The cameras are everywhere. Our motorways, our car parks, our quiet suburban streets – automatic number plate recognition, or ANPR, observes Britain’s drivers through a vast network of unblinking eyes, keeping tabs on where and when we’ve travelled. Unbeknown to most of us, this is a cornerstone of our civic infrastructure. ANPR systems allow the...
Tag: Standard
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Britain will be ‘democracy’s most reliable ally’, John Healey tells Nato
Speaking at the British Ambassador’s residence on Tuesday night, Mr Healey said the public had “given us a mandate to serve them and serve our country”. “We’re getting on with the job in government,” he said. “You will see this week that Keir Starmer leads our determination. “Our determination that Britain will step up our...
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How Dyson’s ambition to become a British tech giant hit trouble
On the face of it, Dyson’s business is in rude health. Sales hit a record £7.1bn last year, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a measure of profit, was close to an all-time high at £1.4bn. However, growth has slowed in recent years. Between 2015 and 2019, revenues trebled, climbing from £1.7bn to...
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Buyout barons plot their escape from Britain amid fear of tax crackdown
Jason Clatworthy, a tax partner at Alvarez & Marsal, said more private equity managers had been making enquiries about whether Labour could backdate some of the proposed tax changes. PE managers setting up new funds were thinking twice about basing themselves in London he said, and many executives had stepped up plans to buy property...
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Victoria Starmer wears a dress from Britain’s favourite middle-class label to enter Downing Street
So many key questions spring forth – ones you probably won’t find Laura Kuenssberg and her colleagues addressing. Is £295 henceforth a new Labour fiscal policy? It has been widely acknowledged in the fashion industry as a middle-class sweet spot – i.e., high enough to make an item seem reassuringly aspirational, but not obscenely so. ...
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I spent a day in Britain’s employment tribunals… and found a barmy system that is about to get worse
The paperwork involved was jaw-dropping. Ringbinders, described in lawyer-speak as “bundles”, ran to hundreds of pages. It is referred to throughout: “Please look at the email which you sent to the applicant on July 12. You’ll find this on page 300. Have you got it?” Within moments I understood why, even for the most scrupulous...
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Athletes left ‘ashamed to represent’ Great Britain after Olympic selection policy
Another national champion planning to retire is Phil Norman, who delivered the performance of his life in winning the trials in Manchester on Sunday with a time that was the best by a Briton for 33 years, and the fastest ever by a British steeplechaser on home soil. It was, however, an agonising 0.15sec outside...
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Is Britain the world’s most self-loathing nation?
Even Britain’s pensioners, a generation you might expect to be more pragmatic, seem to regard our treasures with short shrift – which might explain why two octogenarians launched an attack on a Magna Carta exhibition at the British Library in May. Food British food is so often disparaged by continental Europeans and Americans alike as...
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Ukraine to be told it is too corrupt to join Nato
Joe Biden raised “significant corruption” in an interview with Time magazine this year, during which he ruled out supporting the “Nato-isation of Ukraine”. Nato diplomats and officials have given Ukraine a list of reforms it will be expected to carry out before its membership ambitions can be realised, a US defence official said. “That’s something...
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Covid’s new summer strain and what to do if you catch it
The Euros are in full flow, Wimbledon is coming and we are on the brink of a General Election. We’ve long stopped wearing masks and abiding the rules of staying 2m apart but with summer socialising at full kilter and a summer Covid wave known as the “FLiRT” variant “building”, should we be rethinking our...
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How a British tech champion almost fell into China’s grasp
‘James Bond fantasy’ The documents have emerged as part of an unfair dismissal case brought by Black, who claims he was sacked for blowing the whistle on China’s attempt to take over the company. In April 2020, Black explosively quit the company over the plan to add the four directors. It was after executives leaked...
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20 stylish ‘Made in Britain’ fashion labels to add to your wardrobe, for men and women
And yet – how many of us can identify a garment in our wardrobe that was genuinely made right here in the UK within the last 10 years? It is getting harder and harder to buy from bigger name brands, whilst simultaneously supporting UK manufacturing. We have the design and we are proud to count...