Yesterday, for example, saw the opening of One Hyde Park, said to be the world’s most expensive apartments. Located between Knightsbridge and Hyde Park, the development contains 86 luxury flats, with the one bedroom option starting at around £6 million.
Last summer, a penthouse reportedly sold for £140 million and it appears there is no shortage of takers, despite the high price tags – the development is believed to be 65 per cent sold.
Contrast that with the latest State of Trade Survey from the Federation of Master Builders, for the fourth quarter of 2010. Companies with declining workloads in the quarter rose to 38 per cent and when it comes to 2011, 47 per cent expect workloads to contract further. Almost a third of firms also expect employment levels to drop.
Over at investment bank Goldman Sachs, we hear today that around 35,700 staff worldwide, including 6,000 in the UK, shared a pay and bonus pot of £9.6 billion in 2010 – an average of £270,000 each. At the same time, the bank slashed its donations to charity, from $500 million in 2009 to $200 million last year.
That news came a day after unemployment figures showed that 951,000 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work, a record high. One in five in the age group is now jobless.
In the world of sport, Aston Villa this week set a different kind of record, this time for transfer fees paid by the club. Darren Bent’s move from Sunderland to Birmingham could end up costing Villa a cool £24 million
Meanwhile, the School Sports Partnership initiative, which supports work to increase sporting opportunities for children, will be axed by the government next summer as part of cost-cutting measures.
Yes, it really is a funny old world.
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( 3 / 173 )The latest unemployment figures are just out and they make pretty grim reading, particularly if you are aged 16 to 24.
Overall, the jobless total rose by 49,000 for the three months to November 2010, to stand at 2.5 million.
A particular concern will be that 16 to 24-year-olds accounted for 32,000 of the 49,000 newly unemployed. The overall unemployment rate is 7.9 per cent: for people in the 16-24 age group, it stands at a disturbing 20.3 per cent, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992.
In total, 951,000 young people are now unemployed, also the highest figure since 1992. Overall, the only glimmer of good news appears to be that the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance fell by 4,100 between November and December.
The news came as the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank warned that jobless levels could rise in 2011.
Tony Dolphin, IPPR chief economist, said there was a real risk that UK economic growth would not grow fast enough this year to bring down unemployment, which could reach “new highs” for this economic downturn.
If that is the case, another piece of news today may leave some of us questioning how well equipped the service that helps people to get back into work will be to assist them.
According to reports, Jobcentre Plus is to axe 9,300 jobs by March 2013 as part of budget cuts. The Department for Work and Pensions says the reductions will be aimed at making job centres "cost-effective", with the majority of posts going through what it hoped would be "natural turnover".
It also says the reductions will not affect frontline services: which probably comes as rather cold comfort to the Jobcentre Plus employees soon to be joining the ranks of their former customers.
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( 3 / 181 )The television and newspaper images of worried savers queuing outside branches of Northern Rock to withdraw their money in September 2007 are not easily forgotten.
The rush on the bank led to its nationalisation by the then Labour government and was a foretaste of global financial chaos to come, bringing with it the economic turmoil from which the world is still recovering.
So the news that the bank is to seek potential buyers in a return to private sector ownership is perhaps a hopeful sign – although it’s worth remembering that the business now being prepared for sale is Northern Rock plc, the "good bank” stripped of the taxpayer loan used to keep it going in 2007 and funded by retail deposits, which made a pre-tax loss of £142 million in the first six months of last year.
Meanwhile, the “bad bank” formed from Northern Rock’s toxic assets has returned to profit and paid back £1 billion of its £22 billion government loan.
UK Financial Investments (UKFI) which looks after the government’s stakes in bailed-out banks, is now seeking expressions of interest from corporate finance advisers in evaluating “strategic options” for Northern Rock plc, which might include a straightforward sale or a stock market flotation.
Those invited to tender will must respond by 31 January though UKFI says no timeframe has yet been set for the return of the company to private ownership and there is “no presumption at this stage” that any particular option will be pursued.
Reports suggest that with the starting point for bidders could be around £1.4 billion, also the figure that the taxpayer has invested in equity in the nationalised bank.
So it’s a case of watch this space and wait for developments, which also gives us the opportunity to wonder what the taxpayer might eventually get back from Northern Rock – and just how long it will take.
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( 2.9 / 218 )A week after the Federation of Small Businesses urged the government to move forward on a fuel duty stabiliser – designed to link fuel duty to the price of oil so that when oil prices rise, the proportion of tax goes down, and vice versa – there’s a glimmer of hope for at least some beleaguered motorists.
Yesterday, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander told BBC1’s The Politics Show that although it was “a complicated idea” and “difficult to see precisely how we achieve it” it was something the government was looking at carefully, echoing comments made by Prime Minister David Cameron last week.
At the same time, Mr Alexander said the coalition was examining the possibility of offering a discount on fuel to people living in remote areas of the UK, including the Scottish Highlands, the Western Isles, west Wales and parts of England and Northern Ireland.
Petrol retailers in those areas are likely to be hoping that if the move goes ahead, it happens sooner rather than later.
According to a report in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, Brian Madderson, chairman of the Retail Motor Industry Federation’s petrol division, says that rural petrol stations will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to soaring fuel prices that are encouraging a trend of motorists preferring to drive up to 30 miles to use cheaper supermarket filling stations or large petrol retailers in urban areas.
He says: “I fear the whole refuelling network in this country is now under threat. By the end of the decade, there will be no retail petrol stations in country areas.”
And he predicts that 500 petrol retailers, the majority in rural areas, will go out of business in the next 12 months, resulting in the loss of around 5,000 jobs.
That’s a grim prospect indeed. Anyone who has ever lived in a rural area will know that a car is a virtual necessity, due to the inadequacies of public transport links, and the disappearance of local petrol stations will do nothing to make life easier.
High fuel prices are affecting us all, in one way or another. Helping people out in rural communities, with the particular challenges they face, is probably a good place to start for the coalition. But the whole country is also looking for some support to ease their pain.
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( 3 / 209 )When former Chancellor Alistair Darling proposed a £30,000 levy on so-called ‘non doms’ – those resident in the UK but not paying tax on their overseas income – it seemed to fit in with the mood of the times, as the recession fed demands for everyone to pay their fair share.
Indeed, the then Conservative opposition could hardly argue with the plan, since they had proposed something similar to finance their proposals to raise the threshold for inheritance tax (now shelved for the time being).
However, latest Treasury figures show the move may not have been the success the politicians hoped for. Around 5,400 non-doms paid the levy in its first year, raising around £162million in tax – far less than originally expected.
Furthermore, it is estimated that 11.5 per cent of non-doms left the UK in 2008/09, costing the government around £800million in lost revenue, since non-doms still pay tax on any UK earnings, not to mention property and indirect taxes. While their individual reasons for leaving are not known, there will be an assumption that the new charge played a part.
In other words, from a financial point of view, the levy has been a failure. But some of the tax’s supporters may argue there is a moral issue here – when other people in the UK are being asked to pay higher taxes, it is unfair for non-doms to miss out.
Either way, the results of the levy do show that introducing new taxes or raising existing ones can be counterproductive – and if the intention is to increase revenue, the government must ensure their proposals do not end up costing the country more than it gains.
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