London

More UK retail sales woe expected

Nov 20, 2008
Sales on the UK's high streets continued to slow in October, figures out later are expected to confirm.Sales fell by 0.4% in September, cutting annual growth to 1.8%, from 3.3% a month earlier, Office for National Statistics' data showed.Many retaile...

Recession fears hit stock markets

Nov 20, 2008
European and Asian markets have fallen sharply on fears that the world economy will enter a protracted slump.The slide comes after the Dow Jones share index in New York fell to its lowest level in five years.London's FTSE 100 index fell 1.6% in early...

Unemployment reaches 11-year high

Nov 13, 2008
The number of people out of work in the UK in the three months to September jumped by 140,000 to 1.82 million - the highest in 11 years.The unemployment rate rose to 5.8%, up from 5.4% in the previous quarter, according to official figures.The number...

BT to shed 10,000 jobs by March

Nov 13, 2008
Telecoms giant BT says it expects to have cut 10,000 jobs by the end of March next year.The cuts will mainly affect agency and contract staff, including offshore workers, the company said.BT said it had already cut 4,000 jobs, with a further 6,000 to...

Recession fear as economy shrinks

Nov 7, 2008
The economy shrank for the first time in 16 years between July and September, confirming that the UK is on the brink of recession.Output fell by 0.5%, according to the Office for National Statistics, a bigger-than-expected drop, knocking UK shares an...

Traders to face tough Christmas

Nov 7, 2008
UK retailers will face tough trading in the run-up to Christmas after sales volumes fell for the seventh month in a row in October, figures suggest.Some 27% of retailers reported lower sales volumes than in October 2007, said a distributive trades su...

Bank of England springs a shock

Nov 7, 2008
By Hugh Pym Shock, horror, drama - the Bank of England has cut interest rates by a lot more than anyone had expected.Pinch yourself, the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has slashed the cost of borrowing by one-and-a-half percentage points to 3...

World credit loss £1.8 trillion

Oct 31, 2008
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has warned action is needed to prevent the current financial malaise spreading.Mr Brown said the first priority was "to stop the contagion to other countries, including in eastern Europe" where there were &quo...

Economic crisis: Britain to increase public spending

Oct 19, 2008
LONDON: Britain will boost public spending in its attempt to overcome the looming recession facing the nation, Chancellor of Exchequer Alistair Darling has said.Darling said that government would increase borrowing to spend billions of pounds to help...

London Film Festival - All the president's close-ups

Oct 19, 2008
By Jason SolomonsPeter Morgan's Frost/Nixon began its award-laden life on the Donmar Warehouse stage in 2006 and, now pretty much intact as a movie, opened the 2008 London Film Festival with all the pomp and fanfare befitting a heavyweight Oscar cont...