There are signs outside almost every pub, restaurant and hotel dotting Torquay’s harbour: Staff wanted. “It’s been packed solid busy, you can’t get a table anywhere,” said Brett Powis, owner of three hotels in the area including the Riviera and Lincombe Hall. For the hotelier, staff shortages made it harder to take full advantage of the busiest summertime boom in the Devon resort for decades. – Guardian
The digital bank Monzo is muscling in on the UK’s booming “buy now, pay later” market and will be offering its customers credit limits of up to £3,000. Monzo is one of the first UK banks to launch into the fast-growing but controversial BNPL sector, which is dominated by financial technology companies such as the industry leader Klarna and PayPal. Monzo, which has more than 5 million customers, said it had taken the “best bits” of BNPL, credit cards, loans and overdrafts to create its Monzo Flex product, which it is introducing from Thursday. – Guardian
Britain is at risk of a winter energy blackout after a fire cut off a subsea cable that supplies power from France, experts have warned. The blaze at a National Grid substation in Kent shut down an “interconnector” capable of transmitting enough electricity for 1.4m homes. – Telegraph
PwC has revealed that fewer than a fifth of its staff come from a working-class background – and they are typically paid 12 per cent less than colleagues. The accounting firm, disclosing the figures for the first time, said that 14 per cent of its 21,000 employees in Britain come from a lower socioeconomic background, which was defined as having the parent who earned the most working in a routine, manual, craft or service occupation. – The Times
One of the world’s most famous airfields and the home of Top Gear for almost two decades is to be sold by a Cambridge college to an American asset manager in a £250 million deal. Trinity, the richest of Cambridge’s 31 colleges, put Dunsfold Park in Surrey up for sale this year. Having received multiple offers, it is understood that Columbia Threadneedle, the US investment giant, has been selected as the preferred bidder after tabling an offer in the region of £200 million. It is thought that Columbia could end up paying as much as £250 million for the site. – The Times
