Saudi Arabia aiming for £17bn sports sector valuation by 2030 April 8, 2025 The world’s newest major sports player Saudi Arabia aims to have a sports sector worth $21bn (£16.5bn) by 2030. It comes as the Gulf state confirmed the sector was currently worth $8.5bn (£6.7bn) in 2025 having been worth just $1.3bn (£1bn) in 2016. The entirety of the UK’s sports sector contributes around £100bn to the [...]
FTSE and Europe in the red as US markets open on a downturn March 31, 2025 The latest escalation in Trump’s trade war painted global markets red on Monday. This new headache came ahead of Trump’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ on April 2, which has investors bracing for a broad set of fresh tariffs. The President will slap 25 per cent tariffs on all automotive imports in the US from Wednesday, with [...]
Unlocking growth, delivering sustainability: London Stansted’s vision for the future March 27, 2025 | Sponsored The last few months have seen the new government make clear what it thinks about aviation’s role in achieving its growth mission. Through successive announcements about airport expansion, the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Transport Secretary have been among the senior Cabinet voices making clear a strong aviation sector is good for growth, and compatible with [...]
The Spring Statement takes us back to square one March 27, 2025 It might not have been a Budget, but the Chancellor may well wish that it had been. Constrained by her fiscal rules and her own insistence that yesterday’s statement would not constitute a major event, Rachel Reeves was left shuffling the few cards she held in search of a better hand. The search was in [...]
Analysis: Why Reeves faces political pressure over the Spring Statement March 25, 2025 Over the next 24 hours, Rachel Reeves will be putting the finishing touches to Wednesday’s Spring Statement. It marks her second fiscal event as Chancellor, and – despite the promised manifesto commitment of “one major fiscal event a year” – the economic backdrop, and wider political pressure, makes it hard to see the contents of [...]
Over half of business leaders expect a recession this year March 17, 2025 Business leaders’ confidence is at a “crossroads” just weeks ahead of the Government’s tax hikes kicking in, according to fresh research. BCG’s Centre for Growth surveyed 1,500 bosses in its “State of UK Business” report and found 57 per think a recession is likely this year. This follows Friday’s release from the Office for National [...]
GDP shrinks in January as UK economy prepares for upcoming tax hikes March 14, 2025 The UK economy underperformed expectations in January. According to the latest set of gross domestic product (GDP) figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in January as output was dragged down by a sharp drop in output in the production sector. Over the three months to [...]
Households feeling poorer despite wealth jump March 7, 2025 Six in ten UK households do not feel financially comfortable despite their wealth having risen by an average of 12 per cent in the last year thanks to better savings rates and good investment performance. According to a fresh study looking at wealth across Britain, the mean household has seen its assets – spanning savings, [...]
Net Zero: weak economic growth, high energy prices and stagnant productivity? March 5, 2025 How many times have we heard the argument that there is no trade-off between pursuing Net Zero and economic growth? The argument lies at the heat of the country’s economic, climate and environmental policy debate. The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, repeats the mantra at every opportunity – “clean energy and Net Zero equals good jobs [...]
A win on the world stage masks mounting trouble at home March 4, 2025 Keir Starmer has won plaudits for his decision to increase defence spending (albeit by less than the amount he’s given Ed Miliband to run a pretend energy company) and voters appear to be firmly behind the PM’s decision to fund this modest splurge by raiding the international development budget. The latest City AM Freshwater Strategy [...]