The Times

Crusading consumer champions fighting big business on behalf of the powerless? Or ambulance-chasing vultures? Claims management companies divide opinion, largely depending on whether they are working for you or against you 🔗 Tap below to read more:

Extra scrutiny after high-profile collapses has led firms to put more hours into signing off accounts. Britain’s 500 biggest companies paid a record £1.45bn in audit fees this year, as accounting firms raised their prices to cover the extra work staff are having to put in 🔗 Tap below to read the full story:

Christmas hiring is starting to breathe life back into Britain’s job market, as annual salaries rise at the fastest rate in three years, figures suggest. The average advertised salary stood at £39,234 last month, up 6 per cent compared with last year and the highest increase since April 2021 🔗 Tap below to read the full story:

Cyberwarfare is now a “daily reality” for Britain’s national security, Pat McFadden will warn on Monday as he announces a new laboratory to protect the country from Russian attempts to “weaponise” artificial intelligence An initial £8m of government funding will bring together Britain’s intelligence agencies, world-leading academics and the tech industry to develop new cyberdefences to protect Britain’s national infrastructure 🔗 Tap below to read the full story:

The SFO spent a decade investigating the mining company Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation but the case was dropped last year The watchdog launched an inquiry into Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) in 2013 over “the suspected payment of bribes by the company and individuals connected to it” 🔗 Tap below to read the full story:

A Greek-style financial meltdown could be Marine Le Pen’s Christmas gift to France if the hard-right leader carries out her threat to bring down its fragile minority government Maud Bregeon, a cabinet member, gave the warning on Sunday as Michel Barnier, the prime minister, sought to save his two-month-old conservative-centrist administration from the chief of the populist National Rally 🔗 Tap below to read more:

Tax increases in the budget have made it harder for businesses to “take a chance” on hiring people, the head of the CBI says as the government prepares to announce big welfare reforms that aim to “get Britain working”. Rain Newton-Smith will tell business leaders on Monday that measures announced by Rachel Reeves last month are undermining the government’s mission to get people back into jobs

Donald Trump is planning an executive order that would lead to the removal of all transgender members of the US military, defence sources say. The order could come on his first day back in the White House, January 20. There are believed to be about 15,000 active service personnel who are transgender. They would be medically discharged, which would determine that they were unfit to serve

Lawyers have reported a surge in clients keen to set up a trust — legal arrangements that look after assets for beneficiaries, and can protect against IHT when used correctly, but allow the person making the gift to maintain an element of control over it

Something does not add up about the story of the £100m shed built to protect a colony of Bechstein's bats along the HS2 line in Buckinghamshire. I never use LinkedIn to ask potential sources to come forward- but the sums are so scandalous that I would ask anyone with information on how on earth this was proposed and approved to contact me on nicholas.hellen@sunday-times.co.uk. Anonymity guaranteed. The sum could have paid for 15 to 30 square miles of woodland in the UK or to transform the depleted nature of our national parks Campaign for National Parks CPRE The countryside charity