Currys boss warns Reeves against further tax hikes as retailer cuts hiring
Chief executive Alex Baldock said the government should 'think very carefully before they make the situation any worse'.
But he insisted Currys could 'swim against the tide' as the electronics retailer reported a 37 per cent jump in annual profits.
His warning came amid growing fears that Rachel Reeves will increase the tax burden on UK businesses in her October Budget.
Currys and other retailers have already cut back on hiring after Reeves hiked employer National Insurance contributions and granted workers an inflation-busting minimum wage increase last autumn.
Baldock said hiring had been 'more depressed by the policy environment'.
'We could be employing more people were the outside world more conducive,' he added.
'We want to be helping to grow the economy and bring investment into the UK…retailers would like to do it and we would be able to do more of it with a more helpful policy environment.'
Baddock said: 'The tax burden that retailers already suffer is dampening the contribution that we could make, any further tax burden would further dampen growth investment and employment and increase prices.'
But Baldock is confident Currys can 'swim somewhat against the tide'.
'Without any help from the outside…what we've shown is that Currys will get on with doing what's in our control,' Baldock said.
The electronics retailer beat analyst expectations to report profit of £162million – a 37 per cent increase on a year earlier. Group revenue rose 3 per cent to £8.7billion in the 12 months to 3 May.
UK sales were driven by demand in Currys mobile phone and computing businesses. It also reported that health and beauty products such as Oura rings, Garmin watches and electrical face masks were growing fast.
The recent heatwave has seen fans 'flying out of stores' as well as an increase in sales of air conditioning units and barbeques.
Baldock said the balance sheet is the strongest it has been for a decade with net cash of £184million.
The retailer reinstated its dividend for the first time in two years as it proposed a payout of 1.5p per share and hinted at the prospect of a share buyback in the future.
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Times
28 minutes ago
- Times
Who's most to blame for Newcastle's issues? The recruiter who didn't recruit
There is one morsel of good news for Newcastle United's incoming sporting director. Whoever it may be, he can't be as bad as the last bloke. Ross Wilson is the favourite for the role, ahead of Jason Ayto, formerly of Arsenal. Wilson has been the chief football officer at Nottingham Forest, so at least we know he's not scared of hard work. And he will need that restlessness. Newcastle's summer has been marked largely by frustration and tumbleweed. Not since cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew has anyone in black and white had such trouble finding a match. If Newcastle identify a target, he goes elsewhere. Meanwhile, star turn Alexander Isak has fled to northern Spain to avoid the pre-season tour and agitate for a move to Liverpool, whose first bid of £110 million was rejected. Liverpool are briefing that they won't come back, but that hardly matters. Newcastle's preparations are already in ruins. Isak doesn't want to be there and the fans know this and are increasingly against him. It's a mess. What did former sporting director Paul Mitchell do in his year at the club? What did he bestow? What plans, what blueprints? Mitchell cannot be blamed for some recent disappointments, but he was a recruiter who didn't recruit and, by the looks of it, didn't leave much behind that was concrete as his legacy. Plenty of deals are set up in advance. We all knew that Trent Alexander-Arnold was on his way to Real Madrid many months out. Chelsea had Christian Pulisic agreed six months before he came, too. And José Mourinho would never take credit for the arrival of Petr Cech or Arjen Robben, saying those deals were in place before he was. Yet, having supposedly kept their powder dry for the great leap forward, what did Newcastle have arranged that hasn't fallen apart? Not Marc Guéhi — last summer's missed target — not João Pedro. They couldn't even keep goalkeeper James Trafford from joining Manchester City, the club that jettisoned him two years ago. Hopes of beating last season's 15th-placed team, Manchester United, to Benjamin Sesko sit in the balance. And before Liverpool came in for Isak they had already secured Hugo Ekitike, who Newcastle had fondly imagined would be his partner, or his replacement if the unthinkable happened. To see both in red would be little short of disastrous. And if all Mitchell had done was nothing — well, it wouldn't be impressive, but it wouldn't be actively harmful. Yet one of the few calls he did make is believed to have alienated Isak and may be the root of his present dissatisfaction. Having been promised an improved contract by the previous executive regime of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, Isak was then informed that would not be happening. The logic was straightforward: Isak was a high earner with four years left on his deal and Newcastle are mindful of Profitability and Sustainability Rules. Yet the ramifications can now be seen. Isak clearly knows another club can make him happy. One whose recruitment agents are efficiency's gold standard. That's the problem with football's new executive model. Recruiters, sporting directors, call them what you will, appear to be no more reliable than the people they have replaced: the managers. Manchester United were said to have fallen behind because they were entirely reliant on the wit of Sir Alex Ferguson. Last season, Sir Jim Ratcliffe bemoaned the fact the club were still behind on data analytics and could only rely on the eyes of Jason Wilcox, the sporting director. Yet if Newcastle had a coach as ferociously proactive as Ferguson, would they have struggled to get deals done? No criticism of Eddie Howe is intended. He works in a modern club, which Ferguson's United were not. Yet it's not just about chains of command, philosophies and strategies. The best people, that is what Liverpool have. All clubs employ executives to direct football, or sport, or recruitment, whichever title is the fashion. Chelsea's probably have their own wing at the training ground. Yet some clubs buy consistently well, others do not. Newcastle recruited a man to recruit the men, but he failed. The ramifications are significant. Neither Wilson nor Ayto can be active in this transfer window. Another one is passing Newcastle by. Has Howe got too much power, it is asked? After all, Mitchell's time there may not have recovered from an early schism with Howe and with a void at the top sporting direction increasingly lands at the manager's door. Yet what option is there, in Newcastle's state? They had a man to do that job. Not only didn't he do it but some of the decisions appear to have benefited a rival. That's what you call a good recruitment strategy. Liverpool have even got the opposition working for them. And not so much as a thank you. We used to be such a polite nation too. Manners maketh man and all that. Yet no so much as a tip of the hat in the direction of the Netherlands for Sarina Wiegman. We've heard a lot about patriotism and 'proper' England since the European Championship was retained, but very little acknowledgement of the method behind it all. For that would mean conceding it really isn't all our work. It can't be, with a foreign coach. England's women were superb in this tournament. Resilient, brave, determined. The moment Spain did not get the game won in extra time, it was England all the way. Yet much of the credit for that strength of attitude goes to Wiegman and her largely Dutch backroom team, and the credit for them goes to the Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond (KNVB), the Royal Dutch Football Association. So this was an Anglo-Dutch victory, an Anglo-Dutch operation, like Unilever, Shell or The Legendary Pink Dots. Close, but England's women had never got over the line at a major international tournament until Wiegman arrived. And she didn't fluke it this time, as was churlishly implied until the moment of ultimate victory. Yes, England can play better. Yet there are very solid reasons why England defeated Spain, many of them down to the work of the central midfield, which was no accident. Wiegman has reached five straight tournament finals, winning three. That's no fluke, either. The system that produced this remarkable head coach deserves its due. Now there is concern because the proportion of English players in the WSL has halved to just 30 per cent. Baroness Campbell, instrumental in Wiegman's appointment, is worried. Ironic that champions of a national team with a foreign coach suddenly think nationality is important. We want it all ways. In victory, we wish to celebrate and promote this as the best of us, which is what successful international sport is supposed to represent. Yet the FA, and its chief executive Mark Bullingham, are too frightened of failure to take a chance on just our best. It wishes for England to comprise that, plus the best of yours too, if we're short. And it will blow the competition out of the water with its financial might to facilitate this. Just don't expect the tiniest acknowledgment if it pays off. That's why it was so amusing when Bullingham said Wiegman was 'not for sale at any price' in the build-up to the final. For a start, she is. That's why she left her position as Netherlands head coach to manage England: because she is very much the gun for hire. But that's her call. The real reason she's not for sale is because there is not another nation in Europe — and only one, the United States, across the rest of the world — that would pay what she receives for coaching England. When Wiegman won the European Championship with the Netherlands in 2017 she was made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau and was awarded a statue in the garden of the KNVB; which is all well and good, but the FA gave her £400,000 a year and that rather ended discussions. Not to be outdone on the titles, there is now talk of making Wiegman a dame here too. It's another form of ownership. Look, she's ours, really. She's one of us. So we're Manchester City. And the majority don't care because all that matters is winning. Yet how a nation wins is important, too, particularly if that victory is going to be seized upon with great nationalistic fervour. Chloe Kelly's declaration that, 'I'm so proud to be English' was particularly well received. 'Uncomplicated patriotism,' one headline called it. But it is complicated, isn't it, if the manager is Dutch and the English didn't land a trophy until she arrived? The team have every right to wrap themselves in the flag because what they have achieved is exceptional; but the FA should at least have the decency to offer some small thank you to their counterparts in Zeist. Without them, we're nothing. When Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive, spoke to the media before the start of the fifth Test with India, he attempted to explain the thinking behind Test series being crushed into ever-shorter periods of time. He said the idea of keeping August free for the Hundred was here to stay and that part of the reasoning for making June and July the Test season was to avoid a clash with big football tournaments. When the Ashes are contested here in 2027, the schedule will replicate that for India this summer. The one that has culminated in a ruinous round of injuries. Yet that plan is already out of date. Now that tournaments involving England's women command almost as much attention as the men, there will not be a summer that cricket does not have to share with international football. Take the next four years: 2026, men's World Cup, 2027 women's World Cup, 2028 men's European Championships, 2029 women's European Championships. And that is before factoring in the 2029 Club World Cup, which may feature an expanded roster of Premier League clubs, including some of the bigger draws such as Liverpool or Arsenal. Test cricket has always competed with football in some way, and endures. Ben Stokes's famous match-winning innings at Headingley in 2019 took place across August 24 and 25, the same weekend as a full Premier League programme including Liverpool versus Arsenal and, on the day of the heroics, Tottenham Hotspur versus Newcastle United. Anyone much remember those matches? Nobody is forgetting Stokes's 135 not out and his partnership with Jack Leach, though. The Open, Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix, cricket is always challenged by our sporting summer. On Sunday, July 19, 2009, England were trying to win a Lord's Test against Australia for the first time since 1934. It was the day before Freddie Flintoff's iconic, kneeling, open-armed celebration. Yet on day four, many in the media centre were gathered around a television in a back suite because at Turnberry, the 59-year-old Tom Watson was within a hair's breadth of winning the Open. England's dramatic victory in the 2019 Cricket World Cup took place at the same time as arguably the greatest Wimbledon's men's singles final in history, Novak Djokovic defeating Roger Federer 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 13-12. So a little faith is needed, surely. For cricket to rearrange its calendar shows an absence of confidence in a sport that, at its best, still offers rewards like no other. How can we not believe in that? It was 46 degrees when Manchester United reached Chicago last week, with extreme weather warnings across the Midwest. Still, there was money to be made: £7.5million in United's case, the most of any Premier League team engaged in the Summer Series in the United States. So, a little bit more than Pachuca from Mexico got out of the Club World Cup, not quite as much as Los Angeles FC. No glory in the Summer Series, either. Chelsea can bask in the glow of being world champions for four years, with all the added commercial value this affords. Who won the Summer Series? Who cares? There are even suggestions that, far from being a money-spinner, it is failing commercially. The inaugural version two years ago lost £5.4 million — and that was before Fifa came in and delivered a genuine football competition for the locals, not a succession of glorified friendlies. We are yet to see the toll, if any, of the Club World Cup on Chelsea and Manchester City as the domestic season unfolds, but there is a risk-reward from taking part in a tournament with such obvious benefits. The Summer Series, by contrast, seems one big drain. Sunderland have already spent more than £100million on transfers. Coming into the Premier League via the play-offs it is no doubt necessary, while offering no guarantees. Ipswich Town were similarly ambitious last season and look where it got them. One prospective signing is interesting, though. Marc Guiu has started only seven games for Chelsea. On the face of it, his loan move to Sunderland would not make waves. The reason Chelsea are not prepared to make the deal permanent, however, is that inside the club Guiu is believed to have Cole Palmer potential. He's 19, four years Palmer's junior and with only slightly more first-team experience than Palmer had at the same stage of his career with Manchester City. So watch this space. Sunderland may be getting a special one, even if only for the season. The reason fans felt such love for Joey Jones was a shared devotion. Late in his career, at Huddersfield Town, snow had wiped out a weekend's fixture list. Mick Buxton, the manager, had an idea. He got the club to secure tickets at matches for all those players who had shown ambition to go into management. Watch the game, he said, and then write up a scout's report. It'll be good practice for you to get pointers from a manager's perspective. He assigned each player a match based on where he lived. Joey, a resident of north Wales but a Liverpool fanatic, was told there would be a ticket for him at Everton. 'I'm not going there,' he said. Buxton was bemused. 'I've never set foot inside Goodison Park unless I was playing,' Jones insisted. 'I'm not going to start now.' Despite Buxton's protests, he wouldn't budge. 'No way, not Everton. Anywhere but Everton.' Joey died last month. There is to be a statue of him at the home of his other great love, Wrexham. And if anyone goes near it with a blue scarf, he'll come back and haunt them. Numbers at the Women's European Championship told a story. Most goals, most assists and most chances created went to players from Spain, as did the first five berths for successful passes. Leading on most dribbles and most touches in the opposition box was Klara Buhl, of Germany. So how did England win? Most tackles, Keira Walsh. Most interceptions, Alex Greenwood. Most recoveries, Leah Williamson. Proof that even at the highest level, the dirty work brings reward. Standing besides the Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, on the podium in Basel was the general secretary Theodore Theodoridis, a native of Athens and formerly a board member of the Hellenic Football Federation. Uncanny, isn't it, the way that Olympiacos and Nottingham Forest, the clubs owned by Evangelos Marinakis, manage to nervelessly tiptoe their way through Uefa's minefield of multiclub ownership when Crystal Palace cannot.
The Sun
28 minutes ago
- The Sun
Ed Miliband's dash for Net Zero could cost every UK household £389 a year by 2030, bombshell research warns
ED Miliband's Net Zero policies will cost every household £389 a year by 2030, Tory analysis today reveals. The Labour government has pledged to totally decarbonise Britain's energy grid within the next five years. 4 They plan to do this by splurging vast amounts on new wind and solar farms as well as banning new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. Brits have already spent £700 million this year to pay wind farms to STOP producing energy because the National Grid cannot cope with energy surges. The government's dash to go green will send the cost of bills rocketing to a whopping £22.8 billion by 2030, Tory number crunchers say. This will leave the government's pledge to cut £300 from energy bills in tatters, according to the research. Instead it will end up adding another £389 to the cost of household bills for 27 million UK Brits. Tory MP Nick Timothy - who carried out the research - said: 'Energy becomes more expensive with each day Ed Miliband remains in office. 4 'While Miliband blames fossil fuels for higher bills, he is pumping up prices by throwing more government-imposed costs onto energy bills. 'Wind and solar are being propped up by a complicated web of hidden cash to hoodwink you into thinking they are cheap. But they are not. 'Renewables will cost billions more. This is Ed Miliband's world – and you're paying for it.' Sir Keir Starmer is under massive pressure to act on UK energy costs - which are some of the highest in the world. In stark contrast the US - which uses more fossil fuels - has far lower prices. Donald Trump used a meeting with the PM in Scotland earlier this week to launch a blistering attack on wind farms for pushing up prices and scarring the countryside. In toe-curling scenes, the PM sat ashen-faced as the US President unleashed both barrels on his wind farm push - branding them a 'con job'. Speaking at his Turnberry golf course, Mr Trump fumed: 'Wind is the most expensive form of energy, and it destroys the beauty of your fields and your plains and your waterways.' Urging the PM to lift the ban on new oil and gas drilling, he added: 'You can take a thousand times more energy out of a hole in the ground this big - it's called oil and gas.' The analysis carried out by Mr Timothy's office looked at the hidden cost of renewable energy by trawling through official figures and research papers. 4 It found that Brits pay billions of pounds to subsidise the building of renewable energy plants, like wind and solar. But the National Grid - which carries electricity from power plants to peoples homes - is very old and cannot cope with large surges of energy. This results in a barmy situation which means the government actually PAYS wind farms to stop turning when it is too windy. Some £700m has already been paid this year to turn wind farms off. Wind farms are also paid more for their energy than fossil fuel providers, the analysis found. Offshore wind will cost £113 per MWh under the latest contracts. The average cost of electricity last year was £72 per MWh. These direct subsidies for renewables inflate the cost of energy bills. There are also extra costs known as 'Balancing Costs' - the name given to the process the National Grid has to pay to ensure balance and supply of power is maintained daily. These charges end up being passed onto consumers in higher bills, researchers said. The study found the hidden cost of renewables on our bills was £12.3BN in 2023/24. This is predicted to hit £22.8BN by 2030. This is just the estimated cost to Brits's bills over the next few years - and the overall cost of going green by 2050 is far higher. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated it will cost a massive £803 billion to hit Net Zero by 2050. 4 A spokesman for the department for Net Zero said: 'These claims are fundamentally misleading. 'They wilfully ignore the benefits of clean power and wrongly assume the required network infrastructure will not be built over the next five years. 'Only by sprinting to clean power by 2030 can the UK take back control of its energy and protect both family and national finances from fossil fuel price spikes.' IT was the most excruciating television I have seen in years. Sitting next to the Prime Minister, Donald Trump said Labour's taxes on North Sea oil and gas 'make no sense' and he called Ed Miliband's wind farms a 'con job'. Keir Starmer looked like a rabbit in the headlights, because he knew what Trump said was true. The eco policies this Labour government is pursuing simply make no sense. They are spinning us a lie. The government tells us we must urgently hit Net Zero targets because the cost of fossil fuels are unaffordably high. But renewables cost more money and push up bills. They say Britain must build more wind and solar farms so we can wean ourselves of foreign gas and become energy sufficient. But at the same time No10 bans new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea - leaving us more dependent on imports. And the government tells us this dash to go green will create thousands and thousands of new jobs. Yet the trade unions who actually represent energy workers say Labour's zealous eco policies could cause tens of thousands of well-paid British workers to be laid off. It is a mad Alice in Wonderland world where down is up and up is down. Ed Miliband has gone through the Looking Glass. His policies are the stuff of the Mad Hatter. And today I can reveal that Labour's Net Zero drive will cost an estimated £23 billion a year by 2030. That is the equivalent of slapping another £389 a year onto the cost of living for households. It is a cost this country cannot afford. Let me give you a few examples to show you just how barmy our energy policy has become under 'Red Ed'. First- the oil and gas industry. Just weeks after winning the election, Labour banned new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea. Furious trade unions said that up to 30,000 UK jobs could be lost, but their dire warnings fell on deaf ears. But the most ridiculous thing is that Britain still imports oil and gas taken from the very same seabed from Norway. So, Norway gets to keep the taxes, profits and jobs, while the UK goes without. It is a grotesque example of self-harm. Second - the bizarre case of the Drax power station in North Yorkshire. It imports wood from halfway around the world to burn, yet the UK taxpayer has spent billions of pounds in green subsidies on the power station. This simply makes no sense. Third - the sky high cost of wind and solar energy. Labour has set the UK insane targets to quadruple offshore wind and double onshore wind in just five years. But energy produced by these wind farms is actually MORE expensive. Ed Miliband has promised wind farms a fixed price of £113 per MWh for the next 20 years. That is 50 per cent HIGHER than the average cost of electricity. The cost of building new wind and solar farms is also enormous. An estimated £40 billion a year will be spent upgrading the National Grid, and rolling out new pylons and battery storage sites. Worst of all, wind and solar are even paid NOT to produce energy. This is because our creaking National Grid cannot handle big surges of energy. So when it is particularly windy they have to pay wind farms to switch off. This year alone we have paid £700 million to wind farms to STOP generating power. It is bananas. Brits also have to pay for environmental levies. These are extra charges baked into energy bills to pay for the development of new greener energy supplies. Labour are sending environmental levies hurtling towards £14.8 billion in 2030. The PM promised he would cut energy bills by £300 by the next election. But the opposite is true. They are getting bigger and bigger. No wonder President Trump thinks we are mad. Our energy costs are twice those in America. As a result their economy is booming while ours is stagnating. The US President could see the truth and was unafraid to say it. Britain needs to completely change course. It's time to junk the clean power target and support energy policies that actually work. We should take the US President's advice and 'drill baby drill' in the North Sea. We should expand nuclear energy. And we should ditch our expensive green energy levies and subsidies. Otherwise we remain Ed Miliband's mad world – and we will all pay the price.
Telegraph
28 minutes ago
- Telegraph
University criticised for ‘vanity project' Vogue staff photoshoot
The University of Warwick has come under fire for starting a 'luxury' makeover while making staff redundant because of financial pressures. Academics accused the institution of indulging in a vanity project after it emerged the institution funded Vogue photoshoots for senior staff as part of a new global marketing strategy. Ajay Teli, Warwick's chief communications officer, has featured in a series of paid magazine spreads in recent months to promote the university's 60th anniversary. It includes a fashion photoshoot for Vogue Singapore published in June, in which Mr Teli wore designer clothing and said he would use his experience in the 'premium and luxury sectors' to boost Warwick's reputation. It comes after the university made 218 people redundant last year as financial pressures creep across the sector. The figure is more than double the previous year, and means the university has made over 900 redundancies in the past five years alone, according to Telegraph analysis. Mr Teli told Vogue Singapore he was 'drawn to higher education as the next frontier of influence, a space where knowledge, identity and opportunity intersect'. The University of Warwick confirmed to The Telegraph that it paid for the promotional pieces but refused to say how much they cost. 'This is University of Warwick. This is Beyond' The adverts, first reported by Times Higher Education, were placed to coincide with a wider rebrand at the university which has faced ridicule from staff for being 'tone-deaf'. The homepage of the Russell Group institution's website has been replaced since June with a lilac landing page unveiling its new tagline: 'This is University of Warwick. This is Beyond.' Until last month, the main hyperlink on the webpage invited users to 'learn more about our Brand.' This has since been replaced by a button saying: 'Study here'. A now-deleted page on Warwick's website also instructed staff on how to use the university's new 'Beyond' motto in marketing material. It said: 'Using Beyond as an abstract noun captures the idea that 'Beyond' is a conceptual space where limits are exceeded. 'Good example: Beyond is harnessing linguistics in sport. Poor example: We go beyond to harness linguistics in sport.' The revamp forms part of Warwick's new 'brand evolution project' to mark six decades since the university opened. It recently rejected a freedom of information request asking for details on how much this cost, citing 'commercial interests'. One Warwick academic told The Telegraph: 'People are fuming. Many have likened it to the Jaguar campaign and feel embarrassed to be associated with it.' Michael Merrifield, emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Nottingham, wrote on X: 'How can people who work in university marketing be so totally tone-deaf to both the 'product' they are supposed to be selling, and to the front-line teaching and research staff who are expected to actually deliver it?' A University and College Union source told The Telegraph: 'The University of Warwick's new brand has undoubtedly cost the institution a considerable amount of money, spent while staff contracts are not being renewed, essential roles are being eradicated, and students are struggling to pay their tuition and their bills. 'We have asked the university for information on how much this rebrand has cost and why these funds weren't used to support and improve teaching and learning activities. We eagerly await a response.' Another academic pointed to other recent examples of 'wild spending' by the university. It included a YouTube collaboration last year with Aldo Zilli, a celebrity chef, to create a sardine and prawn dish to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo's death. Warwick confirmed to The Telegraph that it paid for the video partnership, which received fewer than 400 views on YouTube, but did not disclose the cost.
