BA strike: British Airways binds talks with Unite kinship to turn aside disharmony

Millions of British Airways passengers were in limbo last night as militant cabin crew refused to say when they will strike.

Up to 2.5million travellers planning holidays or business trips from next week still have no idea when their flights will be disrupted as BA faces crippling industrial action.

And those who book with BA from now on have been warned that they will have no travel insurance cover if their flights are hit by the strike, involving more than 12,000 cabin crew.

Negotiations: BA management is engaged in talks with union leaders to try and avert the upcoming strikes

The Association of British Insurers said that anyone who booked after the vote to walk out by cabin crew members on Monday had a "reasonable expectation" of disruption, meaning they will not be covered.

BA has promised to refund or re-book anyone hit by the strike, but will not cover hotel bookings, car hire or other costs incurred because of the chaos.

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Strike action could begin as early as next week after the overwhelming vote in favour by members of the giant Unite union following a row with BA over conditions of service and the airline"s plans to reduce the number of cabin crew on a jumbo jet from 15 to 14.

Union leader Len McCluskey (left) stressed the only way to resolve the dispute is through "negotiation, not litigation"

Asked last night why the union had not announced a strikedate, Ken Ablard, spokesman for the British Airlines Stewards andStewardesses Association (BASSA) arm of Unite, said: "We have notissued a date because we don"t want [to strike].

"Hopefully, with the overwhelming majority voting for action, BA will now listen."

But BASSA said that if members did go on strike, they would do so "sooner rather than later."

"Back at the centre of power": Charlie Whelan is Gordon Brown"s former spin doctor and is said to be back as an unofficial advisor to the Prime Minister

By law the union now has four weeks, until March 22, to hold a strike, otherwise it will have to re-ballot.

It must give seven days" notice, so the latest date it can announce a strike date is March 15.

However, provided it holds at least one strike - even for a day - within the four-week deadline, it may then hold further strikes "ad infinitum", say lawyers.

Productivity in NHS has depressed usually given 1995

Ian King, Deputy Business Editor & , : {}

The Governments management of the NHS was called into question yesterday after official statistics revealed that the productivity of publicly funded healthcare fell by an average 0.3 per cent every year from 1995 to 2008.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics revealed that productivity fell by a total of 3.3 per cent during the period all but two years of which Labour has been in power.

The report comes after a similarly damning survey published in June, which revealed that, between 1997 and 2007, total productivity in the public sector fell by 3.2 per cent an annual average of 0.3 per cent.

In yesterdays report, the ONS said that between 1995 and 2008 inputs the amount spent on healthcare and including costs such as energy, bedding and bandages rose by 75 per cent, or an average 4.4 per cent a year. Yet outputs the amount of healthcare provided and its quality rose by only 69 per cent, or 4.1 per cent a year.

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The ONS said that, from 1995 to 2001, productivity was broadly stable as output and inputs grew at a similar pace. But it said that from 2001 the year that Mr Brown, then the Chancellor, significantly boosted public spending to 2008, productivity declined by 3.0 per cent overall or 0.4 per cent a year on average. It said that in all of those years, apart from 2005 and 2006, inputs grew more quickly than output.

The figures include not only spending within the NHS, which dominates the data, but also healthcare purchased by the Government from outside the health service. The ONS said that the cost of employing doctors, nurses and support staff had risen by about 40 per cent, with especially high growth between 2000 and 2004.

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: This is further evidence that the Government has failed to deliver reform and value for money in the NHS ... Too much money in the NHS has been wasted, there is too much bureaucracy and the resources have not got to the front line.

Borrowed Time

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Is there a complaint with decimal points in this country? Last month, the Conservatives got their sums wrong on teenage pregnancy, by celebration of the mass the underwhelming figure of 5.4 per cent as 54 per cent, a figure that would have been indeed alarming. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics revised the open borrowing total for Jan down from a hulk 4.3 billion to a small 43 million. This was not a typo, notwithstanding seeking suspiciously similar to one. Nevertheless, the Government contingency take caring not to provide it as well literally.

The better-than-expected borrowing total for both Jan and Feb will have it sorely tantalizing for Alistair Darling to pacify the tablet for electorate with a couple of pre-election giveaways, when he presents his third Budget subsequent week.

But the total are flattered partly by a one-off enlarge in taxation receipts. And they have small stroke on the outrageous hole in the open finances. The mercantile hurdles confronting the subsequent government, yes or no celebration forms it, have not altered with dual months data.

Britain entered the retrogression with a far-reaching constructional bill deficit. A constructional necessity is not automatically prepared when an economy earnings to growth. It needs to be addressed by elemental cuts in supervision spending. If monetary markets are not assured that this will happen, they will direct higher seductiveness payments on supervision debt.

Related LinksAlistair Darling since 13bn Budget progress

Next week, Mr Darling will face a preference in between an eager accepting from his celebration and the certain visualisation of posterity. For his consequence and ours, he would be correct to select the latter. He contingency concentration on the big numbers, and not be dreaming by the (odd) decimal point.

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Portsmouth turn initial Premier League bar to come in administration department Portsmouth

Oliver Kay & , : {}

Portsmouth became the initial Premier League bar to come in administration department department department department department yesterday as the excesses of salary and insane tenure eventually took their fee on the worlds richest done at home football competition.

After a duration of embarrassments underneath a accumulation of abroad owners, the 112-year-old bar was placed in to administration department department department department department at 10.20am yesterday in a unfortunate try to save itself from a winding-up apply to done by HM Revenue & Customs over an delinquent taxation check of 12.1 million.

With altogether debts of some-more than 60 million and with a monthly salary check of 3 million, together with multiform players earning some-more than 40,000 a week, Portsmouth right afar face a duration of cost slicing to prove their creditors and equivocate going out of business. The director pronounced that he would be slicing to the bone, but whilst the clubs staff fright excess or compensate cuts, the players will be stable underneath the conditions of their contracts.

Andrew Andronikou, the administrator, done a oath to the clubs supporters that Portsmouth would stay alive, but, when asked either there was a risk that they could go in to liquidation, he said: There is regularly a danger. He combined that it was unavoidable that some-more Premier League clubs would follow Portsmouth in to administration, and said: We wouldnt be the last.

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Although clubs from the Football League have been spoken ruined on 53 occasions given the Premier Leagues money-spinning breakaway in 1992, this is the initial time that a bar inside of the supposed golden round has depressed in to administration.

Trevor Watkins, a sports counsel for Clarke Willmott, said: I was articulate to the authority of an additional bar who was saying, from a blurb rights point of perspective, how annoying it is to have your code tarnished by a bar going in to administration. This is the Premier League. I know it happened a lot in the Football League, but this isnt good. Football has to take a long, tough see at how it goes about transferring tenure and either or not the bar stay in their stream state.

A orator for Gordon Brown described the headlines as a unhappy day for a good club, but pronounced that the Premier League and the clubs had been warned by the Government that the monetary excesses were unsustainable.

The orator said: It is a make a difference for particular clubs and the HMRC, but this issue of essential manners and governance has been lifted by Andy Burnham [the Health Secretary], when he was at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. We sojourn endangered that fans and communities of clubs similar to Portsmouth shouldnt humour given of the incapacity of clubs to conduct their finance management properly.

Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008, but dreams of a new golden epoch evaporated as the being of the monetary incident became apparent. The bar had a salary check of 54.7 million, 78 per cent of turnover, during the 2007-08 season, and has outlayed the past year perplexing to offload players to cut costs and prove creditors.

The bar has been owned by 4 opposite unfamiliar investors given the deteriorate began in August. Alexandre Gaydamak, the French-born son of a billionaire, sole the bar to Sulaiman al-Fahim, a Dubai-born office worker who confessed that he did not have the supports to at the back of up his plans.

Within dual months of shopping the bar in August, Mr al-Fahim sole Portsmouth to Ali al-Faraj, an problematic Saudi skill developer. Any hopes of Mr al-Faraj proof to be a saviour were dashed as he regularly unsuccessful to compensate the monthly salary check on time and was forced to steal income from associates. One of them, Balram Chainrai, a Hong Kong businessman, took over the bar after it had defaulted on repayments of his twenty million loan.

After talks with a array of impending buyers unsuccessful to reach a end prior to a deadline on Wednesday, the Portsmouth house supposed administration. That formula in an involuntary nine-point reduction in the Premier League, that leaves the bar adrift at the bottom of the list and clearly cursed to relegation.

Mr Andronikou said: I would contend to the supporters: greatfully stay at the back of the club. I guarantee you I will save your bar and take you forward.

Portsmouths supporters have voiced their offend in new months, but a criticism at todays compare afar to Burnley has been called off after Peter Storrie, the arch executive, pronounced he would leave when the bar was sold.

In a statement, the SOS Pompey organisation said: We will not accept any one past or benefaction meditative they can ever again take the bar for a ride. Portsmouth Football Club needs a purify mangle from the past, a uninformed begin free of the container and personalities of the past. A good bar similar to Pompey will never lay down and die, thousands of ardent fans wouldnt let it.

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Red Knights plan to buy Manchester United from Glazer family Manchester United

Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent & , : {}

Jim ONeill, a close crony of Sir Alex Ferguson, emerged last night as a key player in in between the Red Knights, who goal to wring Manchester United from the clutches of the Glazer family.

As sum emerged of the initial indeterminate assembly in in between the organisation of heading City financiers who plan to put together a consortium to buy United, the name of ONeill, who quickly served as a comparison manager at Old Trafford and has clever ties with Ferguson, figured prominently.

There is no denote that Ferguson, who has been outspoken in his open await of the much-loathed Glazer regime, has had any hit with the group, but the impasse of ONeill, the head of tellurian mercantile investigate at Goldman Sachs and a lifelong United supporter, is sure to capture his courtesy if the debate progresses over yesterdays assembly at the Fleet Street offices of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Also benefaction at the assembly were Keith Harris, the comparison manager authority of Seymour Pierce, and Mark Rawlinson, a comparison partner at Freshfields, the authorised organisation that suggested United prior to and during the Glazer familys antagonistic takeover in 2005. Other distinguished total who have voiced await for the debate embody Paul Marshall, the co-founder and authority of Marshall Wace, one of the Citys largest sidestep funds, and Richard Hytner, the emissary authority worldwide of Saatchi Saatchi and a co-founder of the Shareholders United organisation that fiercely against the Glazer takeover.

Glazers at UnitedUnited tumble at the back of Spanish giants on abounding listGlazers buy time as down remuneration issue raises �500mThe fans receiving a mount on the terracesFerguson warns of United divisionsRelated Links"It"s only guys who love the bar perplexing to do a great thing"Supporters fright headlines as well great to be trueMultimediaDEBATE: should fans get at the back of Glazers? The Red Knights: who they are

Their plan is to have use of their contacts opposite the universe to find a series of super-investors who could lift the income estimated at a smallest of �1 billion indispensable to have a bid to buy the bar from the Glazers. They goal that a little of that income would come from supporters groups, who would in spin be offering a golden share and the awaiting of a little illustration in any new regime.

Sources were penetrating to fool around down the stress of yesterdays meeting, suggesting that it was merely the initial step on a prolonged highway that might not lead anywhere, but there is a genuine idea in in between a little of those concerned that it will be probable to convince the Glazer family to sell United. Harris has indicated in the past that he believes the bar to be value we estimate �1 billion, but the Glazers valuation, that they say does not proportion to an asking price, is we estimate �1.2 billion.

Significantly, the Red Knights are accepted to have cumulative the full subsidy of the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST), the organisation that was shaped from the remains of the Shareholders United movement. In new weeks, given it emerged that Uniteds debt had soared to an startling �715 million, the ranks of MUSTs membership have distended dramatically, with supporters increasingly outspoken and visible, wearing the green-and-gold colours of Newton Heath, that predated United in their rebuttal towards the Glazer regime.

A orator for the Glazers responded last night to headlines of the assembly by stating: Manchester United is not for sale. The same summary was conveyed in Dec after indeterminate seductiveness from a Chinese consortium, whose backers were never identified.

Since then, the Glazers have taken the poignant step of rising a down remuneration issue to lift �500 million to revoke the clubs debts, with some-more than 50 low-risk investors from around the universe stumping up money at a bound annual seductiveness rate of 9 per cent. However, United sojourn underneath hazard from their PIK (payment in kind) debt of �202.1 million, that rolls up at an annual seductiveness rate of 14.25 per cent and is accepted to be widespread in in between twenty vulture supports with ardour for high-risk funds. The PIK debt threatens to climb to �588 million by 2017.

Although United sojourn successful on the pitch, the bar paid �41.2 million in bank seductiveness in the last monetary year, a incident that the Red Knights courtesy as unsustainable and untenable.

Britain to sense if it has forsaken behind in to recession

Suzy Jagger and David Charter in Brussels & , : {}

Britains economy faces an additional vicious impulse today, when total exhibit either the nation unequivocally has eventually recovered from recession.

Statistics published last month referred to that Gross Domestic Product had grown by the majority slim of margins during the last entertain of 2009, technically imprinting an finish to the longest retrogression given the 1930s.

But politicians and economists have been nervously accessible todays announcement, when the frail liberation of usually 0.1 per cent could be revised to 0 or even worse.

The Office for National Statistics continually has to correct expansion interpretation given a little report is not accessible when the initial set of total is published. Both the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, and the Bank of England were given todays census data twenty-four hours prior to publication.

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The revised GDP figures, that Mr Darling will have to embody in his subsequent Budget, will poise a large headache. Voters have turn carefully confident about Britains mercantile prospects, that Labour wants to have a key debate thesis to one side a notice not to risk the liberation with the Conservatives.

A downward rider would show that the economy had stagnated, forcing Mr Darling to confess in his last Budget prior to the choosing that Labour has still unsuccessful to lift the nation out of recession.

It could additionally means a couple of problems for George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, who argued this week that slicing the necessity was an obligatory priority. Slashing open spending prior to the retrogression ends could trigger concerns about undermining any recovery.

Economists were generally distressed yesterday given the EU had revised downwards forecasts for British expansion this year, whilst alternative total expelled by the ONS showed commercial operation investment plunging 5.8 per cent in the fourth entertain of the year.

The fright is that yesterdays investment sums, that typically comment for about 8 per cent of the British economy, could tip the economy in to the red again. The total show that genuine commercial operation investment is down 24.1 per cent in the last entertain of 2009, compared with the same duration in 2008 a tumble of �27.12 billion, and the lowest given 1992.

The European Commission yesterday pronounced it reckoned Britains economy would grow by 0.6 per cent this year, rather than the 0.9 per cent enlarge it had formerly forecast. Blaming bad fourth-quarter total and an finish to low VAT rates, Olli Rehn, the EUs Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, pronounced Britain was the usually large part of state whose expansion had been revised downwards.

Not everybody fears a lapse to recession, however. Some economists think improved industrial prolongation total published a couple of weeks ago and the probability of upgraded use zone numbers currently could see expansion climb to 0.2 per cent. Yesterday the CBI reported the strongest sell sales expansion for roughly 3 years during the initial half of February.

Nanny knows most appropriate on plumpness but can the food industry quell the ardour for profit?

Magnus Linklater: explanation & , : {}

It is all as well easy to ridicule governments that try to carry out the healthy inclinations in this box eating as well most of the wrong kind of food. Contemplating laws that would foreordain the distance of apportionment we sequence in restaurants, or that dissuade us to put up with in greasy meals seem, on the surface, to be draconian, intrusive, and illiberal. As Paul McBride, for the Tories, gleefully points out, the thought of grouping SNP-approved portions of grill meals is risible.

But when, as is apropos clear, the state of the nations girth impacts on the wallet, afterwards a supervision that looks the alternative approach is open to condemnation.

The word nanny state is roughly regularly used in the irreverent sense. But nannies do spasmodic know best, and those who omit the cost to the health service, the loss to industry and the stroke on the economy are ignoring their responsibilities.

The SNP administration department so hemmed in by the minority standing that it has had to dump most of the declaration commitments has been confidant when it comes to becoming different peoples habits, either it is celebration as well much, shopping as well most tobacco products, creation or offered drugs, and now, eating as well most of the wrong kind of food.

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The industry has not finished sufficient to revoke the fat calm of foods. It thus has a preference to stick on the due programme voluntarily, or to conflict it and entice legislation forcing by change.

This, then, is a test, not so most of supervision policy, as of an industrys willingness to quell the own ardour for profit.