Sunday press review

Strikes + Idris Elba and Channel 4 + City PR firms floating?

Afternoon everyone, hope you are enjoying the weekend. Here is a quick look at what I think is interesting in the Sunday papers and is likely to be followed up in the days ahead…

1. There is lots more in the Sunday papers about the rail strikes and the potential summer of discontent ahead as workers and bosses clash over pay deals amid surging inflation. The Mail on Sunday has a pretty punchy interview with the boss of Network Rail, Andrew Haines, in which he ups the rhetoric against the RMT union – accusing them of compromising safety and spending more time doing TV interviews than negotiating over pay. He threatens to cut them out of talks with staff and promotes his own working-class credentials. That piece is here. The Sunday Telegraph also has a story that Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, will reject plans to allow unions to have electronic strike ballots. That story is here. Meanwhile, The Sunday Times splashes its business section on a story that provides an interesting context to rail negotiations and other potential conflicts - staff at accountancy firm PWC are getting a 9 per cent pay rise. Story here.

2. Also in The Sunday Times, Tim Shipman’s long read about the week in politics includes the nugget that Boris Johnson has privately said that the rise in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent next year is “a bit much”. You can read that here.

3. Idris Elba is in talks with media entrepreneur Marc Boyan about a bid for Channel 4, according to this report from The Sunday Times.

4. The Sunday Times also has a really interesting first-person piece from an anonymous baggage handler about what working at an airport is like right now. In short, chaotic, dangerous and there might be worse to come…

5. The unsolved murders of Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal, mother-in-law Suhaila al-Allaf, and cyclist Sylvain Mollier in the Alps in 2012 have attracted numerous theories over the years, including family feuds, links to espionage or a serial killer. A new documentary suggests the French police made numerous mistakes in their investigation and should have focused on Mollier as the target, rather than al-Hilli and his family.

6. Barclays is stepping up efforts to get back money lost to fraudsters who claimed loans from the government’s Covid-19 support schemes. The bank is looking to bring in an external firm to help it investigate and find the fraudsters, according to The Mail on Sunday. There has been so much good reporting on the money lost to Covid fraud, particularly from James Hurley and my former colleagues at The Times. You can read the background here. The taxpayers face losing around £3.6 billion to fraud on these schemes, so this move by Barclays looks like a PR win at the very least.

7. Unilever could sell its ice cream brands as part of a shake-up, including Magnum and Ben and Jerry’s, The Mail on Sunday reports.

8. The Sunday Telegraph splashes the whole paper on Boris Johnson introducing more tariffs on steel imports to boost support in Red Wall seats. An announcement could come as soon as this week. This is the issue that Lord Geidt said was behind his resignation as Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser. The story is here.

9. Grant Thornton has settled a £200 million court case over the collapse of bakery chain Patisserie Valerie, which was brought by liquidators and could mean a payout for credits of the company. The rapid collapse of Patisserie Valerie is one of the most extraordinary City stories of recent years and this is a significant development. Story here.

10. City PR firms Finsbury and Tulchan are considering floating according to this read on the industry in The Sunday Telegraph.

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Best

Graham