£200m tax reprieve for small businesses

Alistair Darling will try today to rescue Labour's business reputation with a £200 million climbdown on capital gains tax designed to help owners of small companies. In the face of enormous pressure from the business community, Mr Darling will halve that rate on at least the first £750,000 of gains made between the buying and selling of assets - The Times​

Foster's brewer Scottish & Newcastle dipped a further 11 to 735p despite Carlsberg insisting that it had the financing for its 800p-a-share indicative offer in place ahead of today's midday deadline. There has been speculation that Carlsberg needed more time to firm up its bid and it is thought that negotiations will have extended until late into the night - The Daily Telegraph​

A further attempt to introduce a single system of nutritional labelling on food, with renewed hints at legislation, was launched by the government yesterday as part of a strategy to tackle the obesity crisis - The Financial Times​

The coffee shop Caffe Nero serves the best value and tastiest coffee of the big high street coffee chains, according to a report out today - The Guardian​

A woman more than four times the drink-drive limit drove off with three wheels on her Jaguar after a crash, a court heard - Daily Mirror​

Britain and America are heading for a recesssion, one of the world's most powerful financiers said yesterday.The bleak warning from George Soros follows a rollercoaster week on the financial markets demonstrated yesterday by the FTSE 100, which rose on Tuesday, falling again and the plunging Dow Jones rallying to finish up 300 points - Daily Mail​