An International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist has criticised the UK’s 2.5-percentage-point cut in spending taxes. Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said that the temporary cut in VAT would not significantly influence shoppers’ behaviour. In an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Mr Blanchard said he did not think...

As planeloads of European tourists roam London looking for cheap Christmas deals, the Labour government of Gordon Brown is keeping a stiff upper lip over the British pound’s relentless slide towards parity with the euro. “We have never had a policy of targeting the pound,” Yvette Cooper, a cabinet...

A member of the German opposition FDP party said the budget deficit for 2009 will be the biggest ever in Germany’s post-war history and blamed Germany for not doing more to promote savings. Germany will set a new record for debt next year, surpassing even huge 40 billion euros...

Search engine Yahoo is to cut the time it stores personal data from 13 months to three. It is hoping its decision will provide a benchmark for industry. Currently Google stores data for nine months and Microsoft for six months. International data protection officials have been urging firms to...

The UK’s north-south divide is mirrored in IT salaries, according to results from the exclusive 2008 Skills Survey. Techies who earn in excess of £70,001 are a fifth more likely to dwell in the southerly regions of England than in the north-east or west of England, the Midlands or...