Uniqlo, Gymshark and Lush stop hiring UK workers via gig economy apps

Lush, Uniqlo and Gymshark have stopped using freelance retail workers hired through apps such as YoungOnes and Temper, after unions criticised the gig economy companies.The TUC wrote to the retailers urging them to stop using freelance retail workers amid concerns they were missing out on significant employment rights.Some retailers recruited temporary shop assistants for the busy festive period through gig economy apps, including YoungOnes and Temper, which are promoted by online influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers, as first revealed by the Observer last month.The trade union body said in the letter to retailers, seen by the Guardian, that the rise in the use of freelancer apps by retailers was “extremely worrying”.Kate Bell, the assistant general secretary of the trade union group, wrote to the chief executives of the three retailers: “We urge you to end this practice immediately and ensure that all your workers receive the rights and protections that they deserve as directly employed or agency workers

New year, new deal: the buyout boom poised to take over City lawyers’ lives

Whether they’re on skis or a sunlounger, there is no beach, mountain or fireside that can spare lawyers from the urgent calls of zealous, dealmaking executives and private equity bosses. After a breathless 2024, the City’s army of corporate lawyers are set for another year of masking their poolside backgrounds on video calls, braced for an even busier 2025.“Sadly, we were incredibly busy in July and August. We were both on holiday and working up to 14 hours a day,” says Patrick Sarch, partner at law firm White & Case and head of its public mergers and acquisitions (M&A) division. He and Sonica Tolani, another partner at the same firm, specialise in advising activist investors

The UK does have a special relationship – but it’s with Europe | William Keegan

Walter Scott knew a thing or two: “Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practise to deceive.”In many ways, however, Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and their colleagues were deceiving themselves when apparently deceiving the electorate on the subject of taxation.Just as the great mistake made by Harold Wilson, one of Starmer’s heroes, in 1964 was to rule out a policy move that his advisers knew was necessary to achieve his other ambitions – the move being devaluation of the pound to a less uncompetitive rate for overseas trade – so Starmer and co made the mistake of brushing aside advice from the estimable Institute for Fiscal Studies that the success of his “mission” (to fix the foundations, etc) would require substantial increases in the principal rates of tax. Principal because, instead of frolicking around the margins of the unpopular taxes raised in the recent budget, the chancellor should have resorted to the obvious sources, namely income tax and VAT.All this fuss about the so-called “black hole” was, sadly, misplaced

Tourism agency deletes ‘pristine swimming spot’ post about unpatrolled beach on Mornington Peninsula

Victoria’s tourism agency has removed a social media post that described an unpatrolled ocean beach on the Mornington Peninsula as a “pristine swimming spot” amid almost 150 rescues on the state’s beaches on Saturday.Number 16 beach, on the Bass Strait side of Rye, is described on the Visit Victoria website as “recommended for experienced surfers only” as it is not patrolled by lifesavers. It has a reputation among local residents as dangerous.A woman who lives on the peninsula told Guardian Australia that a post on Visit Melbourne’s Instagram page on Friday – at the start of a weekend heatwave – described the location as a “pristine swimming spot”. The wording was later changed to “pristine beach” before the post was removed altogether

Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk sponsored British pharmacies in pursuit of sales

The Danish drug company Novo Nordisk provided hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of sponsorship to pharmacies including Boots and Lloyds as it sought to boost sales of its slimming drugs in Britain, the Observer can reveal.The maker of Wegovy and Saxenda weight-loss injections gave money for Google ads to promote weight-loss services, staff training, and the creation of patient information content. In exchange it received detailed reports about website traffic, advertising hit rates and prescription numbers.The company also struck up sponsorship deals with online pharmacies that in some cases went on to promote its products illegally – including giving £30,000 to a firm later found to have broken rules banning the advertising of prescription-only medicines.Novo Nordisk said the sponsorships were for legitimate purposes and complied with industry standards

It’s tough at the top – but which business leader has the most at stake in 2025?

From post and planes to TV, phones and retail chains – and even a central bank – here are the chiefs facing the most testing of timesA year is a long time in business: enough time for things to turn sour financially, or to engineer a comeback. Here are our picks of the figures across all sectors who face a testing year with something big to prove in 2025Daniel Křetínský, AKA the “Czech sphinx”, has almost secured his prize. In the week before Christmas, the government approved the debt-funded takeover of Royal Mail’s parent, International Distribution Services. Shareholders still have to vote, but that hurdle should be a formality.His EP Group’s strategy for the postal service is something of a mystery because the six-month lead-up to the deal mostly concentrated on wooing government and unions, with a mass of undertakings covering everything from financial leverage to the location of the headquarters and tax residency