• ONS updates goods and services used to track inflation • Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees all in • Vending machine cigarettes and pork shoulder joints are out Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees have been added to the basket of goods the government uses to calculate the cost of living. The new additions show the importance of the burgeoning digital economy. The basket is designed to reflect what Britons really spend their money on, enabling the government to calculate how rises in prices are affecting living standards. Sparkling wines are being added, suggesting that the UK is experiencing a less austere climate than some claim. Television prices are being collected differently too to separate out TVs larger than 32 inches – reflecting the rise of home cinema systems. On the way out to make way for the new additions are vending machine cigarettes, as well as pork shoulder joints. The ONS said the latter is being replaced by oven-ready joints, as people move towards more prepared foods. Dried fruit has come in for the first time, while women’s fleeces are out. Hardboard is being replaced by MDF. The Office for National Statistics collects 180,000 prices every month of 650 goods and services. Changes in the prices are used to compile the official measure of inflation, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). “Many of these new items show the way technology is changing our lives. Powerful smart phones and the applications that run on them have become essential for many when communicating or seeking information. Likewise, increasing numbers of people now seek a partner via internet dating sites,” said ONS statistician Phil Gooding. The ONS updates the list of goods included once a year. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/cpi-and-rpi-the-2011-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf Inflation Economics Office for National Statistics Consumer spending Consumer affairs Alex Hawkes guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• ONS updates goods and services used to track inflation • Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees all in • Vending machine cigarettes and pork shoulder joints are out Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees have been added to the basket of goods the government uses to calculate the cost of living. The new additions show the importance of the burgeoning digital economy. The basket is designed to reflect what Britons really spend their money on, enabling the government to calculate how rises in prices are affecting living standards. Sparkling wines are being added, suggesting that the UK is experiencing a less austere climate than some claim. Television prices are being collected differently too to separate out TVs larger than 32 inches – reflecting the rise of home cinema systems. On the way out to make way for the new additions are vending machine cigarettes, as well as pork shoulder joints. The ONS said the latter is being replaced by oven-ready joints, as people move towards more prepared foods. Dried fruit has come in for the first time, while women’s fleeces are out. Hardboard is being replaced by MDF. The Office for National Statistics collects 180,000 prices every month of 650 goods and services. Changes in the prices are used to compile the official measure of inflation, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). “Many of these new items show the way technology is changing our lives. Powerful smart phones and the applications that run on them have become essential for many when communicating or seeking information. Likewise, increasing numbers of people now seek a partner via internet dating sites,” said ONS statistician Phil Gooding. The ONS updates the list of goods included once a year. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/cpi-and-rpi-the-2011-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf Inflation Economics Office for National Statistics Consumer spending Consumer affairs Alex Hawkes guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• ONS updates goods and services used to track inflation • Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees all in • Vending machine cigarettes and pork shoulder joints are out Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees have been added to the basket of goods the government uses to calculate the cost of living. The new additions show the importance of the burgeoning digital economy. The basket is designed to reflect what Britons really spend their money on, enabling the government to calculate how rises in prices are affecting living standards. Sparkling wines are being added, suggesting that the UK is experiencing a less austere climate than some claim. Television prices are being collected differently too to separate out TVs larger than 32 inches – reflecting the rise of home cinema systems. On the way out to make way for the new additions are vending machine cigarettes, as well as pork shoulder joints. The ONS said the latter is being replaced by oven-ready joints, as people move towards more prepared foods. Dried fruit has come in for the first time, while women’s fleeces are out. Hardboard is being replaced by MDF. The Office for National Statistics collects 180,000 prices every month of 650 goods and services. Changes in the prices are used to compile the official measure of inflation, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). “Many of these new items show the way technology is changing our lives. Powerful smart phones and the applications that run on them have become essential for many when communicating or seeking information. Likewise, increasing numbers of people now seek a partner via internet dating sites,” said ONS statistician Phil Gooding. The ONS updates the list of goods included once a year. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/cpi-and-rpi-the-2011-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf Inflation Economics Office for National Statistics Consumer spending Consumer affairs Alex Hawkes guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• ONS updates goods and services used to track inflation • Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees all in • Vending machine cigarettes and pork shoulder joints are out Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees have been added to the basket of goods the government uses to calculate the cost of living. The new additions show the importance of the burgeoning digital economy. The basket is designed to reflect what Britons really spend their money on, enabling the government to calculate how rises in prices are affecting living standards. Sparkling wines are being added, suggesting that the UK is experiencing a less austere climate than some claim. Television prices are being collected differently too to separate out TVs larger than 32 inches – reflecting the rise of home cinema systems. On the way out to make way for the new additions are vending machine cigarettes, as well as pork shoulder joints. The ONS said the latter is being replaced by oven-ready joints, as people move towards more prepared foods. Dried fruit has come in for the first time, while women’s fleeces are out. Hardboard is being replaced by MDF. The Office for National Statistics collects 180,000 prices every month of 650 goods and services. Changes in the prices are used to compile the official measure of inflation, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). “Many of these new items show the way technology is changing our lives. Powerful smart phones and the applications that run on them have become essential for many when communicating or seeking information. Likewise, increasing numbers of people now seek a partner via internet dating sites,” said ONS statistician Phil Gooding. The ONS updates the list of goods included once a year. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/cpi-and-rpi-the-2011-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf Inflation Economics Office for National Statistics Consumer spending Consumer affairs Alex Hawkes guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• ONS updates goods and services used to track inflation • Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees all in • Vending machine cigarettes and pork shoulder joints are out Smart phones, apps and dating agency fees have been added to the basket of goods the government uses to calculate the cost of living. The new additions show the importance of the burgeoning digital economy. The basket is designed to reflect what Britons really spend their money on, enabling the government to calculate how rises in prices are affecting living standards. Sparkling wines are being added, suggesting that the UK is experiencing a less austere climate than some claim. Television prices are being collected differently too to separate out TVs larger than 32 inches – reflecting the rise of home cinema systems. On the way out to make way for the new additions are vending machine cigarettes, as well as pork shoulder joints. The ONS said the latter is being replaced by oven-ready joints, as people move towards more prepared foods. Dried fruit has come in for the first time, while women’s fleeces are out. Hardboard is being replaced by MDF. The Office for National Statistics collects 180,000 prices every month of 650 goods and services. Changes in the prices are used to compile the official measure of inflation, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). “Many of these new items show the way technology is changing our lives. Powerful smart phones and the applications that run on them have become essential for many when communicating or seeking information. Likewise, increasing numbers of people now seek a partner via internet dating sites,” said ONS statistician Phil Gooding. The ONS updates the list of goods included once a year. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/cpi-and-rpi-the-2011-basket-of-goods-and-services.pdf Inflation Economics Office for National Statistics Consumer spending Consumer affairs Alex Hawkes guardian.co.uk
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Enforcement of eviction orders at Basildon site likely to cost £18m and could leave children and elderly people homeless A Conservative-controlled council has voted to spend millions of pounds evicting Travellers from an unauthorised site. Officials estimate that evicting more than 400 people from the former scrapyard near Basildon, Essex, could cost taxpayers £18m. Conservatives on Basildon council insisted that planning laws had to be upheld, and gave the green light despite opposition from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The council was told that the Dale Farm site at Crays Hill – which is on green-belt land – was occupied without planning permission in 2001 and had grown in the past decade. Conservatives said all attempts to find alternative sites had failed and eviction orders had to be enforced. Opponents said the council would be wasting millions and was risking making elderly people and children homeless. Several hundred members of the public, including Travellers from the site, gathered to hear the debate on Monday night. Officials estimated that council costs could rise to £8m and police costs nearly £10m. The meeting was told that attempts to secure funds from central government had failed. Opponents said going ahead with the eviction could lead to council staff losing their jobs. The council, which has had its plans for eviction approved by senior judges, has yet to announce when the clearance operation will start. Police stood by outside the theatre where the debate was staged but it ended without incident. Communities Social exclusion Local politics Housing guardian.co.uk
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The big mobile phone companies currently charge more than 4p a minute to connect calls from other firms but this will fall to less than 1p a minute by April 2014 The cost of calling mobile phones from other networks and landlines is set to become cheaper after Ofcom imposed a reduction in charges. The regulator ruled on Tuesday that termination charges – the amount mobile phone companies bill their rivals for handling calls from their networks – will fall 80% over the next four years, starting from 1 April. The big three mobile operators – O2, Vodafone and Everything Everywhere, which includes Orange and T-Mobile – currently charge 4.18p a minute to connect calls from other phone companies. But this will be reduced to 2.66p next month and will fall to 0.69p by April 2014. Ofcom said it expects landline operators to pass on the cost savings to customers and for mobile operators to offer more choice to customers. Mobile phone operator 3 UK can currently charge up to 4.48p a minute, slightly more than the other big operators, but its cap will fall in line with its bigger rivals from the start of next month. The changes are expected to benefit smaller mobile phone operators, which will be able to offer more competitive prices. Termination rates have already declined by 35% since 2007 when Ofcom last imposed caps on the rates. The regulator said that while mobile phone companies will lose money from the reduction in charges, they are gaining from a growing trend towards customers using data services, such as text messaging and accessing the internet from their mobile phones. Data traffic has more than doubled in the past year and now accounts for the majority of traffic over mobile phone networks, said Ofcom. Revenues from data increased by 90% between 2007 and 2009 and are set to grow further. The termination rate caps apply only to calls, which are likely to account for a less significant proportion of mobile phone companies’ revenues over the next four years, added Ofcom. Telecommunications industry Ofcom Vodafone Orange T-Mobile Consumer affairs guardian.co.uk
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Negative posters to appear in underground stations across London, with others arguing in favour of the Games As tickets go on sale for the biggest sports event in British history, the 2012 London Olympics, the Economist is launching a major ad campaign suggesting that the event is a “waste of money”. The Economist has a history of running provocative poster campaigns, such as those last year stating the case for and against trading in human organs and legalising drugs . But it is now launching a new two-week poster campaign scrutinising the London Olympics, under the headline “Hosting the Olympics is a waste of money”, appearing in underground stations across London until the end of the month. The weekly business and news magazine has timed the launch to coincide with the release of more than 6m tickets for sale online to the public from Tuesday , a moment that Olympics chief Lord Coe has highlighted as critical, the “point that it suddenly becomes very real”. The ad highlights several negative points, including the £9bn that the Games will eventually cost – “twice what we were originally told and around £350 for every British household” – stating also that past hosts, including Montreal and Athens, have been “stuck with huge debts and white elephants”. The campaign, which runs under the same theme, and strapline, as last year’s posters – “Where do you stand?” – aims to drum up debate and interest among people who do not normally read the Economist. The Economist, which is 50% owned by Financial Times’s parent company, Pearson, is also running a pro-Olympics version of the poster. This version says that the Olympics will help the “poorest bit” of London and that such a big construction project has been a “boon to a stumbling economy”; adding, “Having a big party in London will cheer the place up. That’s worth a lot.” A second theme in the campaign that it originally launched in 2010 looks at whether the baby boomer generation – people born between the end of the second world war and the mid-1960s – has left a “good” or “rotten” inheritance. Positive points include them inventing things such as the iPod and internet, which “young people love to play with”, while negatives include running up massive debts. The campaign was created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. Media planning and buying was handled by PHD. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. Olympics & the media Advertising Marketing & PR Olympic Games 2012 Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk
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Tax assets up from £2.3bn, due to losses in UK, the US and Spain, some incurred before 2010 Barclays has deferred tax assets of £2.5bn, up from £2.3bn, as a result of losses in the UK, the US and Spain, which will help to reduce its tax bill in the years ahead. According to the bank’s annual report, published after markets shut last night, some £1bn of the tax assets – which the bank can count against tax bills – had been stored up from losses incurred before 2010. The bank, which survived the banking crisis without a direct taxpayer bailout, incurred controversy when it admitted to the Treasury select committee that it paid just £113m of corporation tax in the UK in 2009 – when it made £11.9bn of profits. The bank has never been specific about how its tax bill stayed so low, other than to refer to losses it had incurred previously. In its annual report, the bank highlights “global tax payments” of £6.1bn – £3.1bn of taxes borne by Barclays and £3bn of taxes such as employee income tax. The total corporation tax bill was £1.5bn, but it does not say how much of this was paid in the UK. Instead it said “total tax” paid to the UK exchequer in 2010 was £2.8bn. The exact amount of tax assets that Barclays has in the UK is unclear. UK rules allow the bank to use the losses against future profits indefinitely. Other countries, such as Germany, place restrictions on the time such losses can be carried. The annual report is published a week after Barclays admitted that five of its key bankers had been awarded shares and cash deals of more than £110m. Later this week, bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to reveal that more than 300 of its key bankers have an average pay deal of more than £1m. While this might seem high, it is lower than the £2.4m per head average awarded to similar staff at Barclays. The news comes as a report out yesterday said profits by the major banks have doubled during the past year but the groups still face significant challenges going forward. The big five – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered – made combined pre-tax statutory profits of £22.2bn in 2010, up from £11.3bn in 2009, according to accountants KPMG. The increase was driven by a dramatic drop in impairment charges across all five banks, with these falling by more than £20bn during the 12 months. There was also a marked increase in the margins on their existing mortgage book at some of the banks. Barclays Tax avoidance Corporate governance Banking Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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Co-creator Brian True-May said ITV crime drama ‘wouldn’t be English village’ if it featured minority groups The producer of one of ITV1′s best-known crime dramas, Midsomer Murders, has been suspended from his job after he suggested in an interview that there was no place in the programme for ethnic minorities and it was the “last bastion of Englishness”. Brian True-May, the co-creator of the show which began on ITV in 1997, said the series “wouldn’t work” if there was any racial diversity portrayed in the sleepy village life of the fictional county of Midsomer. Production company All3Media has suspended True-May while it conducts an inquiry and an ITV spokesman said the broadcaster was “shocked and appalled” by his comments. “We just don’t have ethnic minorities involved. Because it wouldn’t be the English village with them,” True-May said in an interview with the Radio Times. “It just wouldn’t work. Suddenly we might be in Slough … We’re the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way.” An ITV spokesman said: “We are shocked and appalled at these personal comments by Brian True-May which are absolutely not shared by anyone at ITV. “We are in urgent discussions with All3Media, the producer of Midsomer Murders, who have informed us that they have launched an immediate investigation into the matter and have suspended Mr True-May pending the outcome.” True-May was speaking to the Radio Times in advance of the new series of the drama, which returns to ITV1 next week. Originally based on the books by Caroline Graham, Midsomer Murders has so far featured 251 deaths, 222 of which were murder. The show’s original star, John Nettles, previously best-known for his title role in another long-running crime drama, BBC1′s Bergerac, appeared in the last of his 82 episodes last month. He will be replaced in the leading role by Neil Dudgeon playing John Barnaby, the cousin of Nettles’ original inspector Tom Barnaby. Perhaps anticipating criticism of his comments, True-May admitted: “Maybe I’m not politically correct … I’m trying to make something that appeals to a certain audience, which seems to succeed. And I don’t want to change it.” The race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust said True-May’s comments were out of date and no longer reflected English society. “Clearly, as a fictional work, the producers of Midsomer Murders are entitled to their flights of fancy, but to claim that the English village is purely white is no longer true and not a fair reflection of our society, particularly to this show’s large international audience,” said the trust’s director Rob Berkeley. “It is not a major surprise that ethnic minority people choose not to watch a show that excludes them.” True-May has also banned swearing, graphic violence and sex scenes from the show, but his idyllic formula does not stop challenging storylines or other elements of diversity which do not involve ethnicity. “If it’s incest, blackmail, lesbianism, homosexuality … terrific, put it in, because people can believe that people can murder for any of those reasons,” he said. Not all of the programme’s cast appeared to agree with the programme’s producer. Actor Jason Hughes, who plays sidekick DS Jones and starred as Warren in BBC2′s This Life, said: “This isn’t an urban drama and it isn’t about multiculturalism. That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for multiculturalism in the show. “But that’s really not up to me to decide. I don’t think that we would all suddenly go, ‘a black gardener in Midsomer? You can’t have that’. I think we’d all go, ‘great, fantastic’.” ITV1 ITV Television Race issues John Plunkett guardian.co.uk
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