SourceMaterial and The Telegraph
Incinerators were supposed to be a panacea, turning the UK’s waste mountain into clean energy. A SourceMaterial investigation found that the government is committing hundreds of millions of pounds of public money to an industry riddled with conflicts of interest, and far less green or cost-effective than it appears.
The Telegraph 29 April 2020
Chad Slater, an Australian hedge fund trader, had actually been cutting his bets against oil companies in recent weeks, assuming the oil price could not fall any further. Last week proved him wrong and the oil price dropped below zero for the first time in history. “I can safely say this wasn’t in my forecasts,” he says.
The Guardian 5 February 2020
Sara Mayer’s youngest child often asks: “Mum, how many days will we stay here?” Each time, she tells him they won’t have to move again, but so far she has been unable to keep her promise. In 2013, Mayer fled her abusive husband and went to the UK from mainland Europe with her two children, but he found them. The family moved and tried to settle somewhere new, but time and again he tracked them down.
The Independent 7 January 2020
“You mightn’t happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese – toasted, mostly.” Marooned for three years on Treasure Island, Ben Gunn may be desperate in his yearning for cheese, but plenty of people will sympathise as they reluctantly try veganism this January.
BBC Ideas 6 December 2019
The Guardian 14 May 2019
“I’m a bit scatty with things like this,” Gemma* admits when talking about her finances. It was not scattiness that meant she struggled to make ends meet when taking home £399.69 a month for working 18 hours a week as a cashier at Betfred. Even with tax credits and child benefit topping up her meagre wages, it was a constant struggle to pay for the essentials and Gemma fell behind on her bills. She was already receiving letters, phone calls, texts and emails threatening legal action over previous unpaid bills, as well as £400 of benefit overpayments that had to be repaid.
The Telegraph 28 November 2018
Rachel met her attacker on Tinder. They had messaged for a week before their first date. “He sent me a photo and a song that he had written. He was sweet at first,” she recalls. On their second date, he forced her into a recording booth and locked the door. Rachel says, “I didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do. He said if you don’t do it, you will end up in hospital.” He then subjected her to a brutal attack, lasting around 45 minutes.
The Times 15 November 2017
Migrant workers on Scottish fishing boats are doing dangerously long hours in unsafe working conditions, according to a seafarers’ charity. Scottish fishing vessels are routinely using workers from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) as cheap labour due to a legal loophole that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, the charity says.
The Times 6 June 2017
It was called a $143 billion flop, but Kraft Heinz’s failed attempt to buy Unilever was a classic tale of the pressures that modern companies face. Unilever under Paul Polman has become the model of a “good” company: only two years into the job as chief executive, he launched a sustainable living plan, an attempt to halve Unilever’s environmental impact. His efforts have been applauded by NGOs and activist groups, but the question was always whether investors would give him the time to prove that responsible capitalism made good business sense.
The Guardian 15 December 2011
Dennis Nally, global chairman of PwC, is a master of dodging tricky questions. Asked about his salary, he looks at his PR man, who quickly steps in to say it is not disclosed. We can presume it was in the millions, as PwC’s UK chairman, Ian Powell, took home £3.7m this year. “I would say I earn every dollar I make,” says Nally, a fit-looking 59-year-old. It is a bold claim in a climate where executive pay is under scrutiny. But Nally knows all about scrutiny: for three years, the European commission has been investigating the big auditing companies, culminating in recent proposals for a radical overhaul of the industry.
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