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The population of the United Kingdom rose by 420,000, to 63.7 million, by the middle of last year, with the number of births, 813,000 (more than a quarter to mothers born abroad), being the highest since 1972. Thames Water asked the regulator Ofwat to allow it to impose a 12 per cent increase on bills. Unemployment fell by 4,000 to 2.51 million in the second quarter. Regulated rail fares will rise by 4.1 per cent, a percentage point higher than the rate of inflation in July, which, measured by the Retail Prices Index, fell from 3.3 to 3.1 per cent, and, measured by the Consumer Prices Index, from 2.9 to 2.8 per cent. The rate of house price inflation rose from 2.9 per cent to 3.1 per cent. Jeremy Paxman appeared on Newsnight with a beard.
In a version of a speech given to the Sunday Telegraph, Chris Bryant, the shadow immigration minister, blamed Tesco for giving staff a pay cut if they moved to a new distribution centre ‘in Kent’, with the result that ‘a large percentage of the staff at the new centre are from the Eastern bloc’.
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