If a press release issued by the Halifax in February is to be believed, ‘house price inflation will be flat’ in 2008. Either this is a case of wishful thinking or the press office simply forgot to check the figures before they wrote it.
In the six years between the third quarters of 2001 and 2007 […]
news
A round up of important business news and how it affects small business owners
House prices flat, slide or crash ?
Stock Market Crash News
We weren’t going to write news about the recent stock market crash but events today may have change commentators’ perception of what is really going on in the world economies.
This may be slightly old new but most commentators had previously agreed that the US is currently in a recession although no one currently really knows how deep the recession […]
Jeremy Clarkson Published His Bank Account Details Then Lost Money
In a bold move to be smug and suggest that bank accounts can’t be used to steal money by crooks, Jeremy Clarkson published his own personal bank account details in his Sun newspaper column assuming nothing would happen.
Then surprisingly (sic) someone has set up a direct debit to pay £500 into a Diabetes charity account. The […]
Poor Christmas Trading at Currys
The owner of Currys and PC World has issued a profits warning after poor Christmas sales. It said that like for like sales fell 1% but computer sales fell 11% in the 11 weeks to December 29th 2007
The shares in its parent company DSG fell 20% after they said that profits could be up to […]
UK Record Trade Deficit
In the three months from July to September, the UK recorded its worse current account deficit in history at 5.7% of GDP - a higher % than the US whose economy runs ahead of ours.
In fact, whilst the UK economy was growing the then Chancellor (now PM) should have really been squiraling it all away […]
More Data Lost by HMRC
Today is another dreadful day for the folks who collect our taxes over at HMRC. Two more batches of personal data have gone missing.
The first happened over in the US on Monday where our UK data from driving tests including names, addresses and phone numbers on a computer hard drive had gone missing - this […]
Credit Card Fraud No Longer a Crime
So we find out today that credit card fraud in the UK is no longer a criminal offence. The UK government has decided that if a person is a victim of credit card fraud they can not report it to the police as a crime and must simply report it to their bank.
So it’s open […]
Uneducated email #2
Further to my previous email I received full of spelling mistakes I got another one today. At least the write did not want my help - but just check it out…
Dear Peter
Firest of All I Should thank you for all the sation which you provied me and its relly halpfule .But what i can understande […]
Apple Launches iPhone
The iphone was launched yesterday by Apple and was greeted with a whopping 8% surge in their share price. The new iPhone has a single large screen and just one button - a “home” button.
On the screen you simply use your fingers to touch controls and move around the operating system and all that it […]
All Trains Cancelled !
So what is it with the UK train network? All our government says is we must use public transport all of the time so save the environment.
So with everyone staying at relatives over the Christmas period you would save going by car and go for the train, yes ?
Well, er no. You see all train […]
Do You Have a Business Coach or Business Mentor ?
Do you run your own business - that’s hard enough to push things along yourself - lack of direction, lack of clear thinking, procrastination, you name it, we’ve all been there.
So have you ever thought about having a business coach or mentor. Or even a mentoring group?
I have just joined a group of 12 other […]
Government launches Farepak Families Fund
At last the government has stepped in and launched the Farepak Families Fund to those who lost everything in the Farepak Hampers Collapse a few weeks ago.
But although the government may be taking credit for this new fund it is actually other businesses that are effectively helping and footing the bill. So far Tescos have […]
Farepak Customers Get Sainsburys Help
After the recent announcement that Farepak Hampers had gone bust (see farepak ceases trading here) the folks that lost all their money thought that Christmas would be without any cheer.
But today, Sainsburys have stepped in and pledged that Farepak customers can get 25% of the value of their farepak voucher savings in Sainsbury’s vouchers instead […]
New Tourist Attractions Website
A new website has just been launched concentrating on bringing all tourist attractions onto one site. www.alltouristattractions.co.uk was launched today and is completely free to use and free to enter your local attractions onto the site.
“We aim to be the first place people come to when looking for attractions in a certain town or city” […]
Small Business Success Rates Improve
The chances of new small business owners making a success of their venture seem to be on the increase according to a new report.
For the first time in two years business failures are in decline according to company information specialist Experian.
Over the last 3 months the number of business failures has reduced by 4.1% over […]
UK Inflation Reduces
UK inflation has reduced from 2.5% in August to 2.4% in September.
The reduction is said to be because of declining oil and petrol prices (which has seen the price of a litre of unleaded fuel reduce from around 100pence to 88pence in recent weeks).
The annual rise including mortgage payments increased from 3.4% to 3.6% because […]
Farepak Hampers Ceases Trading
Farepak Ltd who are part of the European Home Retail company suddenly ceased trading today meaning thousand of people will be without hampers and money vouchers.
Farepak, who employ 20 full time staff operated through the UK via 35,000 agents. customers paid a monthly contribution towards items at Christmas time. At the present time nothing will […]
WHSmith retail revenues decline
WHSmith announced today that their retail revenues have declined although profits are up !
Overall their sites at airports and train stations improved profits by 24% or £31m - I guess because they have no real competition and a captive audience.
Profits from high street stores rose by 14% but sales declined by 7%
So the management team are […]
no more course work for students ?
It has been announced that students won’t need to undertake any course work activities because it’s all so easy just to copy stuff of the internet to improve your grades.
Certainly students in maths don’t need to undertake coursework activities and more subjects have joined the list.
This is what the exam watchdog in the UK thinks […]
asda gives young same adult wage rate
Asda has now announced that it will pay everyone the same rate no matter what their age.
Asda did have a different wage rate for under 18s but has now taken the decision to pay them the same as older workers.
The low price supermarket chain whose parent company is Wallmart in the USA said that this […]
UK house prices continue to climb
Yes! UK house prices continued to climb during the month of September even with the August rate rise which was introduced partly to calm the house price increases down.
Every month now it seems that house prices defy all the odds and expectations of the Bank of England and they must be wondering what to do […]
Michelle Dewberry Apprentice Quits
So Michelle Dewberry has quit her job with Alan Sugar (winner of the BBC programme “the apprentice”) to start up her own consulting company.
Alan said that her role at Amstrad, where she was earning £100,000 per year was now complete. Rather odd, a job completely in just a matter of months.
It looks like Michelle is […]
Richard Hammond Fundraiser
Richard Hammond the BBC Top Gear presenter was air lifted to Leeds Hospital after he crashed a jet engine propolled car whilst filming for the popular TV programme.
The hospital reports Richard is in a critical but stable condition but it is reported he has suffered some brain injury. The hospital state that they hope he […]