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Germany’s president has urged the US to remember that Europe is an “indispensable” partner, as fears among western allies about a potential second Donald Trump presidency overshadowed a visit by US leader Joe Biden to Berlin on Friday.

In a thinly veiled reference to Trump’s first term in office, when he threatened to quit Nato and lambasted the then-chancellor Angela Merkel, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that a few years ago the distance between the US and Europe had grown “so wide that we almost lost each other”.

President Biden’s election in 2020, Steinmeier said, had “restored Europe’s hope in the transatlantic alliance literally overnight”.

He added: “In the months to come, I hope that Europeans remember that America is indispensable for us. And I hope that the Americans remember your allies are indispensable for you.”

Steinmeier, who awarded Biden Germany’s highest order of merit, gave voice to the deep foreboding in Europe about the upcoming US election and stressed that US-German friendship was “existentially important”. 

Biden, visibly moved by Steinmeier’s glowing tribute, praised German leaders for their response to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, hailing their “wisdom to recognise a turning point in history, an assault on a fellow democracy and also on principles that upheld 75 years of peace and security in Europe”.

He and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have moved in lockstep on Ukraine over the past two and a half years, gradually stepping up their military support for Kyiv while also trying to avoid escalation between Moscow and Nato.

Though the two leaders have at times drawn criticism from Ukraine and its supporters for their cautious approach, Biden said that Germany and the US had “stood together to support the people of Ukraine in their fight, for democracy, for their very survival”.

Speaking before his meeting with Scholz, Biden stressed the need for Ukraine’s supporters to “sustain our resolve”.

He also urged Berlin to maintain its commitment to spending at least 2 per cent of its GDP on defence — a target required by Nato but one that Germany only reached last year for the first time since the early 1990s. “Please keep it up, because it matters,” Biden said.

The swansong visit by the US president to Europe, originally scheduled for last week but postponed because of the recent hurricanes that hit the US, comes as European leaders brace for the US election on November 5.

They have raced to beef up their military aid for Ukraine amid fears that a Trump victory would lead to the end of support for Kyiv and see him push for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give up chunks of territory to Russia as part of peace talks.

Steinmeier said that the election result was “only America’s choice to make”. But he added: “We as Europeans have a choice too. We have a choice to do our part — to be unwavering in our support for Ukraine, to invest in our common security, to invest in our shared future. And . . . to stand by the transatlantic alliance no matter what.”

During his one-day visit to the German capital, Biden will also meet French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to discuss Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.

It all started with the website. The usual content had been wiped, leaving a black background, a new logo and an email sign-up link.

People speculated on social media about what this meant, then the envelopes containing plain black postcards arrived by post. The tiny, embossed words on these cards were barely noticeable. People took to social media to show off their envelopes or flogged them on eBay.

When a framed poster appeared in the window of a Sussex pub, mainstream media picked it up and it was clear something was going on.

I had no idea what guerilla marketing was until I got sucked into the unusual marketing’ campaign for The Cure’s first studio album in 16 years. This caught me by surprise, which is precisely the point. Guerilla marketing is supposed to involve unconventional marketing methods that rely on word of mouth or going viral on social media.

So, instead of official announcements through mainstream media via press releases, fans have been the first to hear about developments through a series of clues, hints and teasers. It’s been fun.

Like financial advice, music is a business where you ideally want your existing audience or clients to grow with you while picking up a decent number of new ones. My eldest son, Liam, is studying the business side of music as part of his Level 3 diploma in music and performance, so we’re having more discussions about this sort of thing.

When Liam told me he was learning about the pros and cons of signing to an indie or major record label, it reminded me of the debate about whether to join a small or big advice firm, or an independent or restricted proposition. If I was an adviser or a musician, I know exactly which way I’d go and why.

But trying to maintain a loyal customer base that appreciates what you do while futureproofing your business by appealing to a new younger audience is more difficult when you’re well established.

Like financial advice, music is a business where you ideally want your existing audience or clients to grow with you

I would want to stay true to myself and my brand, doing what I’d always done to some degree because I wouldn’t want to alienate existing customers. You build a loyal customer base by putting yourself out there in terms of values, services and marketing messages that are distinct from your competitors. Those things obviously ‘click’ with long-term supporters.

I wouldn’t want to chase new markets if it meant becoming something I wasn’t. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want the confines of doing what I’d always done and how I’d always done it because ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. I’d want to try new things, move with the times and secure the future of my business with a healthy pipeline of new customers. But I have no idea how I’d try to achieve the required balance.

The Cure have done this with varying degrees of success in the last 46 years. It has ridden out periods of being eclipsed by the latest trends such as Britpop. It has been slated for changes in musical direction rather than delivering more of what went before. If it didn’t sound like the classic ‘Pornography’ or ‘Disintegration’ albums, some people didn’t want to know.

But this hasn’t prevented the band from maintaining a loyal fan base while attracting a steady stream of younger fans over the world. Even without any new music releases, strong live performances and social-media interest has kept it all going.

At Money Marketing I’ve been working on features that tell me the challenge for financial services is to cater for older and existing clients while engaging with a younger new audience in a way that appeals to them.

Research from FTRC around how advice firms are delivering information to clients and from pension administrator Trafalgar House show there is a balance to be had between digital and face-to-face communications. Firms need to communicate with clients in the way they want. But if preferences vary within a client base, how easy is it to be all things to everyone?

I’m convinced this would be simpler to navigate if we had a wider mix of age groups giving advice. I thought the recruitment of younger advisers was improving, but after speaking to recent graduates who want to become advisers, I’m not so sure.

Firms are reluctant to take on young people as trainees because it’s harder for someone with minimal life experience to build meaningful relationships with clients

It took one graduate from the prestigious St Andrews University in Scotland nearly four months and around 200 applications to get a job in the advice sector as an administrator. Many graduates really want to be trainee advisers, but the roles just aren’t there, so they have no choice but to go down the admin and paraplanning route.

One young adviser who is doing this told me it doesn’t teach people the skills needed to be an adviser and that moving from a senior paraplanner to a junior adviser is tricky as it involves a pay cut. “Employers don’t tend to see the progression in the same way as I do,” he said.

A different source has told me firms are reluctant to take on young people as trainee advisers because it’s harder for someone with minimal life experience to build meaningful relationships with clients.

I sort of get that – I’m married with kids and could easily relate to someone going through a divorce. Not because I’m experiencing it but because I understand what marriage means and conversely what no longer being married would mean.

In my early 20s, I could sympathise to the extent that I’d experienced a relationship break-up, but I wouldn’t have understood divorce as I would now.

But I don’t think it lets the advice profession off the hook in not having enough employed roles for people who want to advise. If you’re old enough to know what you want to do with your life, you’re old enough to be taught how to do it properly.

Making self-employment or associated roles the default strikes me as not the right way to do it. Let’s try something new.

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An increase in employer’s national insurance would have far-reaching consequences for freelancers, small business owners and some of the country’s most vulnerable workers, tax experts have warned.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer this week refused to rule out an increase in employer national insurance contributions — a tax that could raise billions of pounds towards the country’s coffers at the October 30 Budget.

Employer’s NI is currently charged at 13.8 per cent on all employees’ earnings above £175 per week. The main options are raising NI on earnings, or NI introduced on employers’ pension contributions.

“If the cost of hiring rises, businesses will need somehow to shoulder this. It goes without saying that the smallest businesses will be hit the hardest,” said Seb Maley, chief executive of tax adviser Qdos.

“For small owner-managed businesses a rate rise could be crippling,” added Rebecca Seeley Harris, founder of ReLegal Consulting. As a result, many would either choose not to hire anyone or consider using freelance workers.

“The problem is that engaging someone off-payroll these days is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty,” she said.

For instance, changes in recent years to the off-payroll working tax rules, known as IR35, have created a complicated landscape for businesses and freelance workers.

One result has been a rise in the number of contract or temporary workers using so-called umbrella companies.

These are payroll agencies that take on a contractor’s financial administration, managing their tax and pay. But the umbrella industry is unregulated and while there are many legitimate operators, industry experts warn there are also many scams.

Chris Bryce, chief executive of the Freelancer & Contractor Services Association, said an employer NI rate rise would have “an effect on all working people but has particularly far-reaching and, frankly, deeply concerning” implications for umbrella workers — leading to reductions in take-home pay.

In some cases, it could “push some umbrella workers’ gross pay dangerously close to — or even below — the national minimum wage”, he said, adding this would also create compliance issues for employers and will need to be addressed by recruitment agencies and their clients.

Crawford Temple, chief executive of Professional Passport, an independent assessor of payment intermediary compliance, said: “A proposed rise in employers’ NICs will penalise workers in umbrellas as the monies received by the umbrella firms include all the employers’ costs. The higher the costs the less money there is for workers — so they will see a drop in their take-home pay.”

Higher costs would make it harder for legitimate umbrella operators, who work on very narrow margins, Temple added, and this environment would “provide an even greater incentive for non-compliant providers to gain a stronger foothold in the market”.

“Umbrella company workers are working people but, have so far been afforded no protection from the Labour government,” said Seeley Harris. Such workers were “particularly vulnerable”, she added.

However, other commentators said that while there were some risks for certain types of freelancers, an increase in employers’ NI could have positive effects for other self-employed people.

Maley said that IR35 changes to the private sector implemented in 2021 had resulted in some businesses taking a blanket approach by adding their contingent workforce to the payroll. Increased employers’ NI could “force businesses facing higher costs to rethink this approach and potentially open the door for more opportunities for freelancers and contractors,” he said.

Dave Chaplin, chief executive and founder of contracting authority ContractorCalculator, predicted the potential in employers’ NI would “see more firms hiring contractors”.

He said: “While contractor day rates may appear higher than equivalent permanent staff costs, the long-term savings [for employers] are significant — there’s no ongoing salary commitment once a project ends, no pension contributions, and crucially, no employers’ NI to worry about.

“It’s a win-win situation,” he said. “Businesses gain flexibility and cost control by hiring talent on tap on an as needs basis, while contractors typically earning higher rates contribute more to the Treasury through their tax payments.”

A SUPERMARKET giant is trialling a big change to its self-service checkouts.

The move would mean that shoppers don’t need a member of staff to help them scan a weekly food shop.

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Sainsbury’s is currently testing a giant hybrid till with a scanner on a moving conveyor belt.

This would give shoppers more space to scan and pack bigger trolleys.

Sainsbury’s is currently trialling them in select stores before it decides whether to roll them out more widely.

To use the tills shoppers would load their items onto the conveyor belt, scan each one and then pack them into their own bags.

The tills are a similar size to manned checkouts that are currently in all big supermarkets.

But introducing these tills could divide shoppers.

Currently, self-service checkouts are very small and are typically used only when buying a basket of goods.

Customers who are doing their weekly shop usually use bigger tills which are operated by a member of staff.

These are often popular with older people or families who need help scanning and packing their shopping.

If the number of manned tills falls then this could mean longer waits for shoppers who do not want to scan their own items.

But those who are used to scanning and packing their own food may save time when doing their shopping.

The checkouts are currently being trialled in the Witney and Cobham stores in west Oxfordshire.

Sainsbury’s says that no decisions have been made on a further roll-out.

It says that it will continue to offer a range of checkout types for customers including self-checkout, Smart Shop and serviced tills.

How to save money on your food shop

Consumer reporter Sam Walker reveals how you can save hundreds of pounds a year:

Odd boxes – plenty of retailers offer slightly misshapen fruit and veg or surplus food at a discounted price.

Lidl sells five kilos of fruit and veg for just £1.50 through its Waste Not scheme while Aldi shoppers can get Too Good to Go bags which contain £10 worth of all kinds of products for £3.30.

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Sainsbury’s also sells £2 “Taste Me, Don’t Waste Me” fruit and veg boxes to help shoppers reduced food waste and save cash.

Food waste apps – food waste apps work by helping shops, cafes, restaurants and other businesses shift stock that is due to go out of date and passing it on to members of the public.

Some of the most notable ones include Too Good to Go and Olio.

Too Good to Go’s app is free to sign up to and is used by millions of people across the UK, letting users buy food at a discount.

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Olio works similarly, except users can collect both food and other household items for free from neighbours and businesses.

Yellow sticker bargains – yellow sticker bargains, sometimes orange and red in certain supermarkets, are a great way of getting food on the cheap.

But what time to head out to get the best deals varies depending on the retailer. You can see the best times for each supermarket here.

Super cheap bargains – sign up to bargain hunter Facebook groups like Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK where shoppers regularly post hauls they’ve found on the cheap, including food finds.

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“Downshift” – you will almost always save money going for a supermarket’s own-brand economy lines rather than premium brands.

The move to lower-tier ranges, also known as “downshifting” and hailed by consumer expert Martin Lewis, could save you hundreds of pounds a year on your food shop.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said, “We are always exploring new ways to offer our customers the best possible choice and convenience.

“Our trial in Cobham and Witney is the latest example of that and we are listening to colleague and customer feedback.”

Other cashless changes

Self-service checkouts have become loathed by some shoppers as they are often used as a way to reduce the number of staff in store.

Earlier this year Sainsbury’s introduced new barrier systems which require self checkout shoppers to scan their receipts before they leave the store.

Asda also angered shoppers earlier this year when it introduced self-checkout only hours in some of its stores.

Meanwhile, Amazon and Tesco both offer “just walk out” shopping as another way to reduce the number of staff needed in store.

Sainsbury’s supermarket giant is also trialling digital touch-screen stations which will help customers to find products in the store.

The screens could mean that customers will not need to ask a member of staff for help.

They will also provide information such as recipes.

But Sainsburys’ chief executive Simon Roberts told The Grocer in April that Sainsbury’s would keep “at least one” staffed checkout within all stores.

He also added that many customers enjoy using self-checkouts.

“If you visit one of our supermarkets, what you’ll see is definitely more self checkouts than a number of years ago, because actually a lot of customers like the speedy checkout,” he said.

“Over the last year, where we’ve put more self checkouts in, we’re always making sure that the traditional kind of belted checkout is there.”

The changes come after the announcement of cost-cutting measures at the supermarket.

In February Roberts set a cost saving target of £1 billion for the next three years.

He said he expects to boost the supermarket’s profit by prioritising food, Nectar card and convenience through its “Next Level” Sainsbury’s strategy.

Under the plans the money it saves will be reinvested in the business to give customers “great value, quality and service”.

When it is complete the group will have cut £2.5 billion of costs over the last decade.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

At 21, Gianluca Rindone got his first job making bodies for Fiat’s Maserati cars alongside his father, a Sicilian who had been lured to Turin’s auto boom in the 1970s. He thought it would be a lifelong career but after three decades Rindone has been furloughed, falling victim to the carmaker’s decision to suspend production at its last Turin factory.

Rindone’s own sons — aged 15 and 8 — are unlikely to follow his path into Fiat’s workforce, he says.

“If there is not a job for the father, how can there be a job for the son?” frets the 48-year-old, who is relying on help from his retired parents to pay his mortgage and bills. “When you see a factory with nearly 100 years of history stop, the heart cries. If Stellantis goes, Turin dies. It’s as simple as that.”

Rindone’s lament is one heard across Europe, as the continent’s auto industry — and its 14mn jobs — faces an existential crisis, squeezed between the soaring costs of developing cleaner vehicles to meet the EU’s tough emissions standards and the cheaper models from Chinese rivals.

Fiat-owner Stellantis, which also makes the Peugeot, Citroën and Jeep brands, last month warned on profits, while Volkswagen, Europe’s largest automaker, is considering closing down plants in Germany for the first time in its history.

Once the pride of Italian manufacturing and known as “Mamma Fiat” for its extensive cradle-to-grave welfare schemes, Fiat was subsumed into Stellantis in 2021, after years of troubles.

The company last month temporarily halted car production at Fiat’s historic Mirafiori plant due to lack of consumer demand for the Fiat 500e — the electric version of the iconic vehicle that democratised Italian car ownership in the 1960s and 1970s. Initially scheduled to last four weeks, the plant’s shutdown has been extended until at least the end of October.

The crisis has far-reaching political consequences for Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is battling to boost economic growth and stabilise Italy’s fragile public finances, as well as for the whole of the EU.

The Italian car industry, including its vast network of parts suppliers, employs some 250,000 people and accounts for over 5 per cent of gross domestic product. But since 2018 Italy’s total car production has halved to 500,000 vehicles.

On Friday the country’s auto workers descended on Rome to demand Brussels, which has banned the sale of new combustion engine cars after 2035, provide more financial support for the green transition. The protesters also want Meloni’s government to work with Stellantis, the country’s only large carmaker, to tackle the sector’s challenges to save their jobs.

But Rome and Stellantis disagree on how to do this. Meloni has remonstrated against the production of Fiat models outside Italy, exacerbating tensions.

Italian industry minister Adolfo Urso has been pushing the EU to reconsider the looming curbs on combustion engine sales but Stellantis’ CEO Carlos Tavares disagrees on whether this is the right approach.

“Instead of arguing about the regulations, it’s better to work hard to comply in the most efficient manner,” he told Italian lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing last week.

Tavares also complained about Italy’s high energy prices and Rome’s paltry spending on incentives to support purchases of electric vehicles by the middle class — which he said was just a fifth of what other European countries had spent.

Yet he insisted Stellantis was committed to making cars in Italy, calling Fiat’s factories a “strong asset” for the company.

“We love our plants and believe they are the right answer to the challenges we have in the future,” he said. “That’s why we don’t sell them to the Chinese.” 

Such blandishments ring hollow to autoworkers in Turin, where Fiat was founded in 1899, and which prospered during Italy’s postwar car boom. “Turin was constructed for Fiat, but today we don’t have Fiat. Stellantis is a multinational company, and we know [they] go where costs are cheapest,” Rindone said

Fiat’s Turin workforce has already been steadily declining since the late 1990s, with four other factories closing in recent decades. While Stellantis denies it plans to close Mirafiori, many workers suspect the company wants to quietly wind down the plant by waiting for its labour force — whose average age is now 57 — to retire.

Many workers have already accepted generous buyout offers.

“We are the last generation hired,” said furloughed worker Fabbio Mosesso, 53, who joined Fiat nearly 36 years ago. “The business is not spending money to incentivise EV purchases, but to push people to leave their jobs.”

Autoworker and union representative Giacomo Zulianello, 58, accused Stellantis of “bleeding us”, adding that “the complete killing of Mirafiori is too much even for Tavares. But in reality, Mirafiori is already closed.”

Michaela San Filippo, 51, a second-generation Fiat assembly line worker also on furlough, said she and fellow workers were struggling financially, even skipping on medical expenses. “You have to renounce everything that is not necessary,” she said. “You don’t live; you just survive.”

Stellantis has put new businesses into Mirafiori, including an EV battery testing centre, a unit recovering and recycling car parts, and a new assembly line for transmissions for Fiat 500 hybrids, due to start production in 2026.

Part of the factory also houses an exhibition of vintage Fiat cars. Yet marking the 125th anniversary of Fiat’s founding this summer, Urso expressed anguish at the factory’s diminishing output.

“Fiat is Turin,” said the minister, a member of Meloni’s rightwing Brothers of Italy party. “It was the greatest industrial plant in Europe, and we can’t accept that it is becoming a mere industrial museum.”

Not everyone is pessimistic. Stefano Lo Russo, Turin’s mayor, said the city was undergoing a transformation not dissimilar to the era when cars replaced horse-drawn carriages.

“When we moved from horses to cars, we stopped having a horse supply chain in the city and we started to have engine mechanics,” Lo Russo said. “It was progress. New technologies mean change.”

He said Turin’s carmaking history and its engineering colleges were supporting a vibrant new aerospace industry, underpinned by activities of France’s Thales and Italian defence champion Leonardo.

“The real vocation of the city is not only automotive — Turin is the city of engineering and manufacturing,” Lo Russo said. “We can work on cars, satellites, aeroplanes. More than a city of cars, is a city of engineers.” 

David Avino, a former Italian military officer and software engineer, chose Turin to launch his space venture Argotech in 2008, offering space services and astronaut training as well as making small satellites. Employing around 170 people in the city, Argotech is actively recruiting, although Avino said the space sector needed at least another decade to grow to scale.

“If everyone keeps investing . . . it will be effective in 10 or 15 years. But it’s important to start,” he said.  

Andrea Giordano, 36, joined Argotech after his previous employer, a leading car components company, furloughed its Turin labour force earlier this year.  

“My hope is that like the auto boom of the 1970s, this city will have the aerospace boom,” said Giordano, a warehouse operator. “In the meantime it’s going to be hard. We are going to have to tighten our belts.” 

Additional reporting by Kana Inagaki in London

BUDGET airline Ryanair will be launching its first-ever flights to Turkey from the UK later this year.

Later this year, Ryanair will operate two new routes from London Stansted to Bodrum and Dalaman in Turkey.

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The no-frills airline started flying to Turkey in 2018, with routes from Bratislava and Dublin.

Six years after first launching flights to Turkey, Brit holidaymakers will be able to fly to the country using the budget airline.

Flights for Bodrum will leave London Stansted at 6.45am before arriving in Turkey at 12.35pm local time.

Return flights will then leave Bodrum at 13.35pm, touching down in the UK at 2.40pm.

One-way fares will start from as little as £29.99, with flights launching on December 1.

Bodrum has been dubbed the “St Tropez of Turkey” because of the superyachts that bob in the city’s bays.

The Turkish city also has a pristine promenade as well as designer shops on every corner, making it a magnet for the rich and famous.

A-listers like Mick Jagger, Kate Moss, Tom Hanks and Bill Gates have all been spotted on holiday in Bodrum.

Arguably, one of Bodrum’s main draws is its 65 beaches, including Bitez Beach, Kumbahçe Beach and Central Bodrum City Beach.

The Turkish city also sits on the site of Halicarnassus, which once held the Mausoleum — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Other archeological draws include a 15th-century castle and the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, which houses one of the oldest prehistoric exhibitions in the world.

And just outside, there is the village of Etrim, where families have been making traditional Turkish rugs for hundreds of years.

Ryanair services to Dalaman will begin one day later on December 2, 2024.

Flights to Dalaman will leave London Stansted at 6am, landing in Turkey at 12.50pm.

Return services will then leave Dalaman at 2.45pm, arriving back in the UK at 3.45pm.

One of Dalaman’s most famous attractions is the rock tombs of Fethiye, built into the huge cliff faces.

But just like Bodrum, Dalaman also has a beautiful coastline lined with beach hotels like the 4H Holiday Village AQI Turkiye and Sunway Hotel.

Next year, Sun Express will start flying from Newcastle to
Dalaman.

Meanwhile, this airport has warned passengers to keep to strict luggage rules despite having the new scanners in place.

And this airport security guard revealed the mistakes that get passengers held up most frequently.

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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Germany’s president has urged the US to remember that Europe is an “indispensable” partner, as fears among western allies about a potential second Donald Trump presidency overshadowed a visit by US leader Joe Biden to Berlin on Friday.

In a thinly veiled reference to Trump’s first term in office, when he threatened to quit Nato and lambasted the then-chancellor Angela Merkel, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that a few years ago the distance between the US and Europe had grown “so wide that we almost lost each other”.

President Biden’s election in 2020, Steinmeier said, had “restored Europe’s hope in the transatlantic alliance literally overnight”.

He added: “In the months to come, I hope that Europeans remember that America is indispensable for us. And I hope that the Americans remember your allies are indispensable for you.”

Steinmeier, who awarded Biden Germany’s highest order of merit, gave voice to the deep foreboding in Europe about the upcoming US election and stressed that US-German friendship was “existentially important”. 

Biden, visibly moved by Steinmeier’s glowing tribute, praised German leaders for their response to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, hailing their “wisdom to recognise a turning point in history, an assault on a fellow democracy and also on principles that upheld 75 years of peace and security in Europe”.

He and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have moved in lockstep on Ukraine over the past two and a half years, gradually stepping up their military support for Kyiv while also trying to avoid escalation between Moscow and Nato.

Though the two leaders have at times drawn criticism from Ukraine and its supporters for their cautious approach, Biden said that Germany and the US had “stood together to support the people of Ukraine in their fight, for democracy, for their very survival”.

Speaking before his meeting with Scholz, Biden stressed the need for Ukraine’s supporters to “sustain our resolve”.

He also urged Berlin to maintain its commitment to spending at least 2 per cent of its GDP on defence — a target required by Nato but one that Germany only reached last year for the first time since the early 1990s. “Please keep it up, because it matters,” Biden said.

The swansong visit by the US president to Europe, originally scheduled for last week but postponed because of the recent hurricanes that hit the US, comes as European leaders brace for the US election on November 5.

They have raced to beef up their military aid for Ukraine amid fears that a Trump victory would lead to the end of support for Kyiv and see him push for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give up chunks of territory to Russia as part of peace talks.

Steinmeier said that the election result was “only America’s choice to make”. But he added: “We as Europeans have a choice too. We have a choice to do our part — to be unwavering in our support for Ukraine, to invest in our common security, to invest in our shared future. And . . . to stand by the transatlantic alliance no matter what.”

During his one-day visit to the German capital, Biden will also meet French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to discuss Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.

It all started with the website. The usual content had been wiped, leaving a black background, a new logo and an email sign-up link.

People speculated on social media about what this meant, then the envelopes containing plain black postcards arrived by post. The tiny, embossed words on these cards were barely noticeable. People took to social media to show off their envelopes or flogged them on eBay.

When a framed poster appeared in the window of a Sussex pub, mainstream media picked it up and it was clear something was going on.

I had no idea what guerilla marketing was until I got sucked into the unusual marketing’ campaign for The Cure’s first studio album in 16 years. This caught me by surprise, which is precisely the point. Guerilla marketing is supposed to involve unconventional marketing methods that rely on word of mouth or going viral on social media.

So, instead of official announcements through mainstream media via press releases, fans have been the first to hear about developments through a series of clues, hints and teasers. It’s been fun.

Like financial advice, music is a business where you ideally want your existing audience or clients to grow with you while picking up a decent number of new ones. My eldest son, Liam, is studying the business side of music as part of his Level 3 diploma in music and performance, so we’re having more discussions about this sort of thing.

When Liam told me he was learning about the pros and cons of signing to an indie or major record label, it reminded me of the debate about whether to join a small or big advice firm, or an independent or restricted proposition. If I was an adviser or a musician, I know exactly which way I’d go and why.

But trying to maintain a loyal customer base that appreciates what you do while futureproofing your business by appealing to a new younger audience is more difficult when you’re well established.

Like financial advice, music is a business where you ideally want your existing audience or clients to grow with you

I would want to stay true to myself and my brand, doing what I’d always done to some degree because I wouldn’t want to alienate existing customers. You build a loyal customer base by putting yourself out there in terms of values, services and marketing messages that are distinct from your competitors. Those things obviously ‘click’ with long-term supporters.

I wouldn’t want to chase new markets if it meant becoming something I wasn’t. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want the confines of doing what I’d always done and how I’d always done it because ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. I’d want to try new things, move with the times and secure the future of my business with a healthy pipeline of new customers. But I have no idea how I’d try to achieve the required balance.

The Cure have done this with varying degrees of success in the last 46 years. It has ridden out periods of being eclipsed by the latest trends such as Britpop. It has been slated for changes in musical direction rather than delivering more of what went before. If it didn’t sound like the classic ‘Pornography’ or ‘Disintegration’ albums, some people didn’t want to know.

But this hasn’t prevented the band from maintaining a loyal fan base while attracting a steady stream of younger fans over the world. Even without any new music releases, strong live performances and social-media interest has kept it all going.

At Money Marketing I’ve been working on features that tell me the challenge for financial services is to cater for older and existing clients while engaging with a younger new audience in a way that appeals to them.

Research from FTRC around how advice firms are delivering information to clients and from pension administrator Trafalgar House show there is a balance to be had between digital and face-to-face communications. Firms need to communicate with clients in the way they want. But if preferences vary within a client base, how easy is it to be all things to everyone?

I’m convinced this would be simpler to navigate if we had a wider mix of age groups giving advice. I thought the recruitment of younger advisers was improving, but after speaking to recent graduates who want to become advisers, I’m not so sure.

Firms are reluctant to take on young people as trainees because it’s harder for someone with minimal life experience to build meaningful relationships with clients

It took one graduate from the prestigious St Andrews University in Scotland nearly four months and around 200 applications to get a job in the advice sector as an administrator. Many graduates really want to be trainee advisers, but the roles just aren’t there, so they have no choice but to go down the admin and paraplanning route.

One young adviser who is doing this told me it doesn’t teach people the skills needed to be an adviser and that moving from a senior paraplanner to a junior adviser is tricky as it involves a pay cut. “Employers don’t tend to see the progression in the same way as I do,” he said.

A different source has told me firms are reluctant to take on young people as trainee advisers because it’s harder for someone with minimal life experience to build meaningful relationships with clients.

I sort of get that – I’m married with kids and could easily relate to someone going through a divorce. Not because I’m experiencing it but because I understand what marriage means and conversely what no longer being married would mean.

In my early 20s, I could sympathise to the extent that I’d experienced a relationship break-up, but I wouldn’t have understood divorce as I would now.

But I don’t think it lets the advice profession off the hook in not having enough employed roles for people who want to advise. If you’re old enough to know what you want to do with your life, you’re old enough to be taught how to do it properly.

Making self-employment or associated roles the default strikes me as not the right way to do it. Let’s try something new.

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An increase in employer’s national insurance would have far-reaching consequences for freelancers, small business owners and some of the country’s most vulnerable workers, tax experts have warned.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer this week refused to rule out an increase in employer national insurance contributions — a tax that could raise billions of pounds towards the country’s coffers at the October 30 Budget.

Employer’s NI is currently charged at 13.8 per cent on all employees’ earnings above £175 per week. The main options are raising NI on earnings, or NI introduced on employers’ pension contributions.

“If the cost of hiring rises, businesses will need somehow to shoulder this. It goes without saying that the smallest businesses will be hit the hardest,” said Seb Maley, chief executive of tax adviser Qdos.

“For small owner-managed businesses a rate rise could be crippling,” added Rebecca Seeley Harris, founder of ReLegal Consulting. As a result, many would either choose not to hire anyone or consider using freelance workers.

“The problem is that engaging someone off-payroll these days is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty,” she said.

For instance, changes in recent years to the off-payroll working tax rules, known as IR35, have created a complicated landscape for businesses and freelance workers.

One result has been a rise in the number of contract or temporary workers using so-called umbrella companies.

These are payroll agencies that take on a contractor’s financial administration, managing their tax and pay. But the umbrella industry is unregulated and while there are many legitimate operators, industry experts warn there are also many scams.

Chris Bryce, chief executive of the Freelancer & Contractor Services Association, said an employer NI rate rise would have “an effect on all working people but has particularly far-reaching and, frankly, deeply concerning” implications for umbrella workers — leading to reductions in take-home pay.

In some cases, it could “push some umbrella workers’ gross pay dangerously close to — or even below — the national minimum wage”, he said, adding this would also create compliance issues for employers and will need to be addressed by recruitment agencies and their clients.

Crawford Temple, chief executive of Professional Passport, an independent assessor of payment intermediary compliance, said: “A proposed rise in employers’ NICs will penalise workers in umbrellas as the monies received by the umbrella firms include all the employers’ costs. The higher the costs the less money there is for workers — so they will see a drop in their take-home pay.”

Higher costs would make it harder for legitimate umbrella operators, who work on very narrow margins, Temple added, and this environment would “provide an even greater incentive for non-compliant providers to gain a stronger foothold in the market”.

“Umbrella company workers are working people but, have so far been afforded no protection from the Labour government,” said Seeley Harris. Such workers were “particularly vulnerable”, she added.

However, other commentators said that while there were some risks for certain types of freelancers, an increase in employers’ NI could have positive effects for other self-employed people.

Maley said that IR35 changes to the private sector implemented in 2021 had resulted in some businesses taking a blanket approach by adding their contingent workforce to the payroll. Increased employers’ NI could “force businesses facing higher costs to rethink this approach and potentially open the door for more opportunities for freelancers and contractors,” he said.

Dave Chaplin, chief executive and founder of contracting authority ContractorCalculator, predicted the potential in employers’ NI would “see more firms hiring contractors”.

He said: “While contractor day rates may appear higher than equivalent permanent staff costs, the long-term savings [for employers] are significant — there’s no ongoing salary commitment once a project ends, no pension contributions, and crucially, no employers’ NI to worry about.

“It’s a win-win situation,” he said. “Businesses gain flexibility and cost control by hiring talent on tap on an as needs basis, while contractors typically earning higher rates contribute more to the Treasury through their tax payments.”

A SUPERMARKET giant is trialling a big change to its self-service checkouts.

The move would mean that shoppers don’t need a member of staff to help them scan a weekly food shop.

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Sainsbury’s is currently testing a giant hybrid till with a scanner on a moving conveyor belt.

This would give shoppers more space to scan and pack bigger trolleys.

Sainsbury’s is currently trialling them in select stores before it decides whether to roll them out more widely.

To use the tills shoppers would load their items onto the conveyor belt, scan each one and then pack them into their own bags.

The tills are a similar size to manned checkouts that are currently in all big supermarkets.

But introducing these tills could divide shoppers.

Currently, self-service checkouts are very small and are typically used only when buying a basket of goods.

Customers who are doing their weekly shop usually use bigger tills which are operated by a member of staff.

These are often popular with older people or families who need help scanning and packing their shopping.

If the number of manned tills falls then this could mean longer waits for shoppers who do not want to scan their own items.

But those who are used to scanning and packing their own food may save time when doing their shopping.

The checkouts are currently being trialled in the Witney and Cobham stores in west Oxfordshire.

Sainsbury’s says that no decisions have been made on a further roll-out.

It says that it will continue to offer a range of checkout types for customers including self-checkout, Smart Shop and serviced tills.

How to save money on your food shop

Consumer reporter Sam Walker reveals how you can save hundreds of pounds a year:

Odd boxes – plenty of retailers offer slightly misshapen fruit and veg or surplus food at a discounted price.

Lidl sells five kilos of fruit and veg for just £1.50 through its Waste Not scheme while Aldi shoppers can get Too Good to Go bags which contain £10 worth of all kinds of products for £3.30.

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Sainsbury’s also sells £2 “Taste Me, Don’t Waste Me” fruit and veg boxes to help shoppers reduced food waste and save cash.

Food waste apps – food waste apps work by helping shops, cafes, restaurants and other businesses shift stock that is due to go out of date and passing it on to members of the public.

Some of the most notable ones include Too Good to Go and Olio.

Too Good to Go’s app is free to sign up to and is used by millions of people across the UK, letting users buy food at a discount.

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Olio works similarly, except users can collect both food and other household items for free from neighbours and businesses.

Yellow sticker bargains – yellow sticker bargains, sometimes orange and red in certain supermarkets, are a great way of getting food on the cheap.

But what time to head out to get the best deals varies depending on the retailer. You can see the best times for each supermarket here.

Super cheap bargains – sign up to bargain hunter Facebook groups like Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK where shoppers regularly post hauls they’ve found on the cheap, including food finds.

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“Downshift” – you will almost always save money going for a supermarket’s own-brand economy lines rather than premium brands.

The move to lower-tier ranges, also known as “downshifting” and hailed by consumer expert Martin Lewis, could save you hundreds of pounds a year on your food shop.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said, “We are always exploring new ways to offer our customers the best possible choice and convenience.

“Our trial in Cobham and Witney is the latest example of that and we are listening to colleague and customer feedback.”

Other cashless changes

Self-service checkouts have become loathed by some shoppers as they are often used as a way to reduce the number of staff in store.

Earlier this year Sainsbury’s introduced new barrier systems which require self checkout shoppers to scan their receipts before they leave the store.

Asda also angered shoppers earlier this year when it introduced self-checkout only hours in some of its stores.

Meanwhile, Amazon and Tesco both offer “just walk out” shopping as another way to reduce the number of staff needed in store.

Sainsbury’s supermarket giant is also trialling digital touch-screen stations which will help customers to find products in the store.

The screens could mean that customers will not need to ask a member of staff for help.

They will also provide information such as recipes.

But Sainsburys’ chief executive Simon Roberts told The Grocer in April that Sainsbury’s would keep “at least one” staffed checkout within all stores.

He also added that many customers enjoy using self-checkouts.

“If you visit one of our supermarkets, what you’ll see is definitely more self checkouts than a number of years ago, because actually a lot of customers like the speedy checkout,” he said.

“Over the last year, where we’ve put more self checkouts in, we’re always making sure that the traditional kind of belted checkout is there.”

The changes come after the announcement of cost-cutting measures at the supermarket.

In February Roberts set a cost saving target of £1 billion for the next three years.

He said he expects to boost the supermarket’s profit by prioritising food, Nectar card and convenience through its “Next Level” Sainsbury’s strategy.

Under the plans the money it saves will be reinvested in the business to give customers “great value, quality and service”.

When it is complete the group will have cut £2.5 billion of costs over the last decade.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

At 21, Gianluca Rindone got his first job making bodies for Fiat’s Maserati cars alongside his father, a Sicilian who had been lured to Turin’s auto boom in the 1970s. He thought it would be a lifelong career but after three decades Rindone has been furloughed, falling victim to the carmaker’s decision to suspend production at its last Turin factory.

Rindone’s own sons — aged 15 and 8 — are unlikely to follow his path into Fiat’s workforce, he says.

“If there is not a job for the father, how can there be a job for the son?” frets the 48-year-old, who is relying on help from his retired parents to pay his mortgage and bills. “When you see a factory with nearly 100 years of history stop, the heart cries. If Stellantis goes, Turin dies. It’s as simple as that.”

Rindone’s lament is one heard across Europe, as the continent’s auto industry — and its 14mn jobs — faces an existential crisis, squeezed between the soaring costs of developing cleaner vehicles to meet the EU’s tough emissions standards and the cheaper models from Chinese rivals.

Fiat-owner Stellantis, which also makes the Peugeot, Citroën and Jeep brands, last month warned on profits, while Volkswagen, Europe’s largest automaker, is considering closing down plants in Germany for the first time in its history.

Once the pride of Italian manufacturing and known as “Mamma Fiat” for its extensive cradle-to-grave welfare schemes, Fiat was subsumed into Stellantis in 2021, after years of troubles.

The company last month temporarily halted car production at Fiat’s historic Mirafiori plant due to lack of consumer demand for the Fiat 500e — the electric version of the iconic vehicle that democratised Italian car ownership in the 1960s and 1970s. Initially scheduled to last four weeks, the plant’s shutdown has been extended until at least the end of October.

The crisis has far-reaching political consequences for Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is battling to boost economic growth and stabilise Italy’s fragile public finances, as well as for the whole of the EU.

The Italian car industry, including its vast network of parts suppliers, employs some 250,000 people and accounts for over 5 per cent of gross domestic product. But since 2018 Italy’s total car production has halved to 500,000 vehicles.

On Friday the country’s auto workers descended on Rome to demand Brussels, which has banned the sale of new combustion engine cars after 2035, provide more financial support for the green transition. The protesters also want Meloni’s government to work with Stellantis, the country’s only large carmaker, to tackle the sector’s challenges to save their jobs.

But Rome and Stellantis disagree on how to do this. Meloni has remonstrated against the production of Fiat models outside Italy, exacerbating tensions.

Italian industry minister Adolfo Urso has been pushing the EU to reconsider the looming curbs on combustion engine sales but Stellantis’ CEO Carlos Tavares disagrees on whether this is the right approach.

“Instead of arguing about the regulations, it’s better to work hard to comply in the most efficient manner,” he told Italian lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing last week.

Tavares also complained about Italy’s high energy prices and Rome’s paltry spending on incentives to support purchases of electric vehicles by the middle class — which he said was just a fifth of what other European countries had spent.

Yet he insisted Stellantis was committed to making cars in Italy, calling Fiat’s factories a “strong asset” for the company.

“We love our plants and believe they are the right answer to the challenges we have in the future,” he said. “That’s why we don’t sell them to the Chinese.” 

Such blandishments ring hollow to autoworkers in Turin, where Fiat was founded in 1899, and which prospered during Italy’s postwar car boom. “Turin was constructed for Fiat, but today we don’t have Fiat. Stellantis is a multinational company, and we know [they] go where costs are cheapest,” Rindone said

Fiat’s Turin workforce has already been steadily declining since the late 1990s, with four other factories closing in recent decades. While Stellantis denies it plans to close Mirafiori, many workers suspect the company wants to quietly wind down the plant by waiting for its labour force — whose average age is now 57 — to retire.

Many workers have already accepted generous buyout offers.

“We are the last generation hired,” said furloughed worker Fabbio Mosesso, 53, who joined Fiat nearly 36 years ago. “The business is not spending money to incentivise EV purchases, but to push people to leave their jobs.”

Autoworker and union representative Giacomo Zulianello, 58, accused Stellantis of “bleeding us”, adding that “the complete killing of Mirafiori is too much even for Tavares. But in reality, Mirafiori is already closed.”

Michaela San Filippo, 51, a second-generation Fiat assembly line worker also on furlough, said she and fellow workers were struggling financially, even skipping on medical expenses. “You have to renounce everything that is not necessary,” she said. “You don’t live; you just survive.”

Stellantis has put new businesses into Mirafiori, including an EV battery testing centre, a unit recovering and recycling car parts, and a new assembly line for transmissions for Fiat 500 hybrids, due to start production in 2026.

Part of the factory also houses an exhibition of vintage Fiat cars. Yet marking the 125th anniversary of Fiat’s founding this summer, Urso expressed anguish at the factory’s diminishing output.

“Fiat is Turin,” said the minister, a member of Meloni’s rightwing Brothers of Italy party. “It was the greatest industrial plant in Europe, and we can’t accept that it is becoming a mere industrial museum.”

Not everyone is pessimistic. Stefano Lo Russo, Turin’s mayor, said the city was undergoing a transformation not dissimilar to the era when cars replaced horse-drawn carriages.

“When we moved from horses to cars, we stopped having a horse supply chain in the city and we started to have engine mechanics,” Lo Russo said. “It was progress. New technologies mean change.”

He said Turin’s carmaking history and its engineering colleges were supporting a vibrant new aerospace industry, underpinned by activities of France’s Thales and Italian defence champion Leonardo.

“The real vocation of the city is not only automotive — Turin is the city of engineering and manufacturing,” Lo Russo said. “We can work on cars, satellites, aeroplanes. More than a city of cars, is a city of engineers.” 

David Avino, a former Italian military officer and software engineer, chose Turin to launch his space venture Argotech in 2008, offering space services and astronaut training as well as making small satellites. Employing around 170 people in the city, Argotech is actively recruiting, although Avino said the space sector needed at least another decade to grow to scale.

“If everyone keeps investing . . . it will be effective in 10 or 15 years. But it’s important to start,” he said.  

Andrea Giordano, 36, joined Argotech after his previous employer, a leading car components company, furloughed its Turin labour force earlier this year.  

“My hope is that like the auto boom of the 1970s, this city will have the aerospace boom,” said Giordano, a warehouse operator. “In the meantime it’s going to be hard. We are going to have to tighten our belts.” 

Additional reporting by Kana Inagaki in London

BUDGET airline Ryanair will be launching its first-ever flights to Turkey from the UK later this year.

Later this year, Ryanair will operate two new routes from London Stansted to Bodrum and Dalaman in Turkey.

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The no-frills airline started flying to Turkey in 2018, with routes from Bratislava and Dublin.

Six years after first launching flights to Turkey, Brit holidaymakers will be able to fly to the country using the budget airline.

Flights for Bodrum will leave London Stansted at 6.45am before arriving in Turkey at 12.35pm local time.

Return flights will then leave Bodrum at 13.35pm, touching down in the UK at 2.40pm.

One-way fares will start from as little as £29.99, with flights launching on December 1.

Bodrum has been dubbed the “St Tropez of Turkey” because of the superyachts that bob in the city’s bays.

The Turkish city also has a pristine promenade as well as designer shops on every corner, making it a magnet for the rich and famous.

A-listers like Mick Jagger, Kate Moss, Tom Hanks and Bill Gates have all been spotted on holiday in Bodrum.

Arguably, one of Bodrum’s main draws is its 65 beaches, including Bitez Beach, Kumbahçe Beach and Central Bodrum City Beach.

The Turkish city also sits on the site of Halicarnassus, which once held the Mausoleum — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Other archeological draws include a 15th-century castle and the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, which houses one of the oldest prehistoric exhibitions in the world.

And just outside, there is the village of Etrim, where families have been making traditional Turkish rugs for hundreds of years.

Ryanair services to Dalaman will begin one day later on December 2, 2024.

Flights to Dalaman will leave London Stansted at 6am, landing in Turkey at 12.50pm.

Return services will then leave Dalaman at 2.45pm, arriving back in the UK at 3.45pm.

One of Dalaman’s most famous attractions is the rock tombs of Fethiye, built into the huge cliff faces.

But just like Bodrum, Dalaman also has a beautiful coastline lined with beach hotels like the 4H Holiday Village AQI Turkiye and Sunway Hotel.

Next year, Sun Express will start flying from Newcastle to
Dalaman.

Meanwhile, this airport has warned passengers to keep to strict luggage rules despite having the new scanners in place.

And this airport security guard revealed the mistakes that get passengers held up most frequently.

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