Wednesday paper round-up: Snow, Bonus tax, Cadbury

6th Jan 2010 06:25

The heaviest snowfall in almost 50 years is hitting parts of Britain as Arctic weather brought nationwide chaos, the Telegraph reports.As the country was plunged into one of its worst winters for decades, the Met Office issued an emergency weather warning for all counties of the UK. The South, including London and the Home Counties, were expected to bear the brunt of the snowfall with emergency services warning they are already struggling to cope with the increasingly bitter conditions.Alistair Darling's attempt to stop banks making lavish bonus payments through the one-off 50 per cent "supertax" has failed, government officials admit, as many institutions plan to absorb the charge rather than reduce pay-outs. The chancellor's allies admit the tax has not changed the behaviour of big financial institutions, but take comfort in the fact that the Treasury is set for a windfall of hundreds of millions of pounds just months before the election as a result, the FT reports.The supermarket price war has stepped up a gear, with Britain's two biggest grocers promising price cuts to customers. Asda, Britain's second-largest supermarket operator, said it was making its biggest price "rollback" for a decade, promising cuts across a broad range of products. It said that throughout January it would lower the price of 3,600 essential products. The price of one in five products would be reduced, Asda said, making this the broadest range of cuts for more than 10 years, the FT reports.Britain warned Iceland that it would be frozen out of the European Union after its President abruptly vetoed the repayment of a £3.6bn loan. The Treasury expected Reykjavik to rubberstamp the terms of repayment for the loan extended by Britain and the Netherlands at the height of the financial crisis. The loan meant that 400,000 savers with deposits in Icesave did not lose their money, the Times writes.Warren Buffett, Kraft's biggest shareholder, put the brakes on the American food giant's £10.4bn hostile bid for Cadbury yesterday with a strongly worded warning that he would block any knockout offer. In a statement seemingly intended to rouse other Kraft shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway, Mr Buffett's investment company, intervened in the takeover battle to warn the US food group that it would not get "a blank cheque allowing it to change its offer for Cadbury in any way it wishes", the Times writes.Just over 10,000 people with untaxed income hidden in offshore accounts have taken advantage of the Government's latest amnesty. HM Revenue & Customs said 1,100 people came forward on Monday to qualify for reduce penalties as the midnight deadline neared. But a source said the 10,000 figure included those using a separate amnesty for accounts held in Liechtenstein, the Telegraph reports.The worst of the recession in the jobs market seems to be over. The latest study from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG, complementing better-than-expected unemployment figures last month, shows that demand for labour is at its highest since the onset of the credit crunch in autumn 2007, the Independent reports.British Gas is profiting from the Government's boiler scrappage scheme by failing to pass on the full value of the grants. The company is refusing to offer its usual discounts to customers who apply for a £400 grant. Some homes could be better off ignoring the scheme and negotiating a discount with an installation company. British Gas operates an unsubsidised scheme under which all customers could get a £752 discount on a new boiler. A customer adviser at British Gas's call centre said anyone applying for a scrappage grant would not be eligible for these discounts, the Times reports.Concern about the impact of the rise in VAT and future increases in national insurance sent consumer confidence down sharply in December, according to figures released today. Nationwide, the building society, reported that its consumer confidence index fell by 5 points to 69, its biggest one-month fall since November 2008, and said that the decline reflected how slow the financial recovery would be, the Times reports.Links of London, the jewellery chain, is mulling a listing on the London stock market that could value the retailer at about £100m. The flotation plans emerged yesterday after a trading update from Links boasted "an excellent Christmas trading period, but a great year as a whole, the Times reports.