here:
#PostOfficeScandal
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EXC with
@JamieNimmo63
Founders of collapsed energy firm Bulb made £8m in share sales as taxpayers pay a £2bn bill.
Boss Hayden Wood did not disclose his £4m windfall to MPs last week.
British Gas-owner Centrica has made a bid for Bulb.
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Breaking: Tim Davie, the front runner and chief executive of BBC studios, to be confirmed shortly as the new director general of the BBC.
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Men dominate our list of the richest 250 people in Britain, with more women marrying billionaires than becoming wealthy in their own right. I spoke to successful women to find out why:
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How £1 homes in Liverpool ended up in the hands of tycoon Li Ka-shing.
Derelict council-owned properties in the city were given away for free to a developer, who flipped them on shortly after for £2.6m - the council has nothing. With
@natatdezeen
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In a letter to the
@BetGameCouncil
sports minister
@HuddlestonNigel
lays out a serious of demands of Britain’s biggest gambling operators: first, safer gambling messages to be given greater prominence in all adverts:
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Pubs and restaurants in the City said sales fell to almost half pre-pandemic levels during last week’s rail strikes.
@UKHospKate
said takings in the City were 46% lower in real terms than in 2019.
Across London, sales were down 37%, in real terms.
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🔥Bloomberg exclusive: The SFO has raided the home of the director at the centre of a global scandal over airline parts.
Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala has been arrested at his home, after a scandal revealed by Bloomberg. Via
@kathgemm
and
@sidyoutwit
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Interview: Kate Bingham, Boris Johnson's Covid vaccine tsar, says only Labour can fix the "hopeless" NHS.
“If the Tories do it they’ll say they’re all privatizing it and they’re doing it to line their own pockets."
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Exclusive: A luxury Mayfair development has collapsed into insolvency after defaulting on its loans.
Apollo-backed 60 Curzon Street, an art-deco palace where a two-bed flat tops £10m, has called in Interpath Advisory.
Story with
@JackSidders
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Pressure is mounting on former Post Office chief Paula Vennells to quit her public jobs. When asked to comment on this story, the Cabinet Office pointed towards its code of conduct:
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A Kent brewery that the government proclaimed as an export champion after Brexit, is racing to find a buyer weeks after it revealed it had only one EU customer left.
Old Dairy Brewery is teetering on the edge of administration:
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Excl: Rachel Reeves will be hosted by JP Morgan at an event in Davos where she will court global CEOs.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will appear at an event organized by KPMG and the City of London Corporation.
Story with
@GriffithsKath_
and
@alexwickham
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@SusanSmith65
@olivershah
Not incorrect Susan, as you’ll see from the statement which says they were charging, and are now not.
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BREAKING: Wolseley-owner Corbin & King pushed into administration by its majority owner, Minor Hotels.
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Museums in the UK are refusing to remove the Sackler name from their walls despite the family’s role in America’s opioid epidemic. And victims now want Dame Theresa Sackler, of her title, which she was handed in 2012. With
@iamliamkelly
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Fujitsu continues to be a key contractor for the UK government, invoicing £885.7 million since the beginning of 2020. This is despite the 2019 High Court case that found Fujitsu had failed to inform the company of bugs in the IT system and failed to keep an adequate error log.
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EXCLUSIVE: interview with Brian McNamara on the £33bn GSK spinout Haleon separating tomorrow:
Unilever’s bid was a “point of pride”. “Like, look at what we created, we created something that somebody was willing to put £50 billion on the table to buy.”
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