EasyJet acquires extra Gatwick capacity in GB Airways deal

Seeded on Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:42 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

Budget airline operator, EasyJet, announced yesterday that it had bought British Airways franchisee, GB Airways, for £103.5 million.

Primark voted Britain's most popular value clothing retailer

Seeded on Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:41 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

Clothing retailer, Primark, has been voted the most popular for value clothing in a new report released by Verdict UK. Primark overtook George @ Asda, last year's most popular and now in second place. Tesco came third and New Look and TK Maxx came fourth and fifth respectively.

business, uk-value-clothing-retailer, new-look, primark, asda, tesco, tk-maxx

British Airways to ban surfboards on flights

Seeded on Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:39 AM EDT (Independent.co.uk)

British Airways has announced that, from 6 November, it will refuse to carry surfboards on any of its flights.

travel, british-airways, british-surf-association, surfboards, surfing, flights, facebook

MPs' annual expenses bill rises to £87.6 million

Seeded on Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:34 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The amount of expenses claimed by MPs (on top of their salaries) has risen by 5% since last year. MPs have claimed a total of £87.6 million this year, with the average amount claimed by each MP being £136,000.

politics, ed-balls, liberal-democrat-mp, mr-malik, mr-balls, labour-mp, shaid-malik, expenses

Government and mobile phone operators 'conspired' against consumers

Seeded on Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:36 AM EDT (The Times)

The Government appears to have conspired with mobile phone operators to resist caps on roaming charges recently imposed by the EU, according to documents disclosed to the Times Newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act.

business, roaming-charges, uk-government, labour-party, labour, vodafone, o2, orange, t-mobile, bt

Post Office to enter broadband market

Seeded on Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:10 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The Post Office is expected to launch its own broadband service next week. It aims to persuade 1 million of the 24 million people that visit a post office each week to sign up to the service over the next four years.

business, post-office, broadband, home-phone, royal-mail

Christmas boost expected for online sales

Seeded on Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:09 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

British shoppers are predicted to spend more than £500 each online this Christmas according to a report published by consultancy firm, Forester Research.

business, online-shopping, e-tailing, christmas, forester-research

Leading supermarkets increase average prices by £750 per year

Seeded on Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:01 AM EDT (Telegraph)

The amount that the average family must spend annually on food rose by £750 last year, according to price comparison website, mySupermarket.com. The UK's largest supermarkets, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's, are charging shoppers on average 12% more.

business, supermarket, tesco, sainsburys, asda, national-statistics, food, inflation, mysupermarket-com

A third of NHS trusts fail value for money test

Seeded on Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:58 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

A third of all NHS trusts did not give an acceptable level of value for money last year, according the Audit Commission, the government's spending regulator. This figure was an improvement on last year's nearly 40% figure.

health, audit-commission, nhs, value-for-money, financial-tests

Microsoft to open door to Linux after yielding to EU

Seeded on Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:23 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

After a 9 year-long legal battle, Microsoft yesterday submitted to a landmark anti-trust decision made by the EU's competition commission over three years ago.

business, microsoft, windows, linux, eu, competition, red-hat, anti-trust, ms-kroes

VAT warning to 2,597 public gyms

Seeded on Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:46 AM EDT (The Times)

The Inland Revenue plans to levy VAT on non-profit making trusts that run leisure centre gyms. Following a court case in Scotland, the HM Revenue & Customs has circulated a warning to all 2,597 public gyms, that they must charge 17.5% VAT on membership fees.

politics, vat, gyms, obesity, membership

Virgin Media to offer 'double-speed' broadband to woo customers

Seeded on Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:33 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

Digital media broadcaster, Virgin Media, is to offer faster broadband speeds capable of delivering on-demand video in an effort to compete with BSkyB and TalkTalk.

business, carphone-warehouse, talktalk, talk-talk, virgin-media, sky, bskyb, bt, broadband, on-demand-video

ITV faces £70m fine for rigged phone-ins

Seeded on Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:43 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The TV premium phone in scandal for ITV refused to go away today as it faces fines of up to £70m from the TV regulator OfCom. The announcement comes not long after GMTV was fined £2m (covered in 'In the News' on 27 September).

business, itv, ofcom, phone-ins, gmtv, peter-hain

Vista blamed for profits slide at DSG

Seeded on Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:38 AM EDT (Telegraph)

DSG International, the owner of Curry's, PC World and Dixons.co.uk issued a profits warning yesterday. According to DSG, profits have fallen due to poor customer demand for Microsoft Vista which forced DSG to offer deals to clear stock. Many customers are favouring XP to Vista.

business, currys, dixons, pc-world, dsg, windows, vista, xp

Easyjet rejects plans to remove price caps

Seeded on Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:01 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

EasyJet the low-cost airline have hit out at plans to scrap price caps at Stansted instead allowing the free market to decide the price.

business, easyjet, ryanair, luton, stanstead, birmingham, baa, low-cost-airline

Skype & MySpace announce tie-up

Seeded on Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:59 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

A tie-up was announced today between the internet telephone company Skype and the social networking site MySpace.

business, myspace, voip, skype, internet-telephony, tie-up

BT - Broadband service took 11 months to install

Seeded on Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:58 AM EDT (The Times)

A woman from Drymere, a small village in Norfolk 90 miles from London, has been able to connect to the internet for the first time via broadband after an eleven month, £40,000 operation carried out by BT.

business, drymere, bt, broadband, highways-agency

Most GPs are against extending out-of-hours care

Seeded on Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:48 AM EDT (The Times)

A recent survey published by the British Medical Journal has found that nearly 75% of GPs do not think that extending out of hours care would be a good use of NHS resources.

health, gps, out-of-hours-care, surgeries, doctor, nhs, reform

Care home price confusion

Seeded on Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:45 AM EDT (Telegraph)

A study by the care watchdog, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, has highlighted inequalities in the fees paid by elderly residents in the same care homes. The study exposes the fact that privately funded places often subsidise those paid by local councils.

health, care-home, nursing, inflated-prices, elderly

Gas & Electricity Providers - It may pay to switch!

Seeded on Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:43 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

More than 2.8m households have switched gas and electricity suppliers in the last six months, with around 4.8m expected to switch suppliers this year, according to Ofgem.

business, british-gas, ofgem, switch, price-comparison, gas, electricity, utilities

Online grocery shopping set to double over next 5 years

Seeded on Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:49 AM EDT (The Times)

Online sales of groceries are expected to double over the next 5 years, according to a report by the grocery market research organisation, IGD. Consumers are predicted to spend approximately £5 billion per year on online food shopping by 2012.

business, online-shopping, groceries, tesco, ocado, waitrose, online-only, online-grocery-shopping, igd

Apple accused over 'toxic' iPhone

Seeded on Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:16 AM EDT (The Times)

Electronics manufacturer Apple could face legal action in the US over claims that its mobile phone, the 'iPhone', contains dangerous levels of toxic chemicals some of which have been linked to birth defects.

business, apple, iphone, greenpeace, toxic-chemicals, hazardous-substances

Guide calls time on pub prices

Seeded on Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:13 AM EDT (The Times)

Ordinary pubs cashing in on the "Gastropub" phenomenon have been warned that their inflated prices may deter customers, according to the latest edition of the "Good Pub Guide".

business, pub, gastropub, good-pub-guide, nags-head, fat-cat

Tesco considering online estate agency

Seeded on Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:43 AM EDT (The Times)

Tesco may launch an online estate agency, it was revealed today. The move is said to be under consideration after Tesco recently withdrew its 'online property marketplace' in which homeowners could pay a flat fee of £199 to advertise their homes for sale online.

business, tesco, asda, homes-supermarkets, oft, estate-agents, online-estate-agency

McDonald's voluntarily raises meat payments to UK farmers

Seeded on Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:40 AM EDT (The Times)

McDonald's has voluntarily agreed to raise the price it pays for beef and pork from UK famers by 5%. McDonald's hopes that this will show support to UK farmers who have suffered from foot-and-mouth and blue-tongue viruses, summer floods and increasing price of animal feeds.

business, mcdonalds, meat, farmer, price

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Latest Comments

Recent Votes

Easyjet agrees to buy GB Airways
Source: BBC News
Budget airline Easyjet has expanded further by buying UK carrier GB Airways for £103.5m ($212m). GB Airways currently operates services under the British Airways brand to Southern Europe and North Africa under a franchise agreement with BA.
2
0
The Last Chance For Our Kids.
Faked documentaries, dodgy phone-ins, even a suspicion that Blue Peter, of all programmes, might not be entirely honest with is audience, television has had a bad press of late. In fact sometimes it has been hard recently to make the case for the medium having any value at all.
1
0
Government rules out complete ban on smacking
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Ministers today rejected calls for a complete ban on smacking in England, after a government review found opposition to such a move, the Department for Children, Schools and Families said.
4
1
Government rules out smacking ban
Source: Telegraph
The Government has ruled out a complete ban on smacking on the grounds that the majority of parents oppose such a move. Kevin Brennan, the children's minister, said the law would stay as it is but that steps would be taken to encourage "positive parenting".
2
0
15 reasons Facebook may be worth $15bn
Source: BBC News
Microsoft has invested $240m (£117m) in social networking site Facebook in exchange for a 1.6% share of the company. That puts a value of $15bn (£7.3bn) on a firm that has only been in existence three and a half years.
2
1

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Comments & Feedback

Thanks, Ms Cyprah. I'll definitely give that a whirl. It looks like you should know - you've got an amazing amount of Vineacity already!! Looking forward to joining the debate.

James

— Plebble on Newsvine.com

Thanks for requesting my friendship, James, and you do have some very interesting articles here. But let me pass on a tip for getting them noticed. Always write a comment with each of them, even if it is a few words. Comments then attract other readers and will get your articles to a bigger audience. If you can also comment on other people's too, that seems to be where the exposure lies. I thought I would mention it as some of these articles are very interesting.

Welcome on board and hope you enjoy the NewsVine experience!

— Ms CYPRAH

Hi there - Welcome to Plebble's official column on Newsvine!

Each weekday on this column we seed articles on consumer issues from the mainstream UK media. The idea is to highlight these issues, stimulate debate on them among Newsvine users and ultimately raise awareness of consumer issues in general.

From time to time, we will also post consumer and customer service related stories that we've written based on information/data provided on our site by our users. Again, please discuss and debate these and let us know your views.

The column is very much UK-focused at the moment, so apologies to Newsvine's international users...

We hope you enjoy the debate and find it useful!

Thanks
James

— Plebble on Newsvine.com