Marks & Spencer pauses online orders as firm struggles with cyber-attack fallout

Marks & Spencer has halted all orders through its website and apps as the retailer continues to battle the fallout from a cyber-attack that began on Monday.The company apologised to shoppers for “this inconvenience” and paused digital orders “as part of our proactive management of a cyber incident”.“Our experienced team – supported by leading cyber experts – is working extremely hard to restart online and app shopping,” it said.The retailer said shoppers could continue to browse online and shop in its physical stores using cash or card.The website closure comes after several days of problems in stores where contactless payments and the collection of online orders were hit from Monday

Vinterior: meet the boss who quit finance to set up a thriving vintage furniture site

Vinterior may not have any showrooms or shops, but the home of the founder and chief executive, Sandrine Zhang Ferron, has plenty of finds from the classy secondhand furnishings site – from quirky vases to a vintage drinks cabinet.Zhang Ferron, who was born in China but grew up in France, readily admits that she created the site for herself, ditching her well-paid job in finance, after struggling to find interesting pieces to furnish her London home after a move to the UK.“I realised I don’t want to do that for the rest of my life, you know, helping rich people getting richer,” she says, speaking to the Guardian at her home with her cat Misifu – a male British Blue – mooching around.“I spent literally three months finding my yellow Poul Volther chair, which I eventually bought in a small shop in Hackney.“You know, it can be fun, but also, if you’ve got to buy a lot, it can be like, ‘I just don’t have time for this

Retail sales rise unexpectedly in Great Britain as sunshine lures shoppers

Sunny weather fuelled an unexpected increase in retail sales in Great Britain last month, as shoppers flocked to clothing, outdoor and DIY stores.Retail sales volumes rose 0.4% in March, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), defying a forecast of a 0.4% fall by City economists and marking the third straight month of sales growth.The overall 1

Drax needs a better policeman

Even government ministers sounded embarrassed in February when they threw yet more subsidies at Drax, recipient of £6.5bn to date, to keep its wood-burning power plant open until 2031. Few people think the biomass industry can survive in the long term unless as-yet-untested carbon capture technology can be installed.But the bizarre business of importing wood pellets from the US and Canada for incineration in North Yorkshire was given an extension because the UK’s power system, now more reliant on wind and solar generation, also needs firm “dispatchable” power that can be turned on and off in a hurry.At least Drax would have a “much more limited role” in future, explained the energy minister Michael Shanks, and 100% – not 70% as in the past – of the “woody biomass” would have to come from sustainable sources

MPs question value of billions in subsidies granted to Drax power plant

A UK government spending watchdog has questioned the value of the multibillion pound subsidies granted to the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire – and said plans to hand over billions more may not represent value for money.The government has provided about £22bn of public money to businesses and households that burn biomass pellets as fuel over the past three years, including £6.5bn for the owner of the Drax plant.The power plant, which generates about 5% of the UK’s electricity, is expected receive more than £10bn in renewable energy subsidies between 2015 and the end of 2026 – despite ongoing concerns that wood pellets are not always sustainably sourced.The Public Accounts Committee has said that biomass generators have been left to “mark their own homework” when it comes to proving that their fuel met the sustainability standards set by the subsidy scheme

UK consumer confidence dips to lowest level since 2023 amid tariff concerns

Consumer confidence in the UK has fallen to the lowest level for more than a year amid concern that Donald Trump’s trade wars could further drive up living costs for British households.The latest barometer of sentiment from the data company GfK fell in April to its lowest level since November 2023, as a combination of domestic tax increases, rising bills, and worries over the US president’s tariffs weighed on consumers.The consumer confidence index, which the government and the Bank of England have closely monitored for early warning signs from the economy since the early 1970s, fell by four points to -23.Neil Bellamy, the consumer insights director at GfK, said that consumers had not only been grappling with “multiple April cost increases” in the form of utility bills, council tax, stamp duty and road tax, but were also “hearing dire warnings of renewed high inflation on the back of the Trump tariffs”.The increasingly erratic approach of the US president, who is less than 100 days into his second term, has rattled the world economy as his tariffs threaten to wreck international supply chains in a major negative shock