To the dates 4 August 1914 and 3 September 1939 can now be added a third: 23 March 23 2020, the day the government declared war on Covid-19 and announced a lockdown to combat the virus. It’s strange how history repeats itself. The same
Britain’s biggest car manufacturers lobbied the government to delay a ban on petrol and diesel cars by warning that sales would plunge and jobs would be at risk from accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, the Guardian can reveal. The government announced in
Aldi will launch its first flat-bottomed Easter egg next month. Its bottom is square instead of round so that less plastic can be used in its packaging. The discount retailer’s non-round egg is called the Geometric Egg. Made of blonde chocolate, it has
Barclays has paid its chief executive, Jes Staley, £4m and handed larger bonuses to its bankers despite a 30% drop in annual profits during the Covid crisis. Pre-tax profits fell to £3.1bn for 2020 from £4.4bn a year earlier, with earnings hit
The mobile operator O2 has been fined £10.5m for overcharging 140,000 customers several million pounds as a result of billing errors that persisted for almost a decade. The telecoms regulator, Ofcom, said the fine – which was reduced from £15m because of O2’s cooperation with
COVID-19 has changed consumer buying habits, with many adopting a digital approach to their shopping. On the one hand, sales of prestige beauty products in brick and mortar stores declined 44% in 2020 when stores were forced to close intermittently due to government restrictions,
Ocado has reported booming sales at its online grocery service as shoppers switched to supermarket home delivery services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Retail sales at Ocado, which now delivers Marks & Spencer groceries, jumped 35% to £2.2bn in 2020, but the overall group, which includes
White goods will be guaranteed to last longer for Britons under new Government plans that make appliance parts available for at least seven years. The news comes after there were huge concerns over the environmental impact of throwing away broken appliances. The
A pain-free departure of a visionary founder is a difficult trick to pull off for any business. The stakes are even higher for a company the size of Amazon, as Jeff Bezos steps back from his day-to-day management role. The decision by Bezos, 57,
Cadbury has launched various different new items in recent weeks including new Easter eggs and a new chocolate bar. The most recent addition to the brand is the Dairy Milk Brownie Bites. Easter eggs have already started hitting the shelves with still