Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google in the days before abandoning a plan to tax digital giants more, openDemocracy can reveal. Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended Glastonbury festival in June as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Including accommodation and ‘hospitality’, Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, which were £335 each. The next day, reports emerged that Labour had ditched its proposal to hike tax on digital businesses like Google. The Digital Services Tax, introduced in 2020, is a 2% levy on the UK income of online companies like search engines and social media platforms. In August last year, Reynolds and his shadow chancellor colleague Rachel Reeves had called for an increase in the tax to 10%, saying the income would be used t...
Consumer Price Index (CPI) data is due out this Tuesday. The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) , i.e. the Fed, announces its latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday afternoon. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB) : Over the weekend, the Treasury Department indicated that depositors will get their money back, but will let the bank itself fail. US Employment Report (for February) : The latest US employment report came out last Friday, and showed that the US economy is still strong (which is good and bad for all the obvious reasons to investors).
In January 2023, there were 63,177 deaths registered in England, 6,632 deaths (11.7%) above the January five-year average (2017 to 2019, 2021 and 2022). In January 2023, there were 4,230 deaths registered in Wales, 506 deaths (13.6%) above the January average. In January 2023, the leading cause of death in both England and Wales was dementia and Alzheimer's disease (13.0% and 11.3% of all deaths, in England and Wales respectively). In January 2023, the leading cause of excess death in England was influenza or pneumonia, at 1,802 excess deaths (59.2% above average). In January 2023, the leading cause of excess death in Wales was chronic lower respiratory diseases, at 95 excess deaths (40.8% above average).
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