Wallpapering

Retailers across Britain are protesting against a rise in business rates which some claim will drive them out of business. How fortunate that the wallpaper company owned by George Osborne’s family seems exempt, says Andrew Ellson in The Times. The Osborne & Little shop on London’s Kings Road will benefit from “a £17,000 reduction in rates” over the next five years; by contrast, the average shop on the street faces a £41,000 increase. How did the former chancellor’s family firm get so lucky? “I’m not suggesting anything untoward has happened here,” says Paul Turner-mitchell of rates specialist CVS, which revealed the figures. “But it is a genuine mystery.”