Here’s a tip: eliminate US tipping culture and pay people a living wage

I’m here in Las Vegas for a conference where I just paid $7 for a cup of coffee and then was shamed into tipping another $1 to the server for pouring the coffee and handing it to me. Welcome to America. I feel like I’m tipping for everything, everywhere. And now it’s only going to get worse. And for that I blame President Trump

Apprenticeships have collapsed in England – Labour needs to fine-tune the solution, fast | Heather Stewart

Ensuring England’s workforce has the right skills for a rapidly changing economy is key to Labour’s hopes of boosting social mobility and kickstarting economic growth.So it seems unfortunate that more than a week after Keir Starmer’s drastic reshuffle, ministers are still wrangling over exactly which bits of the skills agenda will now move to Pat McFadden’s beefed-up Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).Broadly speaking, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, is expecting to hang on to responsibility for further education, while McFadden will probably take on apprenticeships and adult skills. Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, will work across both departments.Labour market experts say there is some logic to the shift: ensuring the right training is available in the right places is one crucial part of tackling the issue of economic inactivity in a rapidly changing employment market, which falls within the DWP’s bailiwick

Anarchy in the IPA: as punk brewer’s sales stall, are we past peak BrewDog?

There comes a time in every punk’s life when they are no longer the snarling face of the avant garde.In the UK beer community, opinion is divided about exactly when that sobering moment arrived for BrewDog, the self-styled “punk” brewery founded in Scotland in 2007 whose once-fizzing sales are now turning flat.Some point to the 2021 open letter by Punks with Purpose, a group of BrewDog staff who claimed to have endured a toxic “culture of fear”, engendered by the company’s bombastic and showmanlike founder James Watt.“For those who had given them the benefit of the doubt, that was the moment when people thought that they don’t deserve to be held up as a paragon of independent beer,” says Matt Curtis, the founding editor of the drinks magazine Pellicle.Others go back further, to when the investment group TSG Consumer Partners paid £213m for a 22

Chinese carmakers told to improve locking devices for UK market

British authorities may have certain concerns about the cyber-spying threat from vehicles made in China, but it turns out the country’s manufacturers have security worries of their own.Insurers have told Chinese carmakers they need critical modifications for vehicles on British streets: namely, tougher locking devices to make them harder to steal.With an average of 11 reported vehicle thefts an hour in the UK, and car crime comparatively rare under Beijing’s strict authoritarian regime, industry sources said it had been a “swift learning curve”.Additions to cars exported to the UK from China have ranged from the simply mechanical, such as lockable wheel nuts and an extra layer of steel around the car door locks, to software to detect and guard against unauthorised entry.Sales of Chinese cars have risen sharply in Britain this year, now accounting for about one in 12 of all new cars sold, including those made by MG and electric car firm BYD

Thames Water paid £1m-plus to corporate spooks firm part-owned by Starmer adviser

A corporate intelligence company part-owned and formerly run by the prime minister’s business adviser has been paid more than £1m by Thames Water as the utilities firm tries to avoid renationalisation, the Guardian can reveal.Hakluyt, which was run by Varun Chandra until his appointment as Keir Starmer’s business adviser last July, has worked with Thames since 2023, providing political and strategic advice.That commercial relationship between Thames and Hakluyt has continued since Chandra joined No 10. He is now tasked with finding a private sector solution for Thames and preventing Britain’s biggest and most troubled water company from collapsing into state ownership.That presents a potential conflict of interest, as the 40-year-old still owns a multimillion-pound stake in Hakluyt and is entitled to receive dividends from the Mayfair company

As US edges closer to stagflation, economists blame Trump policies

It’s a strange time for the US economy. Prices are rising, jobs growth has stalled, uncertainty is everywhere and stock markets have soared to record highs. Against this background a scary word last used in the 1970s is being uttered again: stagflation.Stagflation is the term that describes “stagnant” growth combined with “inflation” of prices. It means that companies are producing and hiring less, but prices are still going up