UK’s small brewers call for chancellor to think again on business rates
Brewers have joined calls for the chancellor to reconsider changes to business rates that it says could be “the difference between closure and survival” for pubs,In an open letter to Rachel Reeves, the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates, which represents about 700 beer makers, said it wanted to “express our deep concern at the impact of last week’s business rates decisions on the hospitality sector”,Many hospitality businesses are already battling lacklustre trade as consumers rein in spending on non-essentials amid higher household bills, food price rises and tax increases,In her budget last week, Reeves announced she was introducing “permanently lower tax rates for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties”, paid for with higher rates on the UK’s biggest businesses, including tech companies such as Amazon,The package included £3.
2bn in transitional relief and an expanded small business support scheme to help companies affected by rate rises,Large retail businesses expressed relief at the fact the business rate changes were less onerous than expected,But hospitality firms have since argued they will take a big hit from the changes, forcing them to rein in investment and hiring,They say measures announced in the budget to protect businesses – as Covid-era support comes to an end – were insufficient to offset rises linked to the increase in rateable value of their properties,The independent brewers say that once the revaluations are taken into account and the transitional relief unwinds, pubs will typically pay 76% more in business rates by 2029 when large online tech firms would pay only 16% more.
They wrote in their letter: “The promises made seem to be at odds with the reality that community pubs now face.With pub closures at a new high and having lost more than 100 breweries in the past year, the hospitality sector is in a fragile state.“These changes to business rates could be the difference between closure and survival for businesses that operate as the beating heart of communities and bring people together when society needs it most.”The brewers called on Reeves to either delay revaluations of their properties or increase the discount for pubs.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionMany pubs face a big increase next year in their rateable value –an important part of their business rates calculation which for pubs is based on what a supposedly “efficient operator” could earn rather than actual income.
This contrasts with the situation for many retailers whose rateable value will fall because of poorer custom on high streets,Kate Nicholls, the chair of the trade body UKHospitality, said: “The government promised in its manifesto that it would level the playing field between the high street and online giants,The plan in the budget to achieve this is quickly unravelling, and will deliver the exact opposite,”Nicholls has previously said the swathe of extra costs including the business rate rise, higher minimum wages and more duty would “simply all be passed through to the consumer with higher prices at the bar”,
Dryrobe wins trademark case against rival waterproof changing coat D-Robe
Dryrobe, the maker of huge waterproof towel-lined coats favoured by cold water swimming fans, has won a trademark case against a smaller label that must now stop selling items under the D-Robe brand within a week.A judge at the high court in London ruled the company was guilty of passing off its D-Robe changing robes and other goods as Dryrobe products and knew it was infringing its bigger rival’s trademark.The ruling described a Dryrobe as “an oversized waterproof coat with a towelled lining, designed for surfers or swimmers to change under whilst also drying them, keeping them warm, and protecting them from the weather”.The company has rigorously defended its brand against being used generically by publications and makers of similar clothing and is expected to seek compensation from D-Robe’s owners for trademark infringement.Dryrobe was created by the former financier Gideon Bright as an outdoor changing robe for surfers in 2010 and became the signature brand of the wild swimming craze
Budget uncertainty triggers plunge in UK construction activity; Trustpilot shares slump after short-seller claims – as it happened
Newsflash: Britain’s construction sector has suffered its sharpest downturn since the first Covid-19 lockdown forced building sites to shut five and a half years ago.Activity across housebuilding, commercial building work and civil engineering all tumbled last month, a new survey of puchasing managers at building firms has found.Construction firms are blaming fragile market confidence, delays with the release of new projects and a lack of incoming new work.The report, by data firm S&P Global, shows there was “a sharp and accelerated reduction in output levels across the construction sector”. Many builders reporting that market conditions were challenging, with new orders slumping at the fastest rate in five and a half years, and job cuts rising
Google’s AI Nano Banana Pro accused of generating racialised ‘white saviour’ visuals
Nano Banana Pro, Google’s new AI-powered image generator, has been accused of creating racialised and “white saviour” visuals in response to prompts about humanitarian aid in Africa – and sometimes appends the logos of large charities.Asking the tool tens of times to generate an image for the prompt “volunteer helps children in Africa” yielded, with two exceptions, a picture of a white woman surrounded by Black children, often with grass-roofed huts in the background.In several of these images, the woman wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Worldwide Vision”, and with the UK charity World Vision’s logo. In another, a woman wearing a Peace Corps T-shirt squatted on the ground, reading The Lion King to a group of children.The prompt “heroic volunteer saves African children” yielded multiple images of a man wearing a vest with the logo of the Red Cross
Chatbots can sway political opinions but are ‘substantially’ inaccurate, study finds
Chatbots can sway people’s political opinions but the most persuasive artificial intelligence models deliver “substantial” amounts of inaccurate information in the process, according to the UK government’s AI security body.Researchers said the study was the largest and most systematic investigation of AI persuasiveness to date, involving nearly 80,000 British participants holding conversations with 19 different AI models.The AI Security Institute carried out the study amid fears that chatbots can be deployed for illegal activities including fraud and grooming.The topics included “public sector pay and strikes” and “cost of living crisis and inflation”, with participants interacting with a model – the underlying technology behind AI tools such as chatbots – that had been prompted to persuade the users to take a certain stance on an issue.Advanced models behind ChatGPT and Elon Musk’s Grok were among those used in the study, which was also authored by academics at the London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford and Stanford University
US skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle kicks off Olympic push with Beaver Creek downhill podium
Marco Odermatt of Switzerland won the downhill season-opener Thursday, beating American Ryan Cochran-Siegle in a World Cup race on a tricky but shorter Birds of Prey course.Odermatt finished in 1min 29.84sec to surpass Cochran-Siegle by .30sec. Norway’s Adrian Smiseth Sejersted finished third
Joe Root is finally a wizard in Aus after Harry Brook’s Bazball scarecrow act | Barney Ronay
In the end even the celebration was perfect, out there under that strange deep-blue southern sky, in the frenzy of the game-state – manic Baz energy, England’s lower order scything away death cult-style at the other end, the way even the grass seems lacquered and glazed by the lights.So yeah. All that stuff. In the middle of this Joe Root guided the ball away through fine leg to complete his first Test hundred in Australia, then marked it with a gentle smile and a wave of the bat, no fist-punching, no monkeys off backs, no angsty and pointed messaging.But, then if you know, you know
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