London bank customers to have faces tracked and mood assessed

Banking&finance reporter(wp/es):

Customers popping into a London bank branch from today will have their face tracked and their mood assessed when they leave it.

Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank has installed an Apple Store-inspired “lab” in its Kensington High Street branch with new technology, which includes being able to check bank balances using Amazon’s Alexa voice recognition system.

The project, named Studio B,  features a polished steel portal with a digital display which reacts to  people as they walk in, plus a huge animated video wall and computer games. Facial recognition technology tracks a customer’s journey around the branch and assesses whether they are smiling or frowning when they leave.

Workshops hosted at the new branch will include one educating  children about the future repercussions of impulse buying.

Helen Page, the bank group’s  innovation and marketing director, said: “It doesn’t look anything like a branch or feel like a bank ... people initially thought it was an Apple Store or we were selling phones.

“We want to put the fun back into finance and help customers find practical solutions to the challenges they face.” Asked about privacy  concerns over facial tracking, she said there were still private areas for customers to meet staff.

Celebrities' horror as young man stabbed to death 'on their doorstep'

Crime reporter(wp/es):

Celebrities have today expressed their horror after a 24-year-old man was knifed to death “on their doorstep” in a leafy, south London enclave.

Model Imogen Thomas revealed she was “petrified” to sleep in her home after the victim was stabbed in the neck as he tried to escape an argument that broke out in the heart of ‘Nappy Valley’ in Wandsworth Common.

A passing Au Pair performed first aid on him but he was declared dead at the scene outside Wandsworth Preparatory School which costs £13,000 a year to attend at 7.30pm on Tuesday night.

Forensics were still sweeping the scene last night digging up drains and cutting down bushes as they gathered more evidence.

Former Big Brother contestent Imogen Thomas told of her shock of the killing as her home was cordoned off by police as part of the crime scene.

She said on Twitter: “[The murder was] literally on my door step. So sad. I was petrified sleeping last night. Thoughts are with the victim’s family. RIP.”

Ready Steady Cook star Ainsley Harriott lives in a house overlooking the murder scene and said the killing had a “devastating” impact on his community.

He told the Weastar Times: “It’s devastating for us around here. We are a very close community and this is a shock to us all. There were police cars and emergency services all over the place.

“This knife crime has to stop, I don’t know what can be done. Where do you start?

“If you stop kids carrying knives that may well not put an end to the violence. There are other weapons people can turn to. It’s about education that’s where it must start.

“Wherever you live you have to stop and think, there seems to be another murder every day. We are all talking about this around here. We are very close knit, we are dog walkers and care about our community. This is just awful, awful, awful.”

A TV journalist, who didn’t want to be named, said from his £2.5million house: “Life really is cheap sometimes.

“It’s shocking, I was upstairs when it happened and was waiting for it to be on the news. It’s worrying you don’t wish something like that on your worst enemy. We had that poor kid in Battersea nearby who was killed as well. It just seems never-ending at the moment.

“The emergency services were excellent, I must say. Their response was phenomenal but sadly nothing could be done. It was upsetting to see him go in the ambulance with no-one with him.

“It’s a sad reality but we just hope the killer is brought to justice.”

The murder comes days after Mohammed Hasan, 17, was hacked to death by a machete-wielding gang less than a mile away in a Battersea estate. The Met said it was too soon to make any link between the two deaths.

Nobody has been arrested in connection with the attack in Wandsworth.

Amazon creates 1,200 jobs at warehouse equipped with advanced robotics

Business reporter(wp):

Amazon is to create 1,200 new permanent jobs as it opens a new warehouse in Warrington where staff will work alongside the online retail giant’s robots.

The US group said the new fulfilment centre, part of a significant expansion across the UK, will take its workforce in Britain to 24,000 by the end of this year.

Amazon will be hiring for a range of new roles including operations managers, engineers, human resources and IT specialists. The Warrington site will be one of two, along with Tilbury, due to open this autumn, which will be equipped with advanced Amazon robotics technology. 

“The Amazon teams are dedicated to innovating in our fulfilment centres to increase efficiency of delivery while enabling greater selection at lower costs for our customers,” said Stefano Perego, director of UK customer fulfilment at Amazon UK.

“The introduction of Amazon robotics in Warrington and Tilbury is the latest example of our commitment to invention in logistics on behalf of our employees and our customers.”

The company, which will have 15 fulfilment centres across the UK by the end of this year, said that it is offering “competitive wages and comprehensive benefits” to new staff.

Fufilment centre staff will start on £7.65 an hour minimum, rising to at least £8.15 over their first two years of employment. Employees also receive grants of Amazon shares and a company pension.

“We are thrilled to begin recruitment for 1,200 new permanent roles in Warrington with competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on day one,” said Perego.

The company has already opened one new fulfilment centre this year, Daventry in February, with centres at Doncaster, Warrington and Tilbury to begin operation in the autumn. The Daventry, Doncaster and and Tilbury sites created more than 2,300 new jobs.

Amazon is also opening its first dedicated “receive centre” in Coventry next year, which will act as a central hub to receive and sort millions of products sold by its UK site each year. Recruitment for Coventry, which will create 1,650 jobs, will begin next year.

Angela Merkel attacks British 'illusion' of keeping benefits of EU

Political reporter(wp):

Angela Merkel has said British politicians are still living under the “illusion” that the UK will retain most of its rights and privileges once it leaves the European Union.

Addressing her parliament ahead of this weekend’s EU summit at which European leaders will formally adopt Brexit negotiation guidelines, the German chancellor said: “Countries with a third country status – and that’s what Great Britain will be – cannot and will not have the same or even more rights as a member of the European Union. All 27 member states and the European institutions agree on this.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she continued, “you may think that all this is self-evident. But I have to put this so clearly because I get the impression that some in Great Britain still have illusions about this, and that is a waste of time.”

Merkel also said it made “no sense” to negotiate a future UK-EU relationship without agreement on the UK’s financial commitment to the EU, while also hinting that parallel discussions could be possible once questions about budget contributions had been satisfied.

“We can only make a deal about Britain’s future relationship to the EU once all questions about the terms of its exit can be clarified to a satisfying degree.

“That means the sooner the British government is prepared to find constructive solutions, the sooner we can engage with their desire to already talk during the exit negotiations about the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. But first we need to know how Great Britain sees its future relationship with us.”

Merkel said all 27 members agreed that this could be the only order in which the talks could proceed.

Merkel’s speech is a stern rebuke for Britain, which had been hoping there was some ambiguity in the EU position on whether trade talks could run in parallel with negotiations on separation terms before a financial settlement.

Minutes before the chancellor spoke, the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, was pressed in a BBC interview about whether trade would have to wait until the divorce bill was settled and responded: “We’ll see.”

Merkel said talks about the UK’s financial contributions to the EU budget could not wait until the end of the negotiations but had to be part of the talks from the start. Crucially, the German chancellor said that the financial commitments Britain had entered into would “extend into the period after Britain’s exit” from the bloc.

Her demand for a more constructive approach from Britain reflects growing irritation at the blithe assurances of UK ministers that they can bend the EU27 to their will when talks start. But it is her attack on the “illusions” of the British position on access to the single market that may cause the biggest ripples in Westminster – both for Conservatives and Labour.

The Labour Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, and the government are united in believing they can persuade the EU to provide the benefits of the single market and customs union without agreeing to freedom of movement. With Merkel facing an election of her own later this year against an opponent who says it is inconceivable that lorries and money should be able to cross borders freely, but not people, the German chancellor appears to be making clear she has her own political red lines.

In a speech met with supportive applause by the assembled Bundestag, Merkel also identified the need to protect rights of an estimated 100,000 German citizens living in the UK as her government’s first priority. In return, she added, Germany would be prepared to make a “fair offer” to British citizens living in Germany.

The importance of Merkel’s statement that parallel negotiations made “no sense” lies in British hopes that there was a chink of light on the matter in draft EU negotiating proposals. These suggested that there needed to be only broad agreement that Britain would pay a settlement before talks on trade could begin. But it is increasingly clear that this will leave little room for future haggling in the eyes of Europe’s most powerful leader.

Theresa May, who is already facing calls from British business leaders not to let the divorce bill stand in the way of more valuable trade ties, could find herself having to explain how she had committed the UK to pay tens of billions of euros before she had anything to show for it.