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Boris Johnson has threatened to privatise public bodies including the Passport Office and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency unless they sort out their major backlogs, he told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The British prime minister said some public bodies had fallen victim to a “post-Covid mañana culture” with slower services than the public

One of the Bank of England’s senior officials on Tuesday proposed that the global regulatory system for banks’ capital requirements be overhauled to make it simpler and allow companies more flexibility to lend during a crisis. Sam Woods, head of the UK Prudential Regulation Authority, used a speech to outline a streamlined system that would

Britain’s City minister has agreed with estimates that about 7,000 jobs moved from the Square Mile to the EU after Brexit, but added that the financial services sector “has not experienced the haemorrhaging” of roles that many had anticipated. John Glen, economic secretary to the Treasury and City minister, said on Tuesday that he broadly

Francesca McDonagh has announced her surprise decision to step down as chief executive of Bank of Ireland, the country’s biggest lender, in what industry sources say is the latest high-profile casualty of a cap on top executives’ pay. The bank, which was rescued along with Ireland’s other lenders in the eurozone’s biggest banking bailout after

The lockdowns stemming from China’s zero-Covid strategy have worsened General Electric’s supply chain challenges, prompting the US industrial conglomerate to caution on Tuesday that its full-year results would come in at the low end of its previous expectations. Shares in GE fell 10 per cent to $80.71 in morning trading in New York after chief

Such is their devotion to the suburb of Wandsworth, in south-west London, that when James and Victoria Robbins sold their 1,400 sq ft three-bedroom railway workers’ cottage last October in search of more space, they moved just 157 metres away to a 2,200 sq ft, four-bedroom semi with a larger garden. Both old and new

When Priti Patel was chosen as Boris Johnson’s home secretary, liberal opinion was affronted. What possible logic could there be, so it went, in putting one of the Conservative party’s tub-thumpers, and one with a patchy ministerial record, at the helm of Whitehall’s most dysfunctional department? Simple, one of the prime minister’s aides told me

The Royal Ballet dusted off the family silver last weekend for a sublime triple bill of work by Frederick Ashton that reasserts the genius of their founder-choreographer. Ashton first heard Scènes de Ballet while soaking in his bath to the Third Programme and was obliged to telephone the BBC to identify it. His choreography embodies

British Airways is to cut flights until the end of June — a month longer than expected — to help it through the wave of disruption hitting the travel industry. Airlines have been forced to cancel flights over the past month as they have struggled to rehire sufficient staff to cope with increased demand as

In the movie Toy Story, attempts at flying by astronaut Buzz Lightyear are described as “falling with style” by a rival. Detractors of UBS may have the same complaint after underlying pre-tax profits — to adjust for the losses from Archegos — slipped 8 per cent to $2.7bn. The Swiss bank still soared clear of

What price a vote? Long before Google and its ilk brought dual-class shares to public markets, Britain plc routinely disenfranchised swaths of the investor base. Most — think Whitbread in hospitality or WHSmith in retail — merged their voting and non-voting shares in the early 90s. Straggler PZ Cussons, home of Imperial Leather soap, did

Schroders plans to scrap an “anachronistic” ownership structure that has deprived some shareholders of voting rights, as one of the UK’s largest asset managers tries to burnish its governance credentials. Under a plan laid out on Tuesday, Schroders said that each of the company’s non-voting shares, which account for a quarter of the total in

Government plans to enable more adults in England to do training courses throughout their lifetimes will have an important role in tackling the national skills shortage and boosting productivity, according to the minister for higher and further education. Michelle Donelan said the policy to introduce a “life-long loan entitlement” would address the UK’s low productivity

The container shipping industry is riding a wave that has not yet peaked. Denmark’s AP Moller-Maersk has just announced a more than doubling of first-quarter ebitda. Record results come at a cost. High freight rates have infuriated customers. The White House says they are likely to push up US consumer prices by 1 per cent

They say money can’t buy you love, but disagreements with a partner about how to manage your joint finances can give couples plenty to argue about. On this week’s Money Clinic podcast, presenter Claer Barrett meets newly-weds Sahil and Priya, who have very different financial priorities. Although the couple have been together for several years,

The world’s largest serviced office company, IWG, warned that inflation, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine could weigh on profits this year, pushing its shares down even as it reported record demand from big companies signing up to hybrid working. The WeWork rival reported improved revenues for the first quarter of the year on Tuesday

The biggest revelation of Colombia’s presidential election campaign is a black female social activist who is no longer running for the top job. Francia Márquez, who was little known outside the Afro-Colombian community until this year, caused a sensation when she won the third-largest number of votes of any candidate in national presidential primaries last

US law firm Skadden Arps has lost its top Asia capital markets lawyer as the flow of Chinese companies selling shares in New York and Hong Kong dwindles. Julie Gao is to move to Chinese tech giant ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, where she will take over as chief financial officer. The Beijing-based company has

A bad trump break and a frozen suit combined to cause most declarers to fail in this game contract. Can you do better? BiddingDealer: SouthLove All North East South West — — 1S NB 3S NB 4S West led Q♥. Most declarers won, played ♠AK and then breached diamonds. East took dummy’s J♦ with K♦;

Australia’s biggest liquefied natural gas producer said Asian demand for supplies from “democratic” nations had risen following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called on Canberra to speed up approvals of domestic projects. Meg O’Neill, the chief executive of Woodside Petroleum, said the LNG market had “changed tremendously” since Russia invaded Ukraine and the west imposed sanctions on Moscow, forcing countries

AP Moller-Maersk warned that container trade could decline this year due to the ongoing supply chain crisis even as the shipping group upgraded its annual profit forecasts by a quarter. The Danish company, the world’s largest container line by profits but second-biggest by capacity, boosted its full-year guidance after its first-quarter results came in above