An International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist has criticised the UK’s 2.5-percentage-point cut in spending taxes. Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said that the temporary cut in VAT would not significantly influence shoppers’ behaviour. In an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Mr Blanchard said he did not think...

As planeloads of European tourists roam London looking for cheap Christmas deals, the Labour government of Gordon Brown is keeping a stiff upper lip over the British pound’s relentless slide towards parity with the euro. “We have never had a policy of targeting the pound,” Yvette Cooper, a cabinet...

A member of the German opposition FDP party said the budget deficit for 2009 will be the biggest ever in Germany’s post-war history and blamed Germany for not doing more to promote savings. Germany will set a new record for debt next year, surpassing even huge 40 billion euros...

Search engine Yahoo is to cut the time it stores personal data from 13 months to three. It is hoping its decision will provide a benchmark for industry. Currently Google stores data for nine months and Microsoft for six months. International data protection officials have been urging firms to...

The UK’s north-south divide is mirrored in IT salaries, according to results from the exclusive 2008 Skills Survey. Techies who earn in excess of £70,001 are a fifth more likely to dwell in the southerly regions of England than in the north-east or west of England, the Midlands or...

Yahoo on Monday launched a massive project to increase activity and advertising on its internet sites through social connections and online applications. The company has been working mostly behind the scenes to build what it calls the Yahoo Open Strategy, but now the strategy’s changes will become evident to...

Users of the world’s most common web browser have been advised to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed. The flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people’s computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say. Microsoft is investigating...

The British pound has continued its sharp decline against the euro, reaching a new record low of 1.1238 euros on Thursday. It is at the lowest level since the euro was launched in 1999. Meanwhile, the pound gained one cent against the US dollar, reaching $1.4924 in afternoon trading....

As European leaders gather in Brussels, the German finance minister has launched a blistering attack on Gordon Brown’s economic rescue plan. In an interview with Newsweek magazine Peer Steinbruck derided the £20bn package and accused Mr Brown of “tossing around billions” which would saddle a generation of taxpayers with...

Sun Microsystems appears to have put its utility computing effort, Network.com, on hold until it gets an idea of how to resurrect it. The pioneering computing effort, which launched two years ago, offered pay-per-use computing infrastructure for high-performance computing applications without forcing customers to buy expensive IT equipment. However,...

The UK economy contracted 1{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} between September and November, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has estimated. This fall followed after a 0.8{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} drop in the three months to the end of October, said the think tank. Indicating that the rate of output decline is “accelerating”,...

Telnics Sunrise launch opens at 15:00 GMT Called .tel, the domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites. Owners of .tel domains will be encouraged to populate it with details about how they can be contacted. The...

Although changing the VAT rate from 17.5{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} to 15{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} within business systems is relatively easy, it has widespread implications inside the organization, across the supply chain, and for the customers. We all hope that the plans mapped out in the Chancellor of the Exchequers pre-budget report earlier this week...

Germany has entered a recession after government figures showed that Europe’s largest economy contracted by 0.5{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} in the third quarter. This is the second consecutive quarter that the economy has shrunk after a 0.4{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} contraction in the second quarter. The fall in economic output, largely driven by falls in...