The UK is planning to update its digital strategy for the first time since 2017, in a bid to attract tech talent to the country, and encourage pension funds to invest in tech startups.
Tube Strike Disrupts London’s Return From Jubilee Weekend
RMT union expects 4,000 staff will stay home on Monday
Routes closed, skeletal service on Central, Piccadilly lines
Samuel Etienne and Siddharth Vikram Philip
June 5, 2022, 10:53 PM GMT+1Updated on June 6, 2022, 8:42 AM GMT+1
Commuters returning to work in London on Monday after the Platinum Jubilee holiday were met by a subway strike that disrupted journeys and prompted some to take expensive taxi rides or board packed buses.
The Tube’s Victoria, Circle and Waterloo & City lines were closed, with limited services on the Piccadilly, Central, District and Bakerloo routes. The RMT said as many as 4,000 staff would strike, while Transport for London urged people to avoid non-vital travel and said disruption could continue into Tuesday.
The chaos on the subway comes after hundreds of flights were canceled at airports across the UK over the holiday weekend amid widespread staffing shortages, handing Britons a sharp reminder of the country’s domestic woes after four days of celebrations.
Dotted among coverage of national festivities to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne, UK media featured numerous images of lines of frustrated airline passengers. At Manchester airport some were even filmed crawling through a baggage carousel barrier in a bid to retrieve their luggage.
London Gatwick Airport said 52 departures and 30 arrivals were scrapped on Sunday, many of them operated by EasyJet plc, which axed 80 flights in total across Europe. North of the capital at Luton, about 3,000 passengers were diverted following a power failure, The Independent reported.
Under pressure from the airline industry to relax immigration rules to ease recruitment, the government pushed back and highlighted three issues, saying airlines had cut too many jobs during the pandemic, failed to plan for a surge in passenger numbers, and sold too many tickets.
“I think cuts went too deep,” Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on BBC TV Sunday, dismissing the notion that Brexit was a significant factor behind job losses in the sector. “We’ll work with the industry very hard between now and the summer to make sure we don’t see a repeat of those scenes.”
Shapps said he wanted airlines to offer automatic refunds and compensation to passengers for canceled flights, similar to a system for UK rail passengers called Delay Repay.
Heathrow airport has demanded airlines reduce the number of passengers flying from its terminals at certain times of the day by a third until July 3, The Times of London reported.
FURTHER READING:
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Airports See Surging Demand As Travel Rebounds: Pret Index
Travel by sea hasn’t been much better over the weekend, with major congestion in and around the French ports of Dunkirk and Calais adding to the sense of chaos. Ferry operator DFDS A/S asked passengers on Monday to allow for 90 minutes to complete passport control and check-in formalities, saying it was expecting a busy day in Dover.
One bright spot: The walkout won’t affect the new Elizabeth line that connects the west of London to the City and onwards into Essex.
(Updates with details of tube strike from first paragraph.)
UK Retail Sales Jump Masks Growing Concerns Over Outlook
Britons are staying in to save money amid cost of living shock
Shift explains spending on supermarket alcohol and sweets
By David Goodman and Samuel Etienne
After a week of grim reports showing inflation at a four-decade high and consumer confidence at the lowest level since at least 1974, a release on Friday showing retail sales unexpectedly rose in April appeared to buck the trend.
The 1.4% increase announced by the Office for National Statistics defied economists expectations for a 0.3% decline. The result was all the more surprising given the figures cover a month when millions of Britons faced eye-watering rises in their energy bills, alongside a sharp jump in payroll taxes.
However, the details of the report told a less positive story.
The increase was driven by spending on alcohol, confectionary and tobacco in supermarkets, which, the ONS suggested, could be “possibly due to people staying in more to save money.”
Spending on those items had plunged in the early months of 2022 as Britons returned to pubs and restaurants amid easing fears about Covid-19. A return to at-home entertainment would be a further worrying sign of ebbing confidence.
“It’s not as positive as the headline figure suggests,” Nina Skero, director and head of macroeconomics at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, told Bloomberg TV on Friday. “What drove this better-than-expected reading are further signs that consumers are expecting a significant slowdown.”
Mixed Fortunes
Sales at department stores, clothing & fuel are below pre-Covid levels
Source: Office for National Statistics
Note: February 2020 = 100; Volume of sales
Furthermore, monthly retail figures can be a volatile and somewhat idiosyncratic measure, meaning a single month of growth cannot be taken as a sign of a recovery.
Indeed, the longer-term trends are still bleak. Sales were down 4.9% from a year earlier, the worst reading since January 2021’s lockdown. They also weaker on a three-monthly basis, falling 0.5% compared with November-January when fuel is excluded.
The release also showed some signs of weakness in discretionary areas of spending, such a furniture, tallying with GfK’s findings that consumers are growing less likely to spend money on big-ticket items.
What Bloomberg Economics Says ...
“Don’t be fooled by the rebound in retail sales in April. The biggest squeeze on incomes in a generation is set to further constrain consumer spending in the coming months. Bloomberg Economics expects the economy to lose steam quickly as the impact of rising inflation squeezes household purchasing power.”
--Niraj Shah, Bloomberg Economics. Click for the REACT.
— With assistance by Anna Edwards, and Mark Cudmore
Bloomberg TV First Word
Production - Tony Blair on Bloomberg News
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-01-27/fmr-u-k-pm-blair-on-u-k-government-ukraine-vaccines-video
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair discusses the scandal surrounding Boris Johnson over allegations of rule-breaking parties in Downing Street during the pandemic, the increasing tensions between Russia and Western allies over Ukraine and the report on a global vaccination system. He speaks exclusively on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Production - Panjshir Valley Holds Out Against Taliban - QuickTake
Panjshir Valley Leads Taliban Resistance in Afghanistan
The Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan has not included the Panjshir Valley, a region that has been a strong hold against the Taliban and Russia in the past. James Glancy, filmmaker and former Royal Marine Commando Officer, provides perspective on alliances within Afghanistan and the fight against ISIS. He speaks on “Quicktake Charge.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Global Energy Inflation Hits UK Homes as Igloo Hikes Prices
City Workers Flee London In Pandemic Property Boom - TV News Report
Rightmove, the online property portal, has reported that London has had the smallest annual gain in house prices for any UK region, an increase of just 0.8%, compared to a 10% in East Anglia and 11% in the south west of England.
Londoners with large cash deposits who no longer need to frequently commute are a driving force behind the trend. They're leaving the capital for more space and a cheaper cost of living the surrounding regions.
