Train fares rise by an average of 2.3% Image copyright PA Rail passengers are facing higher fares across the UK as average price increases of 2.3% are introduced on the first weekday of the new year.
The increase covers regulated fares, including season tickets, and unregulated, such as off-peak tickets. Campaigners said the rise was a "kick in the teeth" for passengers after months of widespread strike disruption. The government said it was delivering the biggest rail modernisation programme for more than a century. The increase in fares came as a strike by conductors on Southern Rail entered its third day, as a long-running row about the role of guards on new trains continued. Help Refugees: a lifeline for teenagers living in seedy Athens squats. When Karim’s father sent him, aged 17, from Kabul to find safety in Europe, he hoped to get work in his uncle’s supermarket in Germany.
This month he was selling drugs on the streets of Athens to make money for food. Andy Burnham: Labour wrong to put single market ahead of immigration. Andy Burnham, Labour’s candidate to become the mayor of Greater Manchester, has accused his party of getting its priorities over Brexit wrong by placing single market access at the top of the list ahead of controlling immigration.
The former shadow home secretary suggested the referendum result was not about putting the economy first, as the party leader, Jeremy Corybn, and a string of senior Labour colleagues have suggested, but instead a clear vote in favour of ending free movement across Europe. BBC helpline sees 26,000 people seek domestic abuse advice. Almost 26,000 people sought advice about domestic abuse from the BBC over the phone and online in 2016, driven by a gripping storyline on The Archers and the BBC1 documentary Behind Closed Doors.
Helen Titchener’s abuse by husband Rob in The Archers also covered issues including sexual abuse, emotional distress and self-harm, and culminated in her being acquitted of attempted murder. It prompted 635 people to call the Action Line service, almost three times the largest number of calls for any single storyline on a programme between 2012 and 2015.
RBS investors call for governance changes to improve transparency. About 160 investors are calling for the Royal Bank of Scotland to shore up corporate governance by creating a shareholder committee to sniff out “poor stewardship”.
Learner drivers to be allowed on motorways under training shakeup. Learner drivers will be allowed to practise on motorways for the first time under government plans to improve road safety.
Under current rules, drivers are permitted on motorways only after they have passed their test, though there is no mandatory training for the 70mph roads. The transport minister, Andrew Jones, announced the plans on Friday, which would allow approved instructors to take “competent” trainees on motorways in dual-controlled cars. The RAC director, Steve Gooding, and Neil Greig, policy director at the IAM RoadSmart charity, backed the proposal.
Gooding said: “The casualty statistics tell us that motorways are our safest roads, but they can feel anything but safe to a newly qualified driver heading down the slip road for the first time to join a fast-moving, often heavy, flow of traffic. Greig said it was a “sensible and measured solution”, adding: “It makes no sense that new drivers learn by trial and, often fatal, error how to use our fastest and most important roads.” Carney warns about popular disillusion with capitalism. Image copyright Reuters The Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has warned that people will turn their backs on free and open markets unless something is done to help those left behind by the financial crisis.
In a speech, he said: "Globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities. " In many advanced economies there are "staggering wealth inequalities," he added. Mr Carney was speaking in Liverpool. He told his audience that politicians and central bankers must act to ensure people do not lose faith in the current system. Austria far-right candidate Norbert Hofer defeated in presidential poll. Image copyright AFP Far-right candidate Norbert Hofer has lost Austria's presidential election.
Scheme to place 'elite teachers' in struggling schools scrapped after a year. Train fares to rise by average of 2.3% Image copyright PA Train fares in Britain will go up by an average of 2.3% from 2 January, the rail industry has announced.
The increase in regulated fares, which includes season tickets, is capped at July's RPI inflation rate of 1.9%. Unregulated fares, such as off-peak leisure tickets, can go up by as much as the train companies like. Tim Farron: Is it all over for this classical liberal wing of the Lib Dems? - Jane Merrick - Commentators - The Independent. Remember when orange really was the new black?
In the summer of 2004, a group of radical Lib Dem MPs and parliamentary candidates contributed to a collection of essays designed to drag their party to the centre ground and make it a grown-up, credible partner in a government by proposing greater choice and market solutions in public services. Labour pledges to keep pensions triple lock. Executive pay: Companies told to justify rates. The government has outlined its plans to make companies justify high levels of executive pay. Among the measures under consideration are pay ratios, which would show the gap in earnings between the chief executive and an average employee. Shareholders would be handed more powers to vote against bosses' pay, but the government will not force companies to put workers on boards. Prime Minister Theresa May has made tackling corporate excess a priority.
Her Conservative government is "unashamedly pro-business", but big firms must earn and keep the public's trust, she said in the consultation plans.