Society

Would you rent out your cat? What about your lawnmower? Or your driveway? That first one may not be practical but new research shows that, as a nation, we are embracing the sharing economy, whether that’s pets, home appliances or our living spaces. It’s good to share. My sister has instilled that virtue in her young daughter although, admittedly, neither her nor I were very good at it when growing up. I recall many arguments over weekly deliveries of Just Seventeen magazine, not to mention rows about favourite toys and treasured books. Maybe if money had changed hands, we would have been better at sharing? According to Lloyds Bank Insurance, last

It is a great relief that there will be no inquiry into the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ in 1984. The weirdness is that Mrs May’s people ever entertained the thought in the first place. The push for an inquiry is a classic example of the attempt by the aggrieved, usually on the left, to turn history into a trial. If we were to inquire into the miners’ strike, more than 30 years on, it would be far more pertinent — though still a very bad, divisive idea — to establish the full facts about how Arthur Scargill got money from Gaddafi’s Libya and was promised it by the Soviet Union. The

UK inflation will quadruple to about 4 per cent in the second half of next year and cut disposable income, according to a leading think tank. The rise in prices will ‘accelerate rapidly’ during 2017 as the fall in sterling is passed on to consumers, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. The revised figure is significantly higher than the 3 per cent it forecast in August. ‘Households have really got a choice. Do they spend less or do they start saving less?’ Angus Armstrong, director of macroeconomics at NIESR, told the BBC’s Today programme. Meanwhile, ratings agency Moody’s is thinking about downgrading the UK over Brexit fears.

Nuisance calls are the bane of my life – as are unprompted texts. They assault my mobile at all hours, night and day. I find the calls so annoying and invasive that I now leave my phone on permanent silent which kind of defeats the object of a mobile (I don’t have a landline at home). No wonder most of my friends have given up on me – ‘unsociable ginga, never answers his phone’. Of course, my mother, still as matriarchal as she was 50 years ago when I was wearing shorts,  isn’t impressed at all. Voicemail message one:  ‘Jeffrey, why didn’t you answer my last call?’ (Jeffrey, as opposed

HMRC is chasing almost £2 billion that may be owed in taxes by Britain’s wealthiest people, according to the public spending watchdog. The National Audit Office said HMRC’s specialist unit recovered £416 million in 2015 from 6,500 high net worth individuals’ with wealth of more than £20 million. The BBC reports that efforts are ongoing to recover an estimated £1.9 billion. Energy bills Major energy suppliers have ditched controversial tariffs that denied their existing customers their cheapest prices, amid speculation over a political crackdown on the sector, The Telegraph has learnt. Four of the Big Six suppliers  – E.ON, SSE, EDF and Npower – and the leading independent supplier, First Utility, all

Mark Carney’s decision to stay on as Bank of England Governor until 2019 has been widely welcomed. But not everyone is happy about the news. The Daily Mail accuses Carney of being a ‘posturing governor’ and says the staging of his announcement yesterday was in line with much of his conduct: ‘designed to generate maximum publicity’. The paper says that while some were concerned at the possibility of uncertainty in the markets if he’d walked away, would it be any worse than ‘his relentless doom-mongering’? The Mail suggests Carney will be forever tainted by his conduct during the referendum, which it says was at its worst when he joined in with George Osborne’s