The UK and EU are still far apart on key issues – will Britain really crash out in three weeks? What happened on Wednesday night? Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, met in person over a three-hour scallop and turbot dinner to try to unlock the Brexit trade negotiations deadlock. As expected,
Growth in the UK economy has all but fizzled out. GDP expanded by just 0.4% in October, the weakest in six months, with Covid-19 restrictions hitting the services sector hard. Economists said growth had dropped to a “snail’s pace”, and that the UK faced a fraught few months after coming to a ‘juddering halt’ this quarter. Economics thinktank NIESR
The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for mass vaccination. Britain’s medicines regulator, the MHRA, says the jab, which offers up to 95% protection against Covid-19 illness, is safe to be rolled out. The first doses are already on their way to the
The Debenhams department store chain is to be wound down after Christmas, with the loss of up to 12,000 jobs and closure of 124 stores in a new blow to the high street. The liquidation of the 240-year-old business came just a day after Philip Green’s Arcadia group, the owner of brands including Topshop, Miss Selfridge and
The furlough scheme will be extended across the UK until the end of March, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed. Mr Sunak said the scheme will pay up to 80% of a person’s wage up to £2,500 a month. He told the Commons that the government will review the policy in January. The chancellor said his
