Vote For...

Monday is the last possible day to register to vote in the 2015 general election. Anyone wishing to vote must be registered by midnight on Monday or they will not be able to. The Electoral Commission reports that 1.7 million applications to register to vote have been made in the past five weeks, most of them online.The last general election in 2010 saw a voter turnout of 65.1% across the UK, an increase on the two previous elections in 2005 and 2001 when turnout was 61.4% and 59.4% respectively. The 2001 election was the first time since World War Two that turnout had fallen below 70%. Maybe clips like the one below will get people talking more about politics.

Ballot Ballad

McStrike

This is supposed to be a week of celebration at McDonald’s: it is 60 years since the ubiquitous fast-food restaurant opened its first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. Instead, the company is facing its most serious crisis, besieged by intense competition, concerned investors, disenchanted franchisees and disgruntled workers, thousands of whom joined a global “day of action” demanding higher wages.  The protests come even though McDonald’s newly installed chief executive, Steve Easterbrook from Watford, announced a pay rise for 90,000 of its restaurant workers at the start of this month, taking their hourly wage from $9.10 to $9.90 (£6.70).But rather than quell revolt the pay rise seems to have fuelled one – it is a long way short of the $15 an hour many have been calling for and actually ignores the wage demands of 750,000 staff in the US.

McStrike

Frozen Out

Mattel has reported a big jump in losses as its core brand continues to face stiff competition from merchandise linked to Disney's highest-grossing animated movie, Frozen. The toy firm said Barbie sales plunged 14% in its first quarter to 31 March, with Mattel's loss before tax growing to $73.2m (£49.1m) from $9.4m (£6.3m) in the same period last year. The doll, whose history dates back to 1959, and its accessories have faced numerous challenges to its popularity from cautious consumer spending worldwide to the growth of device gaming and other rival products including Lego.

Frozen Out

Very Pretty Green Deal

The former Oasis frontman, Liam Gallagher, is planning to raise funds for his upmarket men’s fashion label, Pretty Green, to expand around the UK and overseas. The singer launched the business in 2009 and has hired the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald to look at his options. Interested private equity firms are said to be valuing the business at about £20m based on its underlying annual profits of about £2m. Although he has said in promotional material for the company that he does not consider it as a “business”, that would value Gallagher’s stake at around £6m. According to reports, Pretty Green had like-for-like sales growth of 33 per cent over the Christmas trading period. Accounts for the company show that it made a loss of £2m in 2013 on revenues of £10.9m.

Pretty Green Deal

Year 11 Revision Resources

Looking for revision resources for GCSE Business? Follow the links below to find all the things you need to get prepared for your summer exams.

AQA GCSE Past Paper Booklet

AQA GCSE Mark Schemes

Quizlet

Business Studies Online Activties

BBC Bitesize GCSE Business

Amazon Dash

The online shopping giant announced a new hardware product called the Dash Button. It's a little hook, decorated with the name of a household brand, which customers can place on the wall and tap to automatically order (or more likely re-order) a specific product.The buttons are available immediately and they are free – though they are available invite-only, for Prime members.

Amazon Dash

Like Pies? Like Candles?

Pie Minister are set to diversify their range and start selling candles. If you like pies and the smell of pies you can now enjoy the smell of pies and meat without the temptation or guilt to eat it. With ‘freshly baked pie’ the new smell to sell houses, these new candles might just set the property world on fire; they’re hotly tipped to  topple current favourites  – baking bread and brewed coffee –  off the top spot.

Find Out More Here