Private sector bounces back but Reeves leaves hospitality reeling January 23, 2026 The UK’s private sector expanded at the fastest rate in nearly two years in the first month of 2026 but the reeling hospitality sector was still feeling the crunch from Labour policy. The latest Flash Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) from S&P Global showed a major uptick in the all-important services sector, which is often seen [...]
Donald Trump hits JP Morgan and Jamie Dimon with $5bn lawsuit January 23, 2026 President Donald Trump has JP Morgan and its top boss, Jamie Dimon, in a $5bn (£3.7bn) lawsuit following claims the banking giant debanked him for political reasons. Earlier this month, Trump blasted America’s biggest bank for “incorrect and inappropriately” discriminating against him after the President alleged JP Morgan stopped offering him services after the Capitol riots [...]
Prison porridge costs taxpayers £165m a year January 22, 2026 Porridge, baked beans and other prison food cost taxpayers a combined £165m a year, City AM can reveal, as questions around spending efficiencies loom over the Ministry of Justice. The government has signed a blockbuster £826.7m deal with a leading catering distributor to supply food for prisoners and staff. BFS Group, a subsidiary of South [...]
Wes Streeting: Progress on NHS delays as private insurance soars January 22, 2026 Employer-provided health insurance coverage has reached a 30-year high, with 4.8m people now covered, as businesses ramped up employment benefits amid the NHS backlog. UK health insurers paid out a record £4bn in 2024, averaging £11m every day, according to new figures by the ABI. Despite NHS data showing that the waiting list fell by [...]
Where does Britain stand in the New World Order? January 22, 2026 A new world order has been declared and described by Canada’s Mark Carney. Is he right, and if so, is there room in it for Britain? Davos, that alpine gathering of the great and the good, is normally a predictably dull affair. To give you a flavour of its worthiness, consider the formal title for [...]
Inflation remains a headache on both sides of the Atlantic January 22, 2026 Donald Trump made many claims in his Davos speech yesterday and there aren’t enough pages in this newspaper to do justice to them all, but his assertion that “inflation has been defeated” is worth considering. With midterm elections coming up Trump knows the cost of living is a real concern, just as it is here, [...]
Legal accounts controversy: Who should fund the broken justice system? January 22, 2026 First, the government tried to go after the LLPs, but that failed. Now its eyes are on law firms’ client accounts under the narrative that it will be used to help the crumbling justice system, but lawyers are seeing it as just another tax raid. Law firms earn substantial income from interest on client accounts, [...]
Scrapping jury trials will only have ‘modest’ impact on backlog January 22, 2026 David Lammy’s controversial plan to restrict jury trials will unlock only “relatively modest reductions in demand given the scale of institutional upheaval”, according to a new report by the Institute for Government (IFG). The government’s plans, which leaked in November, revealed a move to scrap some jury trials to tackle the nearly 80,000 criminal case [...]
High Court to hear Reform’s challenge on cancelled council elections January 21, 2026 Reform UK’s legal challenge against the UK government over plans to delay local elections is set to go to a two-day trial next month. The case focuses on the government’s plan to allow 63 councils to postpone their local elections that were scheduled for May 2026. So far, more than a third of local authorities [...]
FTSE 100 rebounds as Trump rules out taking Greenland by force January 21, 2026 Global markets bounced back into the green on Wednesday after President Donald Trump confirmed the US would not use military action to seize Greenland. In his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said: “All the US is asking for is a place called Greenland”. “We never ask for anything and we never [...]