Wednesday newspaper round-up: Eurostar, Asda, jobless rate
Cross-channel train operator Eurostar has been criticised by the advertising watchdog for exaggerating the number of £39 seats on sale. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that Eurostar ads across Instagram and Facebook for £39 tickets from London to Amsterdam and Brussels were misleading, the second time it has censured its ads this year. – Guardian
UK growth would be halved in the event Donald Trump wins the US presidential race and imposes the swingeing new tariffs he has threatened, a leading thinktank has warned. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the protectionist measures planned by the Republican challenger for the White House would result in weaker activity, rising inflation and higher interest rates from the Bank of England. – Guardian
Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raid on farmers will put food security at risk and leave Britain more reliant on foreign imports, suppliers have warned. Senior business leaders said the Chancellor’s decision to impose inheritance tax on farming assets worth more than £1m threatened to erode domestic food production. – Telegraph
Asda is ordering staff back to the office at least three days a week, while also cutting jobs in an attempt to halt the supermarket’s decline. The retail giant announced the change in an internal email on Tuesday, which will apply to more than 5,000 head office workers across three different locations in Leeds and Leicester. It comes just weeks after Mohsin Issa stepped down from running the business, with former M&S chief executive Lord Rose taking the helm as his interim replacement. – Telegraph
Specialist engineers working on Britain’s newest nuclear power station have gone on strike, saying they have not had a pay rise in four years and that cheap foreign labour is being used to undercut British workers. The cabling and pipework engineers, represented by the professional trade union Prospect, work on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station being built in Somerset by EDF, as well as the Sizewell C project planned for Suffolk. – The Times
Unemployment will rise thanks to Rachel Reeves increasing employers’ national insurance contributions at the budget, experts have claimed. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), Britain’s oldest economic think tank, said the employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) rise, which it characterised as a “tax on jobs”, would push up joblessness and constrain vacancies. – The Times