Lord Mandelson attacks the chairman of Starbucks
In a sign that the UK government is desperate to support the UK economy on the worldwide stage, Lord Mandelson has launched a vicious attack on Howard Schultz who is the chairman of Starbucks. Apparently Mr Schultz was critical of the UK economy on a CNBC interview on Tuesday evening suggesting it was caught "in a spiral" with "very, very poor" consumer confidence.
While this assessment of the UK economy and UK consumer confidence would not be a million miles away from that expressed by the vast majority of economic experts it appears as though Howard Schultz hit a raw nerve with the UK government. When Lord Mandelson stepped into the argument, with a personal attack on the performance of the Starbucks chain, he has not helped the situation and further highlighted the comments from Howard Schultz, which would never normally have reached the press.
The last few weeks have seen a return to "spin" by the UK government, something which Gordon Brown promised would never happen when he took office. His promise to be "whiter than white" was seen as a veiled attack on Tony Blair but yet again we have seen the Labour government returned to type with Lord Mandelson apparently leading the way.
Share this..
Related stories
EU courts award employees additional holiday entitlement
The EU courts have today issued their advice on holiday entitlement for those on long-term sick leave and ruled against employers. In simple terms, employees who return to work after long-term sick leave will still be entitled to their full holiday allocation including those days accrued when they were absent from work. This clears up a situation which has been dragging on for some time and while...
Read MoreWho would buy back UK banks from the government?
As the UK government now holds significant stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds bank and total ownership of Northern Rock and parts of Bradford & Bingley, it seems only a matter of time before the authorities will look to reduce the national debt and spin off these share stakes. But who would actually be in the market to acquire a UK bank at this particular time?
Even though the...
UK currency takes another hit against the dollar
Sterling has again fallen against the US dollar amid signs that the Bank of England is looking to introduce a number of major changes to the way it operates with UK banks. It was leaked to the press that Mervyn King, the Gov of the Bank of England, has been in Sweden to talk to Central bank operators in that country with speculation that UK banks could be charged for leaving their money at the Ban...
Read MoreIs this one gamble too many for Alistair Darling?
No matter how you wrap up today's pre-budget speech, a £21 billion gamble on the UK economy has been taken and if this fails we are all in deep deep trouble. A number of tax cuts, tax increases and additional borrowing for the government budget have taken the UK deficit this year to nearly £80 billion. While this figure is bad enough it is set to rise to a record £120 billion next year!
...
GDP slip prompts UK economy pessimism
Britain's economy did not grow as quickly as had been estimated in the final quarter of 2006.UK GDP fourth-quarter growth was 0.7 per cent, 0.1 per cent less than previous estimates, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).This meant total GDP growth in 2006 reached 2.8 per cent, driven by consumer spending.Richard Snook of the Centre for Economics and Business Research...
Read More