Thursday newspaper round-up: Darling, Strikes, Petrofac

17th Dec 2009 06:13

Alistair Darling has been accused of concealing Treasury figures showing how deep Labour's planned spending cuts will be and where the axe would fall on public services, says the Telegraph. The Chancellor, under pressure from MPs, admitted that "assumptions" had been made about spending levels but refused to agree to demands from a member of the powerful Treasury Select Committee to release them. Travellers faced fresh threats of transport chaos last night as Heathrow baggage handlers and Eurostar train drivers said they were ready to join BA cabin crew and strike in the lead-up to Christmas. British drivers at Eurostar said they would go on strike on Friday and Saturday after talks with management over pay broke down. Aslef, one of the unions involved, said it expected "some inconvenience" for passengers, though the operator said it expected to run a full service using French and Belgian drivers, writes the FT.The Government is investigating a tax loophole that has allowed the North Sea oil industry to avoid paying hundreds of millions of pounds in national insurance contributions, the Times has learnt. The scheme, which has been exploited for years by scores of companies, including the FTSE 100 oil services group Petrofac, is depriving the Treasury of as much as £70 million a year, according to estimates from one of the world's biggest accountancy firms.Bank of America named Brian Moynihan to be its next chief executive late on Wednesday, keeping the job within the company and disappointing institutional shareholders who have been agitating for a change in leadership at the Charlotte, North Carolina bank, reports the FT.Standard & Poor's has become the second rating agency to downgrade Greek sovereign debt to near junk levels of BBB+, issuing a withering verdict on Spartan plans unveiled this week by premier George Papandreou, according to the Telegraph.The power struggle at Mitchells & Butlers ratcheted up a notch yesterday when the dissident shareholder Joe Lewis demanded the appointment of four new directors and the immediate removal of the pub group's outgoing chairman, says the Independent.Investors in Cattles demanded the liquidation of the embattled sub-prime lender and the resignation of its board at a highly fraught general meeting. The chaotic gathering, originally convened to discuss the financial future of the company, had to be adjourned twice while the board took legal advice on how to respond to shareholders, writes the Telegraph.The Miami Herald has taken a surprise step in its attempt to combat diving circulation numbers and boost online earnings, by asking its readers for handouts, according to the Independent.Any move to impose green taxes on aviation at the Copenhagen climate change talks this week could kill the industry, according to Sir Richard Branson, reports the Telegraph.