Tuesday newspaper round-up: Bird, US-Iran, October retail sales
The chancellor is prioritising jobs in the gambling industry over the lives of addicts by delaying a cut in maximum stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals, the chair of an influential committee of MPs has said. Nicky Morgan, who chairs the Treasury committee, criticised the decision to put off the stake reduction until October next year, citing a warning from the former sports minister Tracey Crouch – who resigned over the delay last week – that two people take their lives every day due to gambling addiction. “It is the case that the government has prioritised the preservation of jobs in the gambling industry over the addiction of those who suffer from these machines,” she said. – Guardian
Theresa May is to face her cabinet at a critical point in the Brexit negotiations after the Irish premier told her he could not allow the UK to dictate the terms of any backstop. Amid intense concern over whether it will be possible to agree a deal, the British prime minister will update colleagues after Leo Varadkar rejected the idea that the UK could unilaterally call time on the Irish border backstop, shortly after a morning phone call between the two leaders. – Guardian
Electric scooter-sharing business Bird will open in the UK when it launches its service in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Tuesday. The start-up allows customers to rent powered electric scooters by picking them up from the pavement. The scooters cost £1 to unlock and then 20p per minute to ride. Once a customer arrives at their destination, they can end the ride and leave the scooter on the pavement. – Telegraph
The Trump administration has imposed draconian sanctions on Iran and vowed to punish any company in the world that flouts the embargo, asserting universal jurisdiction against bitter protests from Europe. “I promise you that doing business in Iran in defiance of our sanctions will ultimately be a much more painful business decision than pulling out of Iran,” said Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State. Violators will face “swift and severe" penalties. – Telegraph
A prominent US investor who made hundreds of millions of dollars by predicting the causes of the financial crisis is betting against two British banks in anticipation of a no-deal Brexit. Steve Eisman was the inspiration for Steve Carell’s character Mark Baum in the 2015 film The Big Short, based on the book by Michael Lewis. – The Times
October offered retailers more tricks than treats, with sales only marginally increasing compared with the same time last year. Figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG show that comparable or like-for-like sales rose very slightly, by 0.1 per cent, last month compared with the same time last year, when they had fallen 1 per cent from the preceding year. Total UK retail sales rose by 1.3 per cent last month, against an increase of 0.2 per cent at the same time last year. This is above the three-month average of 1.1 per cent but still below the 12-month average of 1.4 per cent. – The Times