Tax blow to middle class workers (Telegraph.co.uk)
Millions of people on middle incomes will pay up to £500 a year more in tax after a rise in "stealth tax" that was kept out of last week's Pre-Budget Report.
Documents quietly released by the Treasury show that more than four million people earning in excess of £34,840 will pay additional national insurance contributions from next April, which will raise an extra £4.5 billion for the Exchequer.
Opposition MPs accused Gordon Brown of "sleight of hand" in his tax-raising policy, while a leading accountant said the Prime Minister was "robbing Peter to pay Paul".
McCanns ''victims of a witch-hunt'' (Eecho.ie)
The parents of missing Madeleine McCann are the victims of a “witch-hunt” and there is no evidence to suggest they murdered their daughter, Britain’s former top police officer said today.
In an article for the News of the World, former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Stevens said there was no hard evidence because of the “sheer inadequacy” of the Portuguese police investigation.
Share of the misery: European Timeshare Owners Organisation promise buyers but don't deliver
Mirror.co.uk wrote: Our expose last week of the European Timeshare Owners Organisation prompted a flood of further complaints about the Gibraltar-based outfit who promise buyers but don't deliver.
Margaret Hunter, of Wisbech, Cambs, said: "ETOO said they would sell my week at Island Village in Tenerife as they have buyers. I paid them a fee of £850. Three months later I haven't had any offers."
We forwarded these and other complaints to ETOO spokesman Peter Baker, who said the firm had a 25 per cent success rate in finding buyers.
"Not bad in an extremely tough industry," he bleated. The 75 per cent of owners who don't get offers might disagree.
G7 compromises over calls to reform sovereign wealth funds (The independnet)
The G7 group of leading industrialised economies called for greater transparency from sovereign wealth funds yesterday, but stopped short of proposing reforms that might limit the activities of the state-backed investment vehicles.
Some nations had dem-anded a tougher approach but the G7 compromised after the UK, in particular, argued that any regulation of the funds' activity should be based on existing competition rules and genuine considerations of national security, rather than a return to protectionism.
Millions of people on middle incomes will pay up to £500 a year more in tax after a rise in "stealth tax" that was kept out of last week's Pre-Budget Report.
Documents quietly released by the Treasury show that more than four million people earning in excess of £34,840 will pay additional national insurance contributions from next April, which will raise an extra £4.5 billion for the Exchequer.
Opposition MPs accused Gordon Brown of "sleight of hand" in his tax-raising policy, while a leading accountant said the Prime Minister was "robbing Peter to pay Paul".
McCanns ''victims of a witch-hunt'' (Eecho.ie)
The parents of missing Madeleine McCann are the victims of a “witch-hunt” and there is no evidence to suggest they murdered their daughter, Britain’s former top police officer said today.
In an article for the News of the World, former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Stevens said there was no hard evidence because of the “sheer inadequacy” of the Portuguese police investigation.
Share of the misery: European Timeshare Owners Organisation promise buyers but don't deliver
Mirror.co.uk wrote: Our expose last week of the European Timeshare Owners Organisation prompted a flood of further complaints about the Gibraltar-based outfit who promise buyers but don't deliver.
Margaret Hunter, of Wisbech, Cambs, said: "ETOO said they would sell my week at Island Village in Tenerife as they have buyers. I paid them a fee of £850. Three months later I haven't had any offers."
We forwarded these and other complaints to ETOO spokesman Peter Baker, who said the firm had a 25 per cent success rate in finding buyers.
"Not bad in an extremely tough industry," he bleated. The 75 per cent of owners who don't get offers might disagree.
G7 compromises over calls to reform sovereign wealth funds (The independnet)
The G7 group of leading industrialised economies called for greater transparency from sovereign wealth funds yesterday, but stopped short of proposing reforms that might limit the activities of the state-backed investment vehicles.
Some nations had dem-anded a tougher approach but the G7 compromised after the UK, in particular, argued that any regulation of the funds' activity should be based on existing competition rules and genuine considerations of national security, rather than a return to protectionism.