A proposal to be tabled by the US president, Joe Biden, at the upcoming G7 meeting for a 15% global corporate tax rate could reap the EU €50bn (£43bn) a year, and earn the UK nearly €200m extra alone from the British multinational BP, according to research.

Should the tax rate be set higher at 25%, the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies, the EU would earn nearly €170bn extra a year – more than 50% of current corporate tax revenue and 12% of total health spending in the bloc.

On a rainy afternoon in The Hague, the district court delivered a judgment against Royal Dutch Shell, the parent company of the Shell group. It refuted the excuses regularly relied on to continue extracting oil and gas and vindicated longstanding calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground. The court held that Shell’s current policy of merely reducing the “carbon intensity” of its products by 20% by 2030, and aiming to reach net zero by 2050, would contribute to climate impacts that endanger the human rights of the plaintiffs.

The extraordinary events preceding the oil industry’s so-called Black Wednesday bring to mind the proverbial path to bankruptcy: it happens gradually, and then all at once. Hot on the heels of a landmark report by the global energy body the International Energy Agency warning against new fossil fuel production, Wednesday’s historic ruling has blown another hole in the defences of an industry that has overwhelmingly failed to accept responsibility for...

Annual House price inflation hits 10.9% or £1,994 per month according to Nationwide as the Stamp Duty Holiday, working from home and COVID-19 leads to a 'race for space'. However, this space race will leave many aspiring buyers grounded with house prices too high in the sky pic.twitter.com/vaqHaZCsKW

My 97-year-old neighbour has an alarm system supplied by social services linked to her landline. She has a fob she can press to summon help if she has a fall.

The problem is that her landline is out of order. I reported the fault to BT but found it impossible to speak to a real person. The automated system confirmed there was a fault on her line and promised an engineer would call – but only before midnight on a date four days away.

Given the circumstances, I need to get her line repaired as a priority but this is proving impossible.

OW, Ilkley

I sent this email on to a contact in the Openreach media team at 11am, and by 5pm the company – which manages the telecoms infrastructure on behalf of all of the providers, including BT – had sent an engineer who had fixed the problem. Openreach has had some criticism on these pages in the past but on this occasion it really stepped up when needed.

You told us you were amazed the Guardian had it fixed...

Levelling up Britain’s unbalanced economy comes in many guises and in Prescot, a town on the edge of Knowsley on Merseyside, it comes in the form of a replica cockpit-in-court theatre.

Shakespeare is reported to have connections with Prescot when he was a travelling player in the late 16th century and the idea is to make the new theatre, scheduled to be opened by Prince Charles next summer, the third side of a cultural triangle along with London and Stratford-upon-Avon.

Max Steinberg, the chair of the Shakespeare North Trust, insists that Shakespeare was familiar with this corner of the north-west. He is also adamant that the theatre will be provide a major boost to the local economy.

US retail giant Walmart is facing increased pressure to add employee representation to its board, as a leading figure on the Christian left, the Rev William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, says he will press the company on the issue at its annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday.

Barber is an influential civil rights voice on race and equality in America and is also set to hammer Walmart on its record of worker safety during the coronavirus pandemic as well as call for a wage rise for its gigantic workforce.

Barber told Axios he plans to pressure the big box store chain, which employs more than 2.3 million employees, and is valued at close to $400bn, to tie the fate of workers who fell ill or died from Covid-19 to the company’s sick leave policies.

In remarks seen by Axios, Barber will tell the meeting that there are “perhaps hundreds of your workers who are not alive today because of this vicious coronavirus that was allowed to spread through...

Workers on the NHS test-and-trace operation who are being paid £9.50 an hour were charged out to the government’s supplier, Serco, at as much as £21.50 an hour, the Guardian understands.

The rate was charged by Sensée, a London-based call centre company, for workers tasked with calling the contacts of people who had tested positive for Covid-19, a source said. Neither Serco nor Sensée disputed the figures.

The revelation prompted further concerns about the value for money offered by the test-and-trace system. Led by the Conservative peer Dido Harding, it has already faced scrutiny over efficacy, although the proportion of contacts reached by private-sector contact tracers has improved since earlier in the pandemic when it lagged behind public-sector tracers.

Tim Sharp, the TUC’s senior employment rights policy officer, said: “This rate looks excessive and seems to go beyond the already-inflated rates of commission commonplace in the...

Guyana’s government is being taken to court by two citizens seeking an end to offshore drilling by ExxonMobil and other large oil firms that will exacerbate the climate crisis.

The case has been filed by Quadad de Freitas, a 21-year old Indigenous tourist guide from the Rupununi region, and Dr Troy Thomas, a university lecturer and former president of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency Institute Guyana.

They claim Guyana’s approval of oil exploration licences violates the government’s legal duty to protect their right and the right of future generations to a healthy environment. It is the first constitutional climate case in the Caribbean to challenge fossil fuel production on climate and human rights grounds.

The discovery of oil and subsequent production-sharing agreements with some of the world’s largest fossil fuel firms have proved politically explosive in the small South American country, where about two-fifths of the population live...

An influential group of UK investors are urging G7 leaders to follow the UK’s lead by forcing firms to come clean about their exposure to climate risks.

In a letter to ambassadors and high commissioners sent ahead of the G7 summit in Cornwall, the Investment Association (IA) also called on the world’s largest developed economies to issue sector-by-sector guidance to help firms plan to meet Paris Agreement climate goals, which aim to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees celsius.

G7 members – which include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – should coordinate and standardise climate reporting standards, the IA added. The group represents asset managers including Legal & General, Schroders and Aviva, which together have a combined £8.5tn under management.

The climate recommendations are part of the UK trade body’s efforts to help its members decarbonise their investment portfolios, a task which has been complicated by a lack of...

The Great British Bake Off host Noel Fielding, former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Tweedy, and singer Natalie Imbruglia are among the latest individuals to bring phone-hacking claims against the publisher of the Mirror, as companies continue to deal with the costly fallout of widespread illegal behaviour at their newspapers.

Fifteen years after the phone-hacking scandal began, more than 20 individuals have recently filed legal proceedings against the owner of the Mirror, with more cases waiting in the wings.

Although the phone-hacking scandal has largely faded from the public eye, legal cases brought by potential victims seeking damages continue to make their way through the court system, amid predictions the final industry-wide bill for damages and legal fees could hit £1bn.

Many of those who have launched legal proceedings against the publisher of the Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People were at the height of their fame in the mid-2000s. The latest...

Hopes of a post-Covid “explosion in revelry” this summer are at risk from staff shortages, uncertainty about the variant first discovered in India and the ongoing closure of many venues, hospitality industry figures have warned.

The number of events being listed is up to to double that of pre-Covid levels, while bookings have surged by as much as 1,000%, ticket companies said, as the nation prepares for the last remaining restrictions on gatherings to be lifted from 21 June.

Under Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown all legal limits on mixing, including caps on the numbers allowed at large events, will be lifted.

But optimism spurred by demand has been tempered by uncertainty amid concerns that the 21 June date could be delayed to curb the spread of the India variant.

The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) said businesses should be given “advance notice” and “financial compensation” if they can’t reopen fully as planned.

Emma...

One country dominates the Pacific’s resources extraction.

Guardian analysis of trade data has revealed that China received more than half the total tonnes of seafood, wood and minerals exported from the region in 2019, a haul worth $3.3bn that has been described by experts as “staggering in magnitude”.

The country’s mass extraction of resources comes as China has deepened its connections with governments across the region, amid a soft power push that sees it rivalling the influence of the US and Australia in the Pacific.

China took more by weight of these resources from the Pacific than the next 10 countries combined, with experts saying China “would easily outstrip” other countries, including Australia, when it comes to “gross environmental impact of its extractive industries”.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic Britain was becoming a more unequal country. The crisis of the past 15 months has hit poorer blue-collar workers harder than better off white-collar workers but official figures last week showed that the gap between rich and poor households was already wide.

The trend is clear. The Office for National Statistics says the Gini co-efficient – one measure of inequality – has been increasing by 0.2 points a year for the past decade. During that time the incomes of the richest 20% – after tax, benefits and inflation were taken into account – rose by 0.9% a year on average, while those of the poorest 20% fell by 0.3% on average.

The ONS said the main reason for the widening gap was cuts to welfare payments, many of which have been frozen since 2016.

The Danish wind power firm Ørsted has warned that up to 10 of its giant offshore windfarms around the UK and Europe will need urgent repairs because their subsea cables have been eroded by rocks on the seabed.

The renewables firm, which is behind plans to build the world’s largest offshore windfarm off the Yorkshire coast at Dogger Bank, told investors it might need to spend up to DKK3bn (£350m) over the next two years to repair the cables.

Ørsted has found that the rocks placed at the base of the wind turbine foundations to prevent the erosion of the seabed were responsible for wearing down the cable protection system which, in a worst case scenario, could cause the cables to fail.

The problem was first discovered earlier this year after its Race Bank offshore windfarm off the Norfolk coast, which can generate enough electricity to power 3.2m homes, suffered an outage due to cable damage caused by the seabed rocks. The windfarm includes 91 turbines...

Cut taxes on the rich. Unleash a wave of entrepreneurship. Growth will pick up and more jobs will be created. Everybody benefits. That, in essence, is trickle down – a theory of economics that Joe Biden wants to consign to the dustbin of history.

The US president was a young politician when the idea that cutting taxes on the well off would be good for the poor first came into vogue in the 1970s. Now he has used his first address to a joint session of Congress to call on the US’s top 1% to pay for his $1.8tn American families plan – higher spending in areas such as education, childcare and infrastructure.

Anticipating pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Biden had a simple message. It was time, he said, to build the country from the middle and the bottom outwards not from the top down. “Trickle down has never worked,” he said.

The post-war story of the US economy can be divided into two distinct periods: a period from the late 40s to the middle of...

EasyJet has urged the UK government to declare most of Europe “green” when it publishes its list of permitted destinations for the summer, citing research that suggests travel would have a very limited impact on the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid in the UK.

The airline said analysis showed mass travel to popular destinations such as Spain, Portugal and Greece would not affect the UK’s Covid case rate, and would risk a small number of hospital admissions.

The government is expected to confirm where and when leisure travel will be allowed in the coming weeks, with hopes that holidays could restart from 17 May.

Under the indicative framework set out this month for a traffic light system to categorise all destinations, only countries with high vaccination rates, low case numbers and reliable data will be on the green list – allowing holidaymakers to avoid quarantine on return.

EasyJet said research commissioned from epidemiologists...

BT is seeking to sell a stake in its pay-TV sport business, which airs content including Premier League and Champions League football, and is understood to have held talks with companies including Amazon, ITV and the sport streaming service Dazn.

The telecoms company, which has invested billions in sports rights to build BT Sport into a viable competitor to Sky, is assessing all options including a full sale, joint venture partnership with a media company or selling a stake.

“Further to media reports, BT can confirm that early discussions are being held with a number of select strategic partners to explore ways to generate investment, strengthen our sports business and help take it to the next stage in its growth,” said the company, which has appointed the investment bank Lazard to explore strategic options. “The discussions are confidential and may or may not lead to an outcome.”

BT has opened talks with a range of potential companies including Amazon,...

Apple sales soared to $90bn (£65bn) in the first three months of 2021, smashing previous records as locked-down consumers bought more iPhones and laptops and demand in China surged.

Revenue was up 54% for the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2020, as the Californian tech giant sold more products in every category.

Apple’s bumper results – sales were 15% higher than analysts expected – led a strong quarter for US tech’s behemoths, which have cemented their dominant positions in the world economy during the pandemic as spending has migrated to digital products and online shopping.

Facebook, the social network, on Wednesday revealed that its revenues for the first quarter of 2021 grew by 48% to $26bn, far exceeding analyst forecasts, and net income nearly doubled to $9.5bn.

Alphabet posted record results on Tuesday, with its main Google subsidiary enjoying a boom in advertising demand as companies tried to reach...

For almost a century, international tax was a byzantine and foreboding world into which few but the cognoscenti would dare to venture. It took the huge upheaval of the 2008 global financial crisis to change the game.

In the absence of modern tax regulation, governments in desperate need of revenues realised how far their sovereignty had been eroded. A race to the bottom had set in, with beggar-thy-neighbour competition leading to plummeting corporate income tax rates and shrinking tax bases.

We have come a long way since then. President Joe Biden’s announcement of an ambitious tax plan for the US has added momentum to a decade-long effort – led by the G20, with the support of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – to restore tax sovereignty. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to achieve a complete overhaul of the international tax system, to provide more certainty for businesses and everyone pays their fair share.

Why is...

The British self-proclaimed reputation for probity seems to have taken a battering recently. If it’s not Boris Johnson’s dubious WhatsApps, it’s David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of the doomed financial services company Greensill. I have to admit my first reaction to the latter was glee at the comeuppance for a former prime minister who once described Nigeria (my country of origin) as “fantastically corrupt”. I thought to myself, look who’s fantastically corrupt now? My second reaction was distaste for my schadenfreude. After all, if my private texts were held up to public scrutiny, I might have much to be ashamed of. If I had easy access to powerful and influential members of the cabinet, who is to say I wouldn’t try to use this access on behalf of my friends? A little more grace, I reminded myself.

Strictly speaking, what has been reported in the Greensill scandal is “cronyism”, the preferential treatment shown to old friends and associates, and not corruption, which...

Unilever’s underlying sales grew in the first three months of 2021 as locked-down consumers continued to keep their kitchen cupboards well stocked, and China’s economy began to “normalise”.

The owner of brands ranging from Ben & Jerry’s to Marmite reported on Thursday that sales increased by 5.7% in the first quarter compared to 2020 once the effects of currency moves and changes to its collection of brands were stripped out.

Overall turnover fell by 0.9%, but currency moves accounted for a decline of 8%.

Unilever emerged from 2020 mostly unscathed as its vast portfolio of products, which also includes Domestos bleach and Dove soap, allowed it to ride through the turbulence of the coronavirus pandemic. It briefly became the FTSE 100’s most valuable company during 2020.

It warned that the pandemic was still causing volatility across the world, as major markets enter and exit lockdowns at different times, causing overnight fluctuations in...

NatWest Group nearly doubled profits in the first quarter, as it credited government support programmes for preventing a wave of customer defaults during the Covid crisis.

The bank said there were now “reasons for optimism” thanks to the success of the UK’s vaccine rollout, meaning it could reduce the pile of cash reserved to cushion the blow of potential customers defaults, particularly among business borrowers, by around £102m.

The move surprised analysts, who had expected NatWest, which put aside £3.2bn to cover bad debts in 2020, to increase its reserves by £251m.

The release, alongside cost cuts and a jump in mortgage lending, helped lift pretax profits by 82% to £946m over the three months to March. That compares with £519m a year earlier, when profits were halved due to a larger-than-expected £800m Covid loan loss provision. The bank easily beat average City forecasts that anticipated profits of £536m for the first quarter.

The NatWest...

The failure of Greensill Capital will cost UK taxpayers up to £5bn, a parliamentary inquiry has heard, as one expert said the lender’s business model was “as close to fraud as you could imagine”.

The former City minister Paul Myners said the government could end up footing the bill of unpaid state-backed loans and social support for thousands of steel workers whose jobs are currently at risk at one of Greensill’s largest borrowers, Liberty Steel, owned by metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta.

The estimate was shared during the Treasury select committee’s first fact-gathering session as part of its inquiry into Greensill’s collapse. It is one of four parliamentary inquiries into the firm’s failure, which has sparked concerns about undeclared government lobbying by former officials – following David Cameron’s attempts to influence ministers on Greensill’s behalf – and the lack of regulation of supply chain finance.

Lord Myners, who was giving evidence alongside...

It was not a knockout quarter to put Elliott Management, the big, aggressive and newly arrived US activist hedge fund, back in its box. GlaxoSmithKline’s revenues fell 18% as patients, sensibly, delayed their GSK shingles vaccinations so they could be jabbed with other people’s anti-Covid juice.

That phenomenon will be around for a while and was expected, but weary shareholders may reflect (again) that there is always something at GSK. The cry: “Why can’t the company be more like AstraZeneca?” has been heard for half a decade for a reason. AstraZeneca’s shares have soared in the period; GSK’s have gone roughly sideways.

Elliott has not said how many shares or derivatives it has bought or what, if anything, it thinks management should do differently. But to think that the hedge fund is sitting on a cure-all alternative strategy seems fanciful. None of the ideas suggested by others for Elliott to push sounds compelling.

Accelerate the demerger of the...