Business

Confused messages about diesel and tax increases have sent new car sales plummeting for the first time in six years, with diesel car purchases slumping by 17% last year compared to 2016. And the market hasn’t been helped by Brexit uncertainty either.

It’s been dubbed the “latte levy” – a tax on the billions of takeaway coffee cups that Britons are throwing away every year. The environmental impact is serious. Almost all of them are impossible to recycle because of their plastic lining. MPs think adding an extra 25p on to the price of a disposable cup…

He’s the bad boy every kid wanted to be. Dennis the Menace has been making mischief in Britain’s best known comic the Beano for decades. But in a market where sales are declining, Dennis has been forced to have a digital makeover. A new multi-million pound TV series has been developed and the company is…

New Year.  New rail fare increases.  It’s become an unwelcome part of the festive season – many rail passengers are being hit with the highest ticket price rise in five years. The Transport Secretary Chris Grayling – who’s in Qatar – admitted the increase was higher than he would wish. While many commuters and the…

It is perhaps the humbling of a technology titan. Having already admitted slowing down older iPhones, Apple has now taken the rare step of apologising to customers around the world. Not only that, but it has slashed the price of battery replacements. A necessary step to restore customer trust? Or simply bowing to the inevitable…

Bitcoin: it’s the crypto-currency which has no physical manifestation, but which has spectacularly soared in price over the last year. It’s brought vast wealth to a few individuals, just a thousand people are thought to own 40% of the entire market. It’s got a bad reputation too, described variously as a massive scam, a dangerous…

He was the man who brought us the Brexit referendum – but since his hurried departure from Downing Street in the wake of the result, David Cameron has kept a low profile. Eighteen months on, the former Prime Minister has re-emerged. He will now take control of a £750 million fund to improve ports, roads…

The Scottish government has today unveiled income tax changes which will for the first time see Scots paying different tax rates to the rest of the UK. The SNP minority government has proposed small tax increases for middle and high income earners, but says that a new “starter rate” will mean anyone earning less than £33,000 a…

It’s a media mega-deal – Rupert Murdoch is selling the vast majority of his 21st Century Fox media empire to larger rival Disney. But what does the £39bn deal mean for his attempts to take control of the British broadcaster Sky?

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable and Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng, who’s parliamentary private secretary to the Chancellor, discuss Brexit.

The decision to double the amount Britain pays for the divorce bill now leaves the issue of the Irish border as the last remaining stumbling block preventing the EU moving on to Brexit trade talks. But those talks were threatened by the Irish government’s insistence that Britain needed to confirm in writing that there wouldn’t…

Britain’s Brexit divorce bill could be almost £50bn. Theresa May insisted today that negotiations are still going on, but it looks like that is what Britain could promise to pay the EU in order to move the talks on to the crucial question of future trading arrangements. The pressure is on for a deal to be…

It’s not just in Dublin that the threat of new trade barriers is causing concern. Ford’s European boss has warned that a no-deal Brexit could cost his company 1 billion dollars a year in tariffs. Speaking exclusively to Channel 4 News, Steven Armstrong, Ford’s boss in Europe the Middle East and Africa, said a hard…

Professor Mariana Mazzucato, who is Founder and Director of UCL’s new Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and the Executive Director and Principal of Europe Economics, Dr Andrew Lillico discuss the UK’s productivity.

Productivity – how much we make, divided by how long it takes us to make it. Our inability to make more in less time is what lies behind the latest grim productivity forecasts. Everyone agrees something must be done, but no one seems that clear what the problem is. And there are some out there…