Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the consumer prices index eased to 2.5%, below a reading of 2.6% in November, meaning prices rose at a slower rate, reports several newspapers. This unexpected fall in UK in December, is “handing some breathing space to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, after a week of turbulence in financial markets” reports The Guardian. The BBC said “despite the drop, the rate of price rises remains above the Bank of England’s target”, the latest figures “coming after pressure has increased on public finances in recent days due to government borrowing costs hitting their highest level for several years”. Even The Telegraph conceded the new figures were “easing pressure” on Reeves, while continuing to call for her resignation.
Several outlets including The Guardian and The BBC cover a new Lancet commission report in which doctors are proposing a “radical overhaul” of how obesity is diagnosed worldwide amid concerns that a reliance on body mass index may be causing millions of people to be misdiagnosed. Relying only on BMI is “ineffective” because it is not a direct measure of fat, fails to reflect fat distribution around the body, and does not provide information about a person’s health, according to the report.
Meanwhile, The Times reports on a British Nutrition Foundation commissioned survey which found that 32% of parents of under-18s said they were often unsure how much their children should be eating, while 37% “always or often” made their children eat everything on their plate. Forcing kids to clear their plates meant “parents are fuelling an obesity crisis” the foundation warns.
The Independent reports on a British Retail Consortium survey which found 67% of the 52 retailer finance bosses they surveyed said they would raise prices in response to increases in employers’ National Insurance Contributions from April. Just over half said they would be reducing their paid number of hours and overtime, while 46 percent said they will have to reduce staffing numbers in stores and 31 per cent said the increased costs would lead to further automation. Louise Maclean, a director of Signature Group – which operates bars, restaurants and hotels – told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday that “everything will have to go up by about 10% if we want to remain in business”.
Much coverage for Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ statements in parliament yesterday pledging to go “further and faster” to improve economic growth after market turbulence saw the cost of servicing UK debt rise. It is understood she will now bring forward announcements from Labour’s promised industrial strategy within the next two weeks.
The Times noted that Reeves “indicated that she is prepared to make emergency spending cuts to control public finances”. The Financial Times reported that UK borrowing costs have hit a 16-year high “amid growing investor fears of stagflation, which refers to a combination of anaemic growth and persistent price pressures”. The Daily Mail was predictably appalled, reporting Reeves “laughed off Tory condemnation of the markets meltdown”.
The Times leads its coverage of Fortnum & Mason’s results with news that it “paid its billionaire owners” the Weston family £2.6m in dividends after profits and sales at “the King’s grocer” grew last year. The family ranked eighth on last year’s Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of £14.5bn.
The newspaper also covers Ocado’s Q4 results yesterday, saying the “recent revival at Marks & Spencer” was helping Ocado Retail to “win over more Middle England shoppers”.
The Independent reports on the deletion and restoration of Brewdog co-founder James Watt’s instantly infamous Instagram post in which he appears with fiancé Georgia Toffolo – of Made in Chelsea and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! fame – to make the case that ‘work-life balance’ was invented by those unhappy with their own careers and says people should instead aim to achieve “work-life integration”. The original posting of the cringefest – in which the pair say how they talk shop practically every waking hour with each other – drew comments that “crossed the line from debate to personal abuse”, Watt writes on the restored video. “I’m always up for respectful discussion – but there is, after all, only so many times you can be called a gay Scottish egg-headed c*** in one day,” he notes.
The Guardian runs an explainer on the “latest furore” around ultra-processed foods and the fact they could be “changing the shape of our jaws”. It comes in response to nutrition expert Dr Tim Spector’s comments this week that “the strongest current theory about why the jaws have been shrinking so rapidly is that we’re feeding on our kids babyfood really for the whole of their lives – so that they just don’t develop the jaw muscles or the size of the jaw, and you aren’t really adapted for chewing”.
Spector is referencing a pilot study, published last year. “However, the study was small, did not consider whether the foods were UPFs, did not follow the children to look at the arrangement of their permanent teeth, and cannot prove cause and effect,” the explainer notes.
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