The Spectator

Portrait of the week: More mortgage pain, 999 goes down and a race to kill rats

issue 01 July 2023

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Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, encouraged banks to enter a voluntary agreement for stretched mortgagors to pay only the interest on their loans for six months, after the Bank of England raised interest rates to a 15-year high of 5 per cent. HSBC, with employees continuing to work from home, is to move its world headquarters from its 45-storey tower in Canary Wharf by 2027. Boots is to close 300 of its 2,200 chemists’ shops in the coming year. To cut its debts, Cineworld, the world’s second-largest cinema chain (also owning Picturehouse cinemas in Britain), is to apply for administration.

The government said it would cost £169,000 to send a migrant to Rwanda, compared with £106,000 to keep one in Britain. The 999 emergency line broke down for a morning; Viscount Camrose told the House of Lords that BT took two hours 50 minutes to inform the government.

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