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Shoppers are paying significantly more for Christmas food this year, with festive chocolate treats costing up to 70 per cent more than last Christmas and the price of a turkey rising by as much as £15, according to new research from consumer champion Which?. The organisation analysed the cost of key ingredients for a traditional Christmas dinner alongside popular seasonal treats such as mince pies, sparkling wine and chocolates. It found that while overall grocery...

Amazon is reportedly in discussions to invest as much as $10 billion in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, in a move that could value the business at more than $500 billion and further intensify competition in the global AI market. The talks, first reported by The Information and subsequently confirmed by multiple sources, are said to be at an early and fluid stage. News of the potential deal pushed Amazon shares up around...

Thousands of hospitality businesses risk losing their right to Covid-related insurance compensation unless the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) intervenes to extend a fast-approaching claims deadline, industry leaders have warned. In an open letter to the regulator, disputes firm Stewarts, alongside major hospitality trade bodies representing more than 155,000 businesses, has called on the FCA to require insurers to extend the business interruption (BI) claims deadline by two years. Without intervention, many firms fear they will...

Senior ministers and MPs have warned that the UK’s recent agreements with Donald Trump are dangerously fragile, after it emerged that the flagship deal to avoid US tariffs on pharmaceuticals has no detailed legal text beyond high-level political statements. The “milestone” UK–US pharmaceuticals agreement announced earlier this month, under which the NHS is expected to pay more for medicines in exchange for zero tariffs on exports to the US, currently rests on little more than...

The Bank of England has cut interest rates for the fourth time this year, lowering borrowing costs to their lowest level in almost three years as policymakers forecast that inflation will fall back to the 2 per cent target by spring. Members of the Bank’s nine-strong monetary policy committee (MPC) voted narrowly, by five votes to four, to reduce the base rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75 per cent, down from...