The new pensions minister is facing a massive challenge. Ros Altmann was appointed this week to replace Steve Webb, who lost his seat in the general election. I wrote welcoming the appointment earlier this week, because Ms Altmann had a good record championing the underdog as a campaigner outside the government. I hope that doesn't change now she has a position at the heart of power.
Scottish Power is the most complained about energy supplier in Britain, according to Citizens Advice. It says there were 1,163 complaints per 100,000 customers of the company in the last quarter of 2014.
The No Pain, No Gain portfolio has enjoyed an active few months. I do not recall a period of such intense involvement since its creation in 1999. So far this year two constituents have been sold and four recruited.
The supermarket giants have been successfully selling financial products for around 18 years in the UK and the keen rates and discounted deals continue to make them a popular choice.
A recent "Questions of Cash" featured a £79 charge imposed by Amazon for a subscription to its Prime service. The reader, PG, did not have an account with Amazon, let alone a subscription with Amazon Prime. The charge was refunded by his card issuer. We have had responses from several readers with similar difficulties.
I have never hidden from you my pulsating disdain for Simon Cowell and all of his works, so you may be surprised that he features as much as he does in this week's doings. And while I have never gone as far as to claim that the stack-heeled guru of teatime mediocrity is actually in league with the Devil, I do believe that he, at the very least, has Satan's ear. If not his email address.
I suspect many readers will have sat up with surprise on hearing the election result.
There has been a $450bn sell-off of bonds around the world in recent weeks, and on Monday and Tuesday there was further turmoil. Returns on bonds, which move in the opposite direction to their price, had been driven to all-time lows by worries over a European slide into deflation.
There's free beer up for grabs in this week's Bargain Hunter competition. But it's not just any beer: it's a brand new, unfiltered, 6.5 per cent India pale ale from the craft beer specialist And Union.
Concerns about the future strategy of Alliance Trust, the investment company run by Katherine Garrett-Cox, have led the investors' organisation Sharesoc to set up a new shareholder action group. It will campaign on behalf of investors worried about the trust's direction following the recent annual general meeting and the appointment of new directors supported by the private equity firm –and activist investor – Elliott Advisors.
Conduct an internet search for “masturbation,” and you will find hundreds, if not thousands, of slang phrases for the act.
New flights make it easier to experience the weird wonders of this West Coast city, writes Nicola Trup
What a treat this show is. A hotchpotch of previouses - adapted by Arthur Kopit from Philip Barry’s 1939 play The Philadelphia Story, but owing more to the 1956, Cole Porter-scored film version High Society, and with extra numbers from his back catalogue slipped in - this staging achieves the arguably rare feat of surpassing its filmic predecessor. Maria Friedman, a musicals veteran onstage, proves she’s just as good in the director’s chair, and the show certainly makes for a “swellegant, elegant”... Читать дальше...
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. In the case of David Cameron and Scotland, the Prime Minister has spent the past few months sowing the seeds of discord between England and Scotland; he is now going to reap a whirlwind of revivified Scottish nationalism. On his visit to Edinburgh, Mr Cameron will glimpse the first straws in the wind. Nicola Sturgeon, as the whole UK has come to see in recent weeks, is more than a match for the Prime Minister and, while the proceedings will be no doubt polite, Mr Cameron... Читать дальше...
A thoughtful son is hoping the power of viral videos will help his incredible mother find ‘the one’.