Britain’s most expensive bus lane: Council forks out £3.2m for just 100 metres

By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 7:52 PM on 18th August 2010

A council was blasted today over plans to build Britain’s most expensive bus lane - which will cost £3.2 million for just 100 metres.
The lane, measuring just eight bus lengths, will cost a staggering £32,000 per metre.
It will be built in Bromyard Road in Worcester and take five months to complete.
But furious residents today branded the scheme ‘a ludicrous waste’ of taxpayers’ money and demanded the cash is used for more worthy projects.

On the line: The bus lane, marked in red, that is costing Worcestershire County Council £3.2 million

Ben Phillips, 45, a management consultant living near the proposed bus lane, said: ‘To spend more than £3million on a bus lane which is just 100 metres long is utter madness.

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Google to offer gay staff extra pay to allow for tax inequality with straight couples

By
Scott Warren
Last updated at 6:14 PM on 1st July 2010

INTERNET giant Google today began paying its gay staff more than  heterosexual employees in the latest example of its lavish perks culture.Lesbian and homosexual staff will get extra wages to make up for higher taxes  they have to pay.Google is already famed as an extremely benevolent employer, giving its  workforce free food, free laundry and five months’ maternity leave on full pay.
New payment: Gay Google employees will now be given extra pay to allow for a tax that is not levied on straight employeesAnd given the competitive nature of California’s Silicon Valley, where 
companies use extra perks to attract top employees, more are expected to
follow  suit, experts said.
The search engine decided it was only fair to bump up the salaries of
its gay  staff, a spokesman said.
Under U.S. law, when a firm offers health insurance as a benefit for an 
employee’s partner, it is tax-free for married couples but taxable
income for  gays.
Google will make up the difference in additional pay, on average £650 a
year.
The move was announced today and is being backdated to January 1.
The firm will also speed up infertility benefits for lesbian and
homosexual  staff and include their partners in its compassionate leave
policy.
How many of Google’s 20,600 employees will be affected by the changes
is  unclear, but the company’s internal gay group — who call themselves
Gayglers —  counts around 700 members. 
The measures only apply to the workforce in the U.S.
Personnel chief Laszlo Bock, Google’s ‘vice president for people
operations,’  said the firm decided to act when an employee pointed out
the disparity.
‘We said, “You’re right, that doesn’t seem fair,”‘ he said. He declined
to  reveal how much the changes will cost Google, which made profits of
£4 billion  last year.
The company is renowned for its innovative streak, and others usually
follow  its lead.
‘It could have a ripple effect. When you have a high-profile company
doing  anything, that tends to get into the mind of the culture, and it
can have a  more diffuse effect,’ said corporate benefits consultant
Kathleen Murray.
But Google has also earned a sinister reputation thanks to blunders by
its  controversial Street View service, which has sent ‘camera cars’ to
take  pictures along every road in Britain.
On Wednesday Claire Rowlands, 25, told how she was stunned to see a
photograph  of her three-year-old son Louis naked on Street View.
He had been snapped as he played in his grandmother’s garden in
Walkden,  Greater Manchester.
Google blurred out the registration plate of a car on the drive of the
house –  but the image of Louis, who was wearing nothing but his shoes,
was uncensored.

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Strong growth offers relief for the Pru

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Prudential today attempted to appease shareholder anger at the collapse of its $35.5 billion (£24.5 billion) bid to buy AIA by revealing that strong sales growth had accelerated in April and May.
The insurer, whose chief executive Tidjane Thiam may be forced out as rebel shareholders line up former boss Mark Tucker as a replacement, said that sales for the first five months of the year had increased by 27 per cent.
The rise in new business sales to £1.35 billion was helped by a strong performance from the Pru’s existing businesses in Asia. Sales increased by 33 per cent to £579 million in the past five months and the company recorded its highest-ever sales in the region in April and May.
The Pru added that sales growth of 26 per cent from January to March had accelerated to 28 per cent in April and May. It achieved record retail sales in the US, with an increase of 41 per cent to £322 million.

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ITV hands commercial reins to Fru Hazlitt

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ITV has hired Fru Hazlitt, the former chief executive of GCap Media, as
managing director of commercial and online.

The former Yahoo! and Virgin Radio executive will replace Rupert Howell. ITV
annouced last week that Mr Howell was leaving following a strategic review
by ITV’s new chief executive Adam Crozier.

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House prices level out

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After rapid gains in the past 12 months, house prices have begun to stabilise, with the rate of growth slowing in April as more properties came on to the market and buyers waited for the outcome of the election.
House prices rose by 9.5 per cent in the year to April — the fastest annual rate since the peak of the boom in October 2007, according to the Assetz index, an average of five other leading indices including those of Nationwide, Halifax and Rightmove.
The average house price is now £200,615, up from £183,357 in April last year and at its highest level since August 2008, according to Assetz. But the property agency also noted that fluctuations of 1 to 2 per cent in the past five months suggested that growth had flattened out.
Stuart Law, chief executive of Assetz, said: “The rate of UK house price growth has now slowed to a more sustainable level, revealed in the six-month rolling average data. While average house prices continued to rise in April, with a strong annual increase of 9.5 per cent, this is more indicative of sharp spikes recorded in the individual monthly figures during summer 2009.

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Funds shun Europe as ‘no-go zone’ after Greek crisis

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard






Published: 10:25PM BST 13 Apr 2010





















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“Europe has become a no-go zone,” said Patrik Schowitz, equity
strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “As recently as five
months ago investors regarded Europe as the most attractive play on global
economic recovery”.

The bank‘s monthly survey of funds found that a net 18pc are underweight
stocks in Europe. They are giddily optimistic about the “Goldilocks”
recovery in the US, Asia, and emerging markets, increasing risk exposure to
the highest since January 2006.

Cash levels have fallen to just 3.5pc, a time-honoured signal that stock
markets have become too frothy. Stocks fell over the following month on four
of the five occasions when this happened before. “This is an amber
warning light that, short-term, the market may be slightly overbought,”
said Mr Schowitz. The potential trigger for a sell-off would be a jump in
yields on 10-year US Treasuries much above 4pc.

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Royal Mail caves in to the militants: Union wins £1,400 bonus, 7% rise and shorter hours

By
Becky Barrow
Last updated at 10:09 AM on 09th March 2010

Royal Mail last night bowed to union demands by offering workers a
‘gold-plated’ pay package which will give them more money - for less
work.
The generous deal involves a 7 per cent pay rise, a £1,400 bonus and increased maternity leave.
It is in stark contrast to the experience of millions of
private- sector workers crippled by pay freezes or pay cuts, redundancy
and forced to work part-time.
Bumper deal: Royal Mail postal workers are set to receive a 7 per cent pay rise over three years as well as further bonus paymentsThe deal follows three months of bitter negotiation with the militant Communication Workers’ Union.
Both sides yesterday insisted the deal was a ground-breaking move which will allow the company to modernise.

But it comes with an expensive price tag for a workforce which
last year caused misery for Britain with five months of strike chaos
and by failing to meet its first-class post delivery target. The deal was heavily criticised by the TaxPayers’ Alliance,
which labelled it ‘lunacy’ at a time when most private sector workers
were suffering pay cuts.
Long-running dispute: Strike action by Royal Mail postal workers led to targets for the delivery of first and second class letters being missedThe 170,000 Royal Mail workers will get a total pay rise of
nearly 7 per cent over the next three years. It will start with a 2 per
cent rise next month, followed by 1.4 per cent in April 2011 and a
further 3.5 per cent in April 2012. They will also get a bonus of £1,400 for agreeing to the deal in addition to other bonuses they already get.
They will be allowed to work one hour less each week, with a
typical working week cut to 39 hours, and their job security is also
unrivalled. In the past eight years, the company has cut 60,000 jobs
without forcing anybody to go.
The agreement includes a pledge to try to avoid making any
compulsory redundancies. Royal Mail has promised to keep ‘at least 75
per cent of workers as full-time’, and will not force any full-time
worker to work part-time, or vice versa, according to the union. Mark Wallace, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Given Royal
Mail’s severe financial problems, it is lunacy to pay staff more money
for less work. ‘It seems the Royal Mail have buckled in the face of aggressive strike action and pressure from the unions.
When you consider that most people in the private sector
couldn’t dream of getting a gold-plated deal like this in the next few
years, this is clearly an excessive settlement.’ Royal Mail workers will also enjoy a generous pay package for parents. Under the agreement, which is
called ‘Business Transformation 2010 and Beyond’, women on maternity
leave will be paid their full basic salary for 26 weeks, rather than
18. Fathers will also win, with the paternity package doubled from one
to two weeks, also on full basic pay.
‘Fair and good’: Adam Crozier says the deal will help Royal Mail get on with its ‘modernisation’On average, Royal Mail workers already enjoy a much better
deal than counterparts at rival companies. At UK Mail, workers get a
less generous pension, typically work a 40-hour week and get only
statutory maternity pay. Last night, Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke raised his fears about the cost of the deal.
He said: ‘The Government committed several months ago to an
injection of private capital and private sector management into the
business in order to resolve the pensions crisis and carry though the
change which is now needed. ‘What we have instead is a rather expensive-looking industrial
relations settlement with pay rises and a shorter working week which we
are told will buy the modernisation that is required. ‘It will be interesting to discover how much the taxpayer is paying for these promises.’
Negotiations between Royal Mail and the CWU became so bitter
that they were forced to hire an independent third-party - Roger Poole,
the former chairman of the Northern Ireland Parades Commission - to
mediate. Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier said: ‘This agreement
is good for the business as it allows Royal Mail to get on with its
modernisation. It is a good and fair deal for our people.’ CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said: ‘It’s been a long
time coming, but this deal delivers on the major issues which postal
workers have fought for.’

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Toyota boss breaks silence over recall crisis

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Toyota is in a “moment of crisis” over the recall of eight million cars, the
president of the world’s largest carmaker said yesterday, finally addressing
a widely condemned refusal to break his silence on the issue.

The company also admitted that it knew as long ago as last summer that its
accelerator pedals were defective and had begun ordering their replacement
five months before telling the public that the components represented a
safety issue.

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GM’s Saab sale collapses as Swedish buyer pulls out

Reuters

Published: 7:06AM GMT 25 Nov 2009

GM
had been aiming to close a deal by the end of next month to sell Saab to a
partnership led by the Swedish luxury car builder Koenigsegg and backed by
China’s Beijing Automotive Industrial Holding (BAIC).

Koenigsegg, a tiny Swedish company that hand builds sports cars that sell for
$1m (£600,000), said it was pulling out of the deal because of the risk of
delays in closing five months after reaching a preliminary deal with GM.

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Inflation fears rise as input prices jump

Fears over inflation mounted as the price of manufacturers’ raw materials
jumped by 2.6 per cent in October, according to new figures from the Office
for National Statistics.

The larger-than-expected increase in so-called input prices was the biggest
since June last year, when they rose by 4.6 per cent. It was driven by
rising oil costs and the decline of the pound, which made the cost of
importing raw materials more expensive. Producer prices fell by 0.2 per cent
in September, after rising by 2.0 per cent in August.

Over the year to October, manufacturing input prices increased by 0.1 per
cent, after a 6.2 per cent decline in the year to September.

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