It said none of the Bank’s earlier rate rises had slowed the consumer, a point echoed by The Economist magazine, which called for a half-point rise.Last week, the Bank of England said growth in consumer borrowing had hit a fresh record, while Nationwide building society said annual house price inflation had hit 20 per cent.But employers’ groups urged the Bank to stick to its plan to raise rates gradually, especially as anecdotal evidence pointed to a slowdown in the housing market. John Cridland, the deputy general of the CBI, the largest employers’ organisation, said: “Any surprise rate move simply risks pushing sterling higher, further squeezing exporters’ already thin profit margins.”Martin Temple, the director general of the EEF, said: “Industry would regard a half-point rise as a step too far. Business leaders appealed to the Bank of England yesterday not to raise interest rates by a half-point this week amid a growing chorus of calls for the Monetary Policy Committee to take tougher action. “These people are our colleagues now, not our contracts,” the spokesman said.The company was also changing from one in which the regions enjoyed autonomy to one in which there was stronger central control.Network Rail believes that when its predecessor Railtrack was sold off by the Government, it was one of the few companies to be privatised and then proceed to take on more staff.”Railtrack frequently used to announce a headcount reduction, but it never delivered We are committed to delivering. And the Railtrack costs had ballooned out of control,” one management source said.In an interim review of the industry, the Rail Regulator Tom Winsor had called for a 31 per cent increase in efficiency. The spokesman said this was part of the drive for lower costs the company had announced in June last year, when it said 2,000 employees would have to go within three years. Last autumn, 600 were made redundant and tomorrow a consultation process would begin with unions over about 900 more redundancies.

He insisted there would be no job losses among signallers or frontline maintenance staff.But management conceded yesterday that the organisation might have to take on more employees in new functions it had been given by the Government.. There are concerns the militants, under increased pressure from the Pakistani military, are now launching a counter-offensive.Suicide bombings, not common in Pakistan, are suddenly on the rise. There have been attacks in the heart of the regime’s power base. The attempted assassination of Mr Aziz was 35 miles from Islamabad.The Pakistani authorities are portraying this as the last, desperate stand of cornered foreign militants who have nowhere left to run, so have decided to go down fighting.

But Pakistani observers say the militants have plenty more places to hide besides South Waziristan, and that the rising violence is cause for concern.. Chinese troops led a display of military might through the streets of Hong Kong yesterday in a bid to boost the appeal of pro-Beijing candidates before legislative elections next month. He said some posts at the organisation had been rendered redundant by the programme to bring maintenance of the network back in-house – a process completed last week.Some of the managers who would lose their jobs were responsible for overseeing the performance of contractors That practice of “man-marking” would no longer be needed. “The downgrading of safety is simply not acceptable,” Mr Crow said.A spokesman for Network Rail, which took over responsibility for the infrastructure from Railtrack, said some staff would be switched to other jobs in the company, but inevitably there would be some element of compulsory redundancy. Mr Crow said: “We will not stand by and watch rail workers pay the price of years of private sector plunder.