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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Reform's bacon and egg offensive to woo business
Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice is conducting a 'bacon and eggs' charm offensive to woo British businesses ahead of the next election. Tice told The Mail on Sunday that he and other senior party figures, including leader Nigel Farage, had been meeting 'dozens and dozens and dozens' of bosses for breakfast meetings. He said they included chief executives, finance chiefs, chairmen and top lobbyists at FTSE 100 and FTSE 250-listed firms, as well as those at private and foreign-owned companies. It echoes the 'smoked salmon and scrambled eggs' charm offensive by Labour ahead of the last General Election. Tice, pictured with Farage, said the 'penny dropped' for many firms about Reform's potential to form the next government after its landslide success in May's local elections and taking a 14-point lead in the latest national opinion poll. And he dismissed concerns raised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) about whether Reform's sums added up, dismissing the respected economic think-tank as 'the institute for feeble studies'. Tice said: 'Lots of companies recognise we are a serious contender to be the next government, whenever the election is. They are taking it seriously, so want to meet me and understand where we're coming from on a variety of big issues. 'Whether you want to call it the bacon and eggs offensive or whatever, a series of breakfasts and other meetings are going on, and it is going well, and we're doing quite a lot of it.' A well-placed City source who alerted The Mail on Sunday to the meetings suggested there was some scepticism among business leaders about Reform's plans. Firms contacted by this newspaper were tight-lipped over whether they had met Tice. One FTSE 100 director, who asked not to be named, said he had 'not seen him' as part of the drive, but had once bumped into the politician and 'couldn't find anything we could agree on'. However, Tice said the reaction had been positive, particularly relating to plans to scrap the net zero carbon climate goal. 'We understand the language of business,' he said. 'I was chief executive of a billion-pound multinational listed company. Nigel's a businessman. We understand what it takes to save the British economy. 'We are talking about our dead seriousness about scrapping net zero and that is greeted with almost universal joy on a private basis. Privately, they all admit it's bonkers, it's costing them a fortune, it's making them uncompetitive.' Tice said Reform had told oil and gas companies to prepare applications for drilling licences in the North Sea 'so they can be checked and pre-approved before an election and rubber-stamped within a matter of days' if Reform were to win. He added: 'We're not mucking about. We're very clear that things like net zero, ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) – it's all for the birds. It all goes and we will be pretty aggressive on that and anyone who tries to get in our way.' The IFS's analysis of Reform's tax-cutting plans found that raising an individual's annual tax threshold from £12,570 to £20,000 and other measures could cost up to £80 billion a year, and that the party's strategy involved large, unspecified cuts to public services. And Simon French, chief economist at investment bank Panmure Liberum, has warned that Britain could face an 'immediate and violent' sterling crisis if Farage wins power. But Tice dismissed these, calling the IFS estimate a 'back-of-the-fag-packet guess' saying: 'We expect the enemy to do that.' Asked whether business leaders were convinced by Reform's plans, Tice said: 'They get it.' He added that he and Farage were 'probably two of the most successful financial, economic, businesslike MPs they've ever met'.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Amazon will have as many robots as humans working in UK warehouses within just three years
AMAZON will have as many robots working in UK warehouses as humans within three years, an expert warns. It could mean huge job losses at the delivery giant, which already has a million bots operating worldwide. 3 3 The firm is on the cusp of having more machines than people in the US, according to the Wall Street Journal. Dr Amir Aly, from the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at the University of Plymouth, claims Amazon's planned £40billion UK investment by 2028 means a mass robot rollout. He said: 'The scale of investment indicates there will be a 1:1 ratio of humans to robots in the UK in the next one to three years. "It's the money and technology advances that talk in the end.' He argued the size of the cash injection and the Government's enthusiasm hints at an agreement to provide a 'friendly regulatory environment'. Dr Sethu Vijayakumar, Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh, agreed jobs would be lost in the 'temporary friction' robotics revolution. He added: 'There will never be as many jobs once warehouses are automated.' Amazon denies this, pointing to increased hiring over the past decade to about 70,000 people in the UK — up from 7,800. Xavier Van Chau, from Amazon's robotics team, said rather than replacing workers, the company has trained 700,000 robot operators. He insisted that the business aims to relieve workers of menial tasks, 'adding value, not replacing humans'. 3
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
CITY OF LONDON INVESTMENT TRUST: On a roll for 59 years and counting
Like the UK stock market, investment trust City of London is on something of a roll, much to the delight of its shareholders. Despite its inherent investment conservatism, the £2.5 billion fund continues to outperform its benchmark, the FTSE All-Share Index. Over the last year, it has delivered a total return, comprising a mix of income and share price gain, of 22.4 per cent, comfortably beating the 15.3 per cent return generated by the FTSE All-Share Index. It has also beaten its benchmark over the past three and five years. The trust's focus on income from a portfolio of UK shares makes it a popular choice among retail investors. When the final quarterly dividend for the financial year just gone is paid at the end of next month, the FTSE 250-listed trust will have racked up 59 consecutive years of income increases. No other investment trust has such a long-standing record, although nine others have grown their income for at least half a century. In pounds and pence, the trust's income payments in the last financial year tot up to 21.3p a share, 3.4 per cent ahead of the previous year and equivalent to an annual dividend yield in excess of four per cent. To put these payments into context, the shares now stand at just below £5, although last week they briefly breached £5 for the first time in the trust's 134-year history. For the past 34 years, City of London – one of 11 from the Janus Henderson stable of investment trusts – has been managed by Job Curtis with David Smith jumping on board four years ago as his deputy. Understandably, Curtis is proud of the trust's record and the conservative slant of the 79-strong portfolio. This conservatism comes through in many ways. For a start, most of the holdings are cash generative businesses with a propensity to pay a growing dividend. Also, most – 80 per cent plus - are FTSE 100 listed companies with businesses that span the globe. Some 60 per cent of the revenues that the trust's holdings earn are overseas. Although the FTSE 100 surpassed 9,000 in recent days, Curtis believes there is more to come. He says: 'The UK stock market still provides excellent value compared to other global markets. In effect, like the trust, it provides investors with the opportunity to get exposure to some attractive global companies at a discount.' In the past year and a half, Curtis has increased the trust's holdings in UK-listed banks: HSBC, NatWest and Lloyds are all among the fund's top ten positions. It has proved a profitable decision, and he believes there are more gains and dividends up for grabs. 'A big change, prompted by government, is taking place in the regulation of UK banks,' he says. 'The emphasis is now less on whether the banks are sufficiently capitalised, and more on enabling them to increase their lending, fuel economic growth, improve profits and deliver dividend growth.' Other attractive features of this trust include low annual charges, totalling 0.37 per cent. To put this figure into perspective, the average for the UK equity income sector is 0.56 per cent. The fees (in percentage terms) will reduce when the trust grows to £3 billion. Also, the shares currently trade at a small premium to the underlying assets, unlike many rivals. Curtis says: 'The trust's board takes the view that investors value stability. This means shares will be bought back if they trade at a discount above 2 per cent.' The trust's stock market ticker is CTY and identification code 0199049.
