London

Inquiry into City bonus fairness

Feb 8, 2009
The leader of the Commons has asked the Equality Commission to examine City bonuses and rule whether they discriminate against women.
Harriet Harman told a Labour regional conference in Sheffield that men working in the finance sector are paid over ...

Chancellor warns RBS over bonuses

Feb 8, 2009
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has not ruled out the possibility of taxpayer-backed bank RBS paying some of its staff bonuses.
This comes as reports put the potential total bonus figure at as high as £1bn for the company's ...

DNA database 'breach of rights'

Feb 8, 2009
Two British men should not have had their DNA and fingerprints retained by police, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.
The men's information was held by South Yorkshire Police, although neither was convicted of any offence.
The judgement ...

Government plans travel database

Feb 8, 2009
The government is compiling a database to track and store the international travel records of millions of Britons.
Computerised records of all 250 million journeys made by individuals in and out of the UK each year will be kept for up to 10 years.
...

RBS bail-out hits public finances

Jan 21, 2009
Britain's public finances took a big hit in December from the government's recapitalisation of Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS). The public sector net cash requirement, which is the amount the government needed to borrow to fund its spending, hit &...

Downturn 'hitting women harder'

Jan 21, 2009
Female workers are being hit harder than ever before by the effects of the current downturn, a report suggests. A study by the TUC showed the redundancy rate among women had risen by 2.3%, almost double the rate for men, since last year. It said more...

UK unemployment hits 1.92 million

Jan 21, 2009
UK unemployment was 1.92 million between September and November, up 131,000 from the previous three months, the highest level since September 1997. That does not include the tens of thousands of jobs cut since November. The number of people claiming ...

Barclays cuts another 2,100 jobs

Jan 18, 2009
Barclays is in consultation with trade union Unite over the job losses. The union believes that the bank will be forced to lay-off more staff. Deputy general secretary Graham Goddard said the union was in discussions with the bank "regarding fur...

Bail-out fears hit banking shares

Jan 18, 2009
Shares in major UK banks have fallen sharply amid fears more financial institutions will need to be bailed out by the government. Barclays was worst hit, down 25%, while Royal Bank of Scotland, which is almost 60% state-owned, closed 13% lower. Barcl...

Sales slide at Currys and Argos

Jan 18, 2009
Sales at several of Britain's top retail chains have fallen markedly as a result of the economic slowdown. DSG International, which owns Currys and PC World, said like-for-like sales - which ignore new stores - had dropped 10% in the three months to ...