High street retailers had their worst slump since Covid, with November sales tumbling 5.8% year-on-year, according to BDO. Online sales took a 7.8% hit, while in-store sales dropped by 5.5%. And part-time Christmas job vacancies have fallen by a staggering 12.9% this year…
Meanwhile, business confidence in the UK has nosedived to its lowest level since April 2020, according to the Institute of Directors’ latest optimism tracker, plunging to a dismal -65 in November, down from -52 in October. Business leaders are pointing the finger squarely at Reeves and her tax hikes, with NICs hikes expected to cost the industry £7 billion alone. As Wetherspoon’s boss Sir Tim Martin put it:
“All democratic governments need to manage the relationship between an economic horse and the public services cart – society needs both. This Government has disincentivised and discouraged the horse.”
It’s looking even bleaker for growth fans as Starmer reportedly prepares to ditch Labour’s mission of making the UK the fastest-growing economy in the G7, instead focusing on other “milestones” in his upcoming speech on Thursday. Starmer’s ‘Plan for Change’ may need to be a change of plan…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”