In news that will greatly please the White House, Melania Trump has accepted damages from Associated Newspapers for the false accusation in the Daily Mail and Mail Online that she had previously worked as an escort.
The UK’s inflation rate stayed at 2.3 per cent in March, but may well have risen if it hadn’t been for the timing of Easter. Food prices in March were 1.2 per cent higher than last year, the biggest annual rise for three years.
The boss of Barclays, Jes Staley, could lose his annual bonus after two regulators opened an investigation into his conduct in a whistleblowing case.
Charities claim hard-hit families could lose thousands of pounds a year – thanks to the two child limit on universal credit. We meet those already struggling to manage.
From West London the Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi who voted for Britain to leave the European Union, and the Chief Market Strategist for JP Morgan, Stephanie Flanders.
One of the bastions of British commerce – Lloyd’s of London – is to set up a new European subsidiary in Brussels to avoid losing business when the UK leaves the EU.
Tesco’s UK arm has agreed to pay just under a quarter of a billion pounds in a deal with the authorities over the accounting scandal that rocked the company in 2014.
Rupert Murdoch’s plan for an eleven billion pound takeover of Sky is being sent to the regulators. The government said it wants advice on whether the deal is in the public interest. It’s the second time Mr Murdoch has tried to take control of Sky – but his last effort foundered after the phone-hacking scandal…
The heads of more than 30 charities have urged the Government not to restrict access to personal independence payments, on the eve of key changes to the benefit.
In the last hour, America’s Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate for the second time in three months, a sign that the US economy is growing healthier.
Just a week after his very first budget, an embarrassing U-turn by the Chancellor, as he dropped plans to increase national insurance for the self employed. Philip Hammond had been facing an outcry over the tax hike, including from many Tory MPs who accused him of breaking a manifesto pledge.
Conservative MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Labour shadow minister for work and pensions, Debbie Abrahams.
Helia Ebrahimi
Philip Hammond’s U-turn on National Insurance contributions for the self-employed is not just politically humbling for Number 11 but, critics charge, deeply worrying for the future of the public purse.
Gary Gibbon
On Monday, as Article 50 legislation cleared Parliament, we saw a demonstration of the weakness of the Tory “centre left” who wanted to soften Brexit. Today, with the reverse of Philip Hammond’s National Insurance hikes, we saw the Tory pro-Brexit Right assert their strength (yet again).
For rail travellers, those dreaded three words: bus replacement service. That’s been the story for thousands of rail travellers today as staff at Merseyrail, Northern Rail and Southern Rail walked out in a dispute over driver-operated trains.