Tesco (TSCO) says it has suspended production at a factory in China alleged to have forced foreign prisoners to help make charity Christmas cards and also withdrawn them from sale. The allegations came to light after the Sunday Times reported that Florence Widdicombe, aged six, from Tooting, south London, opened a box of charity Christmas cards from the supermarket and discovered a plea for help inside one of them. The message read: “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qinqpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organization.” It also urged the reader of the message to contact Peter Humphrey, a former journalist who spent 23 months imprisoned at the same Qingpu prison. Florence’s father, Ben Widdicombe, contacted Humphrey, who took the story to the Sunday Times.
Jeff Fairburn, the former chief executive of the housebuilder Persimmon (PSN), has failed to set up a charity almost two years after pledging to do so in an attempt to assuage public and political anger at his “obscene” £85m bonus. Fairburn has not registered a charity with the Charity Commission or made any inquiries about how to set one up, 22 months after he said he would donate a “substantial proportion” of his bonus to a charitable trust. He is also not named as a trustee of any charity in England or Wales. It is not known whether he has donated to any separate existing charity. The revelation that Fairburn appears not to have set up a foundation to donate any of his bonus comes days after an independent review found that Persimmon had built homes so shoddily that it left its customers exposed to an “intolerable risk” in the event of fire.
The government has been accused of handing control away after it approved a US private equity firm’s £4bn takeover of the UK defence company Cobham (COB) despite national security concerns. The deal had been delayed since mid-2019 after fears were raised that Advent International’s acquisition could undermine the country’s security. Cobham’s founding family criticised the decision, which was announced late on Friday, and said the government had timed it cynically before the Christmas break to avoid scrutiny. Cobham, which is based in Dorset and employs 10,000 staff, is considered a pioneering world leader in air-to-air refuelling technology. It has extensive contracts with the British military and also manufactures electronic warfare and communications systems for military vehicles.
