Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last month's media (6th Nov)

Paradise Papers: Queen and Bono kept money in offshore funds, leaked files reveal The Queen, Bono and one of Donald Trump's closest advisors are among those whose offshore investments have been revealed in the largest ever leak dubbed the "Paradise Papers". The 13.4million files, which were obtained after a hack on law firm Appleby which has offices in Bermuda, the Isle of Man and a number of other tax havens, show the complex financial dealings of the super-rich and  major global corporations. Tory donor Lord Michael Ashcroft, Donald...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Sun 1st Oct)

Supermarket chicken supplier 2 Sisters suspends operations It comes after allegations that workers had changed slaughter dates to extend the shelf life of meat. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has also been investigating the claims. The Guardian and ITV News claimed an undercover reporter witnessed workers changing the "kill dates" on chickens. They also allegedly saw meat of different ages being mixed together and codes on crates of meat altered. In a statement, the company said an internal investigation had shown "some isolated instances...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Sun 17th Sep)

Writing off student debt can cost £10bn, not £100bn, says IFS The figures are well below the £100bn quoted by the universities minister, Jo Johnson, and other members of the government this year as they sought to push back against suggestions by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, that his party would end tuition fees and “deal with” existing student debts. As the IFS pointed out, the £100bn is the total for all student loans, including those for maintenance, for students from outside England, and for those incurred after fees were introduced...

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“There is no magic money tree” say the people who think there's a magic housing tree, health, education and police trees

OUR RELATED STORIES: £100bn a year is missing from our high streets thanks to 50 years of pay squeezes Why does everyone say inequality is falling, when it's rising? Because they're only counting incomes, not all wealth (property, pensions, etc.) The NHS is not a “cost”. It creates nationwide jobs, technology, growth and wealth. Oh, and health FTSE bosses take 2.5 days to earn what you earn all year. Data shows they don't deserve it All governments agree to fix the housing crisis. Latest figures show we're still not even trying Recovery?...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 18th May)

Jeremy Hunt quizzed over why nurses are using foodbanks The Health Secretary was interviewed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show after Theresa May said last week there "many complex reasons" why nurses are increasingly turning to the charitable centres. It comes after the Royal College of Nursing claimed that nurses are seeking debt advice and increasingly turning to food banks. Mr Hunt said: "The minimum a nurse can be paid in this country is £22,000 - £27,000 in inner London. The average pay was £31,000. Is that enough considering the brilliant...

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The big question: who was behind the NHS malware?

Fee and KJ hazard a guess... SOURCE PUBLIC SECTOR EXECUTIVE: Lib Dems join Labour in pledge to scrap 1% public sector pay cap Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has pledged to put an end to the government’s 1% public sector pay cap and uprate wages in line with inflation, a commitment that is in line with Labour’s pledges according to its leaked manifesto. Farron, who accused the Conservatives of treating health workers “like dirt” at yesterday’s Royal College of Nursing (RCN) annual conference, said nurses and teachers could be £780 better...

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£100bn a year is missing from our high streets thanks to 50 years of pay squeezes

A pound’s worth of product is not worth a pound when you’ve made it. It’s worth a pound when someone has bought it. That’s why Britain needs a pay rise. There’s no rise in UK sales without a rise in UK incomes. That’s why we’ve not had a recovery. Only a recovery in credit card debt! Whichever party understands that, vote for them. Wages have flatlined since July 2005, says the Office for National Statistics. But it’s worse than that. Notoriously, the Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) data never include the earnings of the self employed,...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 27th Apr)

3m poor working families face losing £2,500 a year from benefit cuts According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) the freeze in benefit rates and cuts to child tax credit, coupled with the rollout of universal credit, which has become less generous as a result of changes to work allowances, signal “large losses” for low-income households. If the cuts announced in 2015 were fully in place now, nearly 3m working households with children on tax credits would be an average of £2,500 a year worse off, with larger families losing more. The...

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