Monday newspaper round-up: Job losses, net zero, Blue Origin

20th Apr 2026 07:12

(Sharecast News) - A quarter of a million people could lose their jobs by the middle of next year as Britain "flirts with recession", analysis suggests, after business confidence was shattered by the US-Israel war on Iran. As the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, summoned bank chiefs for talks aimed at containing the fallout, twin reports from top accounting firms underlined the scale of the economic threat facing the UK. - Guardian

Ed Miliband will double down on Labour's commitment to net zero in the face of the Middle East conflict this week, insisting that as fossil fuel prices soar "the era of clean energy security must come of age". The energy secretary is set to announce a package of new policies in a speech on Tuesday in response to an expected energy crisis prompted by Donald Trump's war with Iran. - Guardian

A giant new natural gas field in Yorkshire is to be exploited for mining Bitcoin rather than boosting Britain's energy supplies. Reabold Resources has been awarded a licence to carry out "gentle" fracking in the West Newton field near Hull, which is estimated to contain up to eight billion cubic metres of gas. - Telegraph

Jeff Bezos's space business Blue Origin has successfully reused one of its heavy rockets for the first time, taking a major leap towards catching up with Elon Musk's SpaceX. The Amazon billionaire's New Glenn rocket took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Sunday afternoon, carrying a satellite into orbit. - Telegraph

Ministers are pressing Britain's biggest businesses to boost their cyber-defences amid fears that artificial intelligence software such as Anthropic's Mythos could enable a new wave of hacking. Baroness Lloyd of Effra, the cybersecurity minister, has written to almost 200 business leaders, urging them to embrace a new "cyber-resilience pledge" to shore up their security. - The Times

The former boss of the UK's competition regulator has accused the government of "holding the economy back" by prioritising American technology giants' interests, which he claimed resulted in "economic dependency" and stifled British competitors. Marcus Bokkerink, former chairman of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), attacked the government over a series of moves that he alleged had dismantled "everything that protects and encourages competition, choice and innovation in the country's digital and AI economy". - The Times