UK Business

The UK’s Labour government, like others around the world, has now spent billions of pounds on bailing out banks and trying to stop the British economy sliding into even deeper, darker economic trouble. But how are they going to pay it all back?

Have you got your head around how the BA-Iberia merger will benefit passengers yet? The FT has profiled chief executive Willie Walsh, who more or less seems a little bit clearer, perhaps, about all the confusion.

The pace of business insolvency in the UK slowed during August to its lowest level for almost a year – providing another sign for the economy that the worst of the recession might be over.

Possibly, according to a new report from Oxford Economics which tells us that a swine flu pandemic lasting just six months – this autumn or winter for example – could cost the British economy no less than £60 billion, as well as lengthening the recession another two years.

The green shoots exist in the UK, according to June’s purchasing managers confidence survey, but they’re not growing very quickly. Meanwhile, the British government will pony up €500m to try and save 5,000 British GM jobs.

Will Telefónica manage to take control of T-Mobile before Vodafone in the UK? What will Brown do with the Northern Rock fiasco before the general election? Will the UK also make a long-term bet on renewable energies?

Brown’s train is broken, along with his plan to privatise the Royal Mail. BA doesn’t get why its staff don’t want to work for free and Virgin is pushing forward with its plans to sell space flights.

Will the wildcat strikes in the energy sector cause a huge blackout in the UK? That is the question many are asking today in the UK, after the French oil company Total sacked 900 workers at the Lindsay refinery.