Friday newspaper round-up: Brexit 'humiliation', taxes, Uber, SDX Energy
Theresa May was left fighting to save her Chequers Brexit plan and with it her authority as prime minister after she was ambushed at the end of the Salzburg summit when EU leaders unexpectedly declared that her proposals would not work. On Thursday night the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, hit back for the government, declaring there were no changes to the Chequers plan on the table and the EU’s demands on Northern Ireland were “impossible” for the UK to accept. - Guardian
...President Macron of France warned the prime minister that she must come up with “new propositions” if she wanted to rescue a deal. The rejection at the Salzburg meeting triggered a crisis in government, with some cabinet ministers considering attempting to bounce Mrs May into abandoning Chequers within days. - The Times
...Senior Brexiteers see Mrs May’s political humiliation in Salzburg as an opportunity, not to remove her, but to allow her to climb down of her own volition. In the coming days they will up the ante by publishing their own detailed proposals for a free-trade deal based on plans that were worked up by David Davis when he was the Brexit secretary. - The Times
Most Conservative voters now back higher taxes to fund the NHS, the British Social Attiudes Survey has found. The polling, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, found that 53 per cent of Conservatives Party supporters think the Government should increase taxes and spending on public services. - Telegraph
Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to put up taxes to fund an increase in spending for public services has received a boost after research showed that 60% of people thought the government should do just that. The British Social Attitudes survey found that the proportion of people who believed the government should raise taxes to fund more public spending was at its highest in 15 years, following almost a decade of austerity. - Guardian
Uber is in talks to buy the British food delivery start-up Deliveroo for a sum in excess of $2 billion. The owner of the world’s most popular taxi-hailing app is in early stage talks to buy Deliveroo for “several billion dollars”, according to Bloomberg. - The Times
Local authorities will collect a whopping £79million from 77,000 landlords this month as new licensing rules come into effect. HMO licensing - which stands for houses in multiple occupation - already applies to landlords who rent their properties to five or more tenants from two or more different households where the property is three or more storeys. - Daily Mail
The American retail industry was bracing itself yesterday for a new onslaught by Amazon, amid reports that the ecommerce giant could open as many as 3,000 high-tech inner-city grocery shops by 2021. The $940 billion company, whose main businesses are online retailing and cloud computing, was said to be considering a wider expansion of Amazon Go, a grocery shop concept that has no cashiers and uses an artificially intelligent motion-tracking system to record what shoppers buy. - The Times
The bike shop chain Evans Cycles is urgently seeking a buyer as the retailer battles to survive amid tough high street trading conditions, including the rise of online competition and the cost of running stores. The retailer’s management team needs to find £20m to fund a rescue plan, but its backers and bankers were understood to be unwilling to provide the extra cash. - Guardian
Only four years after apparently giving its consumer goods business a mini-makeover, Nestlé has put its skin health division up for sale. The Swiss-based maker of Kit Kat and Nescafé said that it had decided to sharpen its focus on its food, beverage and nutritional health products — and that as a result its Nestlé Skin Health division “increasingly lies outside the group’s strategic scope”.
An Aim-listed oil explorer is nearing a billion-dollar deal to buy BP’s ageing oilfields in Egypt. SDX Energy confirmed yesterday that it was in talks with the oil major about “a significant package of assets” in the country, after a report by Bloomberg. - The Times
A British technology consultant and former adviser to David Cameron has held talks with the owner of Fortune about buying the American business magazine, it is understood. Ian Osborne, an early investor in Snap, owner of the Snapchat messaging app, is believed to have discussed the purchase of Fortune with Meredith, the publisher, on behalf of a group of investors. - The Times