Shares in Marks & Spencer have surged on speculation that the high street retailer is an £8 billion bid target for Middle Eastern investors.

The stock jumped 8% at one stage, adding more than £500 million in value, after The Sunday Times said the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the Gulf state's sovereign wealth fund, is in talks with private equity and banks about an approach.

Despite the scale of the share price movement, there was no official stock market announcement to confirm or deny the speculation.

A bid for the retailer would mark the biggest private equity takeover of a British blue chip firm since Alliance Boots was snapped up by US buyout firm KKR for £11 billion in 2007. It would also see another British name fall into foreign hands after recent high-profile takeovers such as US group Kraft's controversial acquisition of Cadbury.

M&S is often the subject of takeover speculation and there are significant hurdles for any such deal to get the go ahead. Aside from the price tag needed to win over management and investors, M&S has a hefty pension deficit of about £300 million which means the scheme's trustees have a significant say in any deal.

Other bidders have tried and failed to bag M&S in the past, with BHS and Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green launching an unsuccessful hostile £10 billion bid in 2004. Private equity firm CVC, which owns Formula One, is said to have considered a bid for M&S last summer but pulled out after its plans were made public.

Published: 18 March 2013

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More than £3.9 million has been spent by public bodies in the last two years on paying private investigators for surveillance work - including snooping on their own staff.

The Department for Transport (DfT) is among a range of public organisations that have paid private firms to spy on their behalf, while it has been claimed some 14 bodies, including 10 councils, may have commissioned potentially illegal surveillance.

The findings, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by civil liberties and privacy campaigners Big Brother Watch (BBW), revealed that four organisations paid other public bodies to undertake surveillance and four councils used private investigators to spy on their own employees.

BBW director Nick Pickles said the revelations prove that surveillance laws are "not fit for purpose". He said: "The Government has acted to control surveillance by local councils but this research shows more than ever before public bodies are using private detectives to do their snooping. The law is at breaking point and public bodies shouldn't be able to dodge the legal checks on them by using private investigators."

A total of 29 organisations - 27 councils, one public authority and one government department, the DfT - paid private firms to undertake surveillance using powers under Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) in the years 2010/11 and 2011/12.

But some 1 4 organisations - 10 councils and four public authorities - paid private firms to undertake surveillance that was not covered by Ripa - meaning they commissioned potentially illegal activity. Two public authorities and two councils paid other public bodies to spy on their behalf at a cost of £7,600, while four councils - Caerphilly, Dudley, Leicestershire and York - used private investigators to monitor their own staff.

Mr Pickles went on: "This research has uncovered cases where it looks like the law has not been followed and it's essential they are urgently investigated. Unlike the US, British law isn't strong enough to stop evidence obtained by illegal surveillance being used in court and the punishments for people deliberately flouting the law are trivial."

Published: 17 March 2013

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The owner of British Airways has backed a compromise deal that will limit the number of job cuts at Spain's ailing carrier Iberia to just over 3,000.

International Airlines Group, which was created from the merger of the two airlines in 2011, originally proposed 3,800 redundancies but has accepted a government-appointed mediator's recommendation that 3,141 workers should go.

The response of Iberia's unions to the revised proposals, which include severance pay of 35 days a year rather than 20, is still not known.

IAG chief executive Willie Walsh said recently that Iberia "must adapt to survive", having made a loss of 351 million euros (£303.5 million) last year.

But despite three months of negotiations, no agreement on a way forward has been reached between the airline and its unions. Iberia workers have already held two strikes and are planning further industrial action this month.

Published: 11 March 2013

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Lord Sugar has condemned "claim culture" as he accused a winner of his TV show The Apprentice of lying and taking him to a tribunal "to extract money from me".

Stella English, 34, who won series six of the BBC1 show fronted by the millionaire peer in 2010, is suing him for constructive dismissal.

She was given a £100,000 role with Lord Sugar's IT division Viglen as her prize but resigned in May 2011 and complained that her role there was that of an "overpaid lackey".

Ms English, of Whitstable, Kent, said she felt pressurised into taking up a new position at Lord Sugar's internet set-top box company YouView. She told a hearing in east London that Lord Sugar then advised her, in an unscheduled meeting on September 28, 2011, that he would not be renewing her contract and that he told her he did not "give a s***".

Reading out his own statement, Lord Sugar said: "She is a suspicious, untrusting person and one who believes she has always been done down and places blame with others. I believe this claim, together with its publication in the media, is simply an attempt to extract money from me."

Lord Sugar said Ms English was under the impression he would pay her off to avoid having to attend the hearing. But he told the tribunal: "I have no intention to pay her any money unless told to do so by the law." Lord Sugar said within days of Ms English suddenly leaving her job in October 2011, interviews with her appeared in newspapers. "She was desperate for money," Lord Sugar told the hearing.

Published: 07 March 2013

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David Cameron has been urged to use the UK's presidency of the G8 this year to make an "ambitious and transformative" difference to the lives of millions of the world's poorest people in Africa.

Britain's previous stint at the head of the group of rich nations in 2005 delivered "major progress" in the fight against extreme poverty, and the UK is again in a "unique leadership position" to drive the cause of development forward, said a report from campaign group One.

In an audit of progress on the commitments made by the G8 at Gleneagles in 2005, One concluded that "increases in financing for development, through aid, debt relief and a huge rise in domestically generated resources have had a direct impact on the lives of some of the poorest people in the world".

The report found that, since Gleneagles, sub-Saharan Africa has made "remarkable headway", with: 21 million more children enrolled in primary school; New HIV infections down by 37%; Child mortality down by 18%; Annual GDP growth averaging 5%; Access to the internet increasing by 547% to 110 million.

Despite the failure to meet some Gleneagles commitments, aid to Africa from G7 nations - the G8 excluding Russia - has increased by 11 billion US dollars (£7.2 billion) annually and 35 poor countries have had debt totalling 35.5 billion dollars (£23.4 billion) written off, found the report.

Published: 03 March 2013

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Doubt still hangs over the Queen's royal engagement to Italy next week as she continues to recuperate from symptoms of gastroenteritis.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are due to travel to Rome for a two-day visit, but that could be cancelled if she remains unwell.

A spokesman said the visit is still due to take place, but a decision will be made after she is assessed.

Sickness forced her to pull out of attending a military ceremony in Wales on Saturday as part of the country's St David's Day celebrations.

The Queen had been due to travel to Swansea to the Guildhall, where she was to present St David's Day leeks to the 3rd Battalion The Royal Welsh, of which she is Colonel-in-Chief.

But a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said on Friday she would instead spend the weekend at Windsor.

Published: 03 March 2013

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Voters are going to the polls in the closely-contested Eastleigh by-election.

The Hampshire constituency has previously been held by the Conservatives and is one of the seats viewed as key to the party winning an outright majority at the 2015 general election.

But the Liberal Democrats are desperately fighting to hang on to it to give a vital morale boost to the grassroots after support hit the doldrums on entering coalition - though their campaign has been marred by allegations that the party failed to take proper action to deal with claims that senior peer Lord Rennard sexually harassed party activists.

Published: 28 February 2013

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Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announced a £59 million fund to help boost regional economies as he warned local leaders it was time "to take up the gauntlet of growth".

The money has been earmarked for improving infrastructure, such as links to local road networks and utilities installation, in English enterprise zones.

The 24 zones, spread across 142 sites, offer tax incentives and have simplified planning rules as well as superfast broadband in a bid to attract businesses.

Mr Pickles said the announcement would allow successful bidders to turn "shovel ready sites into job ready sites".

He said: "Economic growth is this Government's biggest priority and enterprise zones are the engine room of that strategy.

"They are a fantastic way to attract the jobs and business investment that local areas need. This new £59 million fund will turbo charge that engine by turning shovel ready sites into job ready sites.

Published: 25 February 2013

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England's brightest youngsters are two years behind the best pupils in nations such as Hong Kong and Taiwan in maths by the time they are 16, new research shows.

It reveals that England's cleverest pupils can match their peers in leading East Asian countries at the age of 10, but then begin to fall behind.

Researchers suggested that more needs to be done to ensure the most able pupils are able to keep pace with the highest achievers in other countries.

The study, by researchers at the Institute of Education, University of London, looked at the children's maths achievement in two international studies, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Ministers have raised concerns about England slipping down international rankings - coming 28th in maths in the PISA 2009 tests.

The researchers analysed TIMSS maths tests taken by nine and 10-year-olds in 2003 and by 13 and 14-year-olds in 2007, and PISA maths tests taken by 15 and 16-year-olds in 2009.

The study concludes that the gap between the top 10% of pupils in England and the highest achievers in East Asia widens between the ages of 10 and 16.

Published: 22 February 2013

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David Cameron has said he would be "disappointed" if Nick Clegg voted in favour of a mansion tax on expensive homes.

The Liberal Democrat leader has not ruled out joining Labour in a Commons vote to support the levy on properties worth more than £2 million proposed by Ed Miliband.

The mansion tax was a flagship policy in the Liberal Democrats' 2010 manifesto, but is bitterly opposed by Conservatives and did not feature in the post-election coalition agreement setting out the Government's programme.

The Deputy Prime Minister has already clashed with Chancellor George Osborne over the issue, as the row threatened to drive a rift between the coalition parties - already taking pot-shots at one another in the campaign for the February 28 Eastleigh by-election.

Mr Osborne has dismissed Labour's policy as a "tax con" which would see state inspectors assessing the value of homes across the country.

But, in an interview for ITV News, Mr Clegg retorted: "The Liberal Democrats have always been unambiguous that they want to make the tax system fairer. The Conservatives don't want to do that. They don't want, perhaps, to offend people in very large mansions.

"They need to answer for themselves. I'm absolutely sure that what we stand for is the right thing."

Published: 19 February 2013

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