FTSE 100 Live: Gold surges amid Trump tensions; JLR leads growth rebound Markets Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog. Rachel Reeves’ report card for 2025 has received another dim review with fresh figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing growth came in at a sluggish 0.1 per cent in the three months to November 2025. This was led by a modest rebound [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Budget hits hiring market as economy feels pinch Markets Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog. On Friday, the Labour government’s mission for economic growth proved to be not just sluggish but in free fall. The latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) dealt another blow to Rachel Reeves as new data showed production output shrank 0.5 per [...]
Autumn Budget: Reeves must cure British ‘pessimism’ disease Economics Ahead of the Autumn Budget, City Reporter Samuel Norman sits down with top industry names for a Budget Briefing. This week, chief executive of Peel Hunt urges Reeves to use the Budget to start the cure for British pessimism. As Rachel Reeves ruminates over which tax prescription to write to fill her fiscal black hole, [...]
Booming Manchester outshines ‘stagnant’ London November 4, 2025 Greater Manchester’s booming economy is outstripping the rest of the country and throwing into sharp relief the “stagnant” state London has found itself in since the 2008 financial crisis, according to a new report. As Chancellor Rachel Reeves sets out the productivity challenges facing the UK ahead of the Budget, new analysis from Oxford Economics [...]
Retail sales hit highest since 2022 in surprise boost for economy October 24, 2025 Retail sales jumped to their highest level since 2022 in September, boosted by sunny weather that drove a surge in demand for clothing. Fresh figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed retail sales were 0.9 per cent higher than the previous three months. Sales volumes climbed 0.5 per cent in September, a significant boost from [...]
Nobel prize winners’ findings are a wake-up call for UK economy October 17, 2025 This year's Nobel Laureates in economics' warning that growth cannot be taken for granted must urge the UK to act, writes Ben Ramanauskas.
Can Liverpool really add £10bn to its economy? October 13, 2025 The Labour mayor of the Liverpool City Region has unveiled a 10-year plan to create tens of thousands of jobs and add £10bn to the local economy. Steve Rotheram’s “bold and ambitious” plan has been described as a “roadmap” to increasing wages, driving investment, raising living standards and providing better services for the region’s 1.6m [...]
Why abolishing the share tax must be included in the Autumn Budget September 30, 2025 As the UK approaches another budget this Autumn, the country is still leaving significant growth capital off the table, maintaining the lowest retail investor engagement rate in the G7. From 1963 to 2022, retail participation plummeted from 54 per cent to 10.8 per cent and the proportion of UK households directly owning stocks has halved [...]
Natwest chair: Rachel Reeves’ Budget must include radical tax reform September 29, 2025 The chair of banking giant Natwest has called for Rachel Reeves to implement “radical tax reform” in her Autumn Budget. Rick Haythornthwaite has said a “bold long-term plan” to “kick-start growth” would reassure jittery bond markets and “deliver much-needed social benefits”. “This is the time for a 10-year programme of radical tax reform. Time for [...]
One in ten London homes would be hit by ‘mansion tax’ August 20, 2025 A tenth of houses in London would be hit by a ‘mansion tax’ on the sale of houses above £1.5m, according to new data. In London, 10.9 per cent of houses are worth over £1.9m, according to Rightmove, compared to just 1.6 per cent of houses outside the capital, with prices ballooning in the last [...]