| Public sector workers paying 'less tax' due to generous pension rules Public sector workers have effectively each been paying hundreds of pounds less tax every year due to being contracted out of the second state pension. telegraph.co.uk |
Geldof media firm hit after coalition axes online education service Ten Alps shares fall by a third, cutting £2m off Bob Geldof's stake, after Teachers TV contract is endedMore than a third of was wiped off the market value of Ten Alps, Bob Geldof's production company, today after a multimillion-pound contract to run online education service Teachers TV fell foul of public sector spending cuts.The shares slumped 5p to 10.5p after the Department for Education cancelled the £10m-a-year contract. The loss was bad news for former rock star and poverty campaigner Geldof, who owns 5% of the company and has seen more than £2m wiped off the value of his stake, which at its peak was worth £2.4m. The Live Aid founder's share options are also under water.The contract will end in April. Ten Alps chief executive, Alex Connock, said the decision had come as a surprise: "The letter came completely out of the blue yesterday." The deal was due to run until 2013 and Connock said the firm would try to run it as a subscription-based service.Teachers TV is an online resource that carries more than 4,000 educational videos. Ten Alps said it had sold an overseas version of the service to Canada and was now looking at other countries.The coalition is due to present its comprehensive spending review on Wednesday as it seeks to cut average spending in government departments by a quarter to tackle the UK's record budget deficit.Launched in 2005, Teachers TV started life as a digital TV channel, but switched to providing purely online services in September. Connock said the firm, which has seen its market capitalisation shrink to £7.8m, would also seek to adapt the project for foreign education departments, individual users and university courses.Online TVDigital mediaInternetBob GeldofZoe Woodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Caan 'regrets' offer to buy baby Dragons' Den star James Caan admits it was "clearly wrong" to offer to buy a baby girl from a family in a flood-hit Pakistani village. bbc.co.uk |
Britain Keeps Silent on Afghan Impostor Claim Britain withheld a formal response to a reported Afghan accusation that the British introduced an impostor posing as a high Taliban leader to meet the Afghan president. nytimes.com |
Popular? What about tunesmiths Bizet, Handel, Rossini and Verdi? Oh dear. Asking Radio 3 listeners for a Top Ten of Britain’s favourite arias is a bit like asking the Bullingdon Club to supply a list of the nation’s favourite tipples. It would include rare vintages, but not what they shift by the tankload at Bargain Booze. timesonline.co.uk |