UK independent from Russian energy for first time

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25th August 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning Last year fintech Atom Bank made headlines for becoming one of the first major UK companies to introduce a four-day work week with no change in pay. Yesterday the company revealed that there had been a 49% increase in job applications, higher staff retention, fewer sick days and almost all staff say they can accomplish everything they need to in four days.

Today's stories

UK independent from Russian energy for first time
Twitter’s whistleblower woes

ENERGY
UK independent from Russian energy for first time

What happened?
Yesterday it was revealed that in June the UK imported no oil and gas from Russia for the first time since records began in 1997. The collapse of trade between the two nations is part of the UK’s plan to phase out Russian energy imports following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

How did we get here?
Yesterday marked six months since the start of the war in Ukraine. Since then the UK, US and Europe have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia with the aim of hurting its economy. Oil and gas are Russia’s key exports and Western allies have all said they want to be much less reliant on Russian energy.

That’s much easier for the UK which gets about 3% of its gas and 11% of oil from Russia but a bigger ask for the rest of Europe where the figures are closer to a third.

The UK has replaced Russian energy with imports from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Netherlands and Belgium.

But the UK hasn’t been protected from rising energy prices purely because it relies less on Russian gas
The UK market is closely connected to markets in mainland Europe, meaning a price rise on the continent often leads to higher prices here too. The new household energy price cap for October is due to be announced tomorrow at another record level.

It’s not just energy trading that’s dropped
The import of Russian goods like chemicals, equipment and Vodka fell by 97% to the lowest level on record.

Zooming out: Europe's energy crisis is deepening. Yesterday the German government approved a set of energy-saving measures for the winter which will limit the use of lighting and heating in public buildings. The country wants to reduce gas usage by 2% through the new rules.

Other stories to keep you in the loop

Union calls for minimum wage to be raised to £15 an hour 'to put an end to low-pay Britain'
Mastercard to bring Bitcoin payments to high street stores
British Gas to donate 10% of profits to help cut bills
Asda to remove best before dates on 250 products in stores across the UK
Facebook bug spams celebrity comments to newsfeeds
US forgives $10,000 in student loans for millions
Peloton strikes deal with Amazon to sell its fitness equipment and apparel
Chip shops face 'extinction' amid cost of living crisis

TECH
Twitter’s whistleblower woes

What happened?
Twitter’s in the spotlight (again) after a newly released whistleblower report alleged that the company’s security policies are far from secure.

How did we get here?
This week former head of security Peiter Zatko filed a 84-page report accusing Twitter of everything from reckless cybersecurity negligence to underreporting spam-bot accounts. Zatko had joined Twitter in 2020 to help build its security division but was let go in January for “poor performance.”

Among the claims of poor security are that:

Twitter lied about its spam and fake accounts being less than 5%.
Execs don’t have the resources to know real numbers, nor are they incentivised to find out.
Leaders have misled Twitter’s board and the government about security vulnerabilities, including those that pose national security risks.

The report could prove helpful to Elon Musk
If Zatko’s claims are found to be credible, it could not only help Musk — who claims he abandoned his $44bn Twitter purchase after it failed to provide info about fake accounts - but also mean big regulatory fines.

Twitter’s security issues are piling up. In 2020 it suffered a major celeb hack that compromised blue-check accounts from President Biden and Kim Kardashian to Uber and Apple. Despite ramping up security, the company had another hack last month that exposed the data of over 5m users.

Stat of the day

Europe is experiencing its worst drought in at least 500 years

Interesting links from around the web

The secret iPhone button you probably don’t know about
12 ways to make keeping fit more affordable
How to score a seat upgrade on your next flight

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UK independent from Russian energy for first time

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