Business rates to hammer the West End: ‘This whole policy is nuts’ June 16, 2025 A rise in business rates for more expensive properties is set to hammer valuable areas like London’s West End, a leading investment firm has warned. The policy, which aims to bring down business rates for small properties by raising them for large properties, has been slammed as “unlikely to save the high street” and likely [...]
Car crash interview: City minister trips up over £10bn infrastructure project June 16, 2025 City minister Emma Reynolds was flummoxed by a series of questions about the government’s recent infrastructure announcements in a variously tense and cringe-inducing interview on LBC on Monday morning. Just seconds into the exchange with Nick Ferrari, Reynolds misspoke and called the Dartford Tunnel – in Kent – the Dartmouth Tunnel – in Devon – [...]
Israel-Iran conflict to dominate G7 meeting as Starmer calls for restraint June 16, 2025 The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran is likely to be high on the agenda as world leaders gather in Canada on Monday. Sir Keir Starmer said that the G7 meeting in Alberta would provide an opportunity for allies to make the case for de-escalation in the “fast moving” situation in the Middle East, with President Trump [...]
Lammy set for further talks with counterparts as Iran and Israel exchange fire June 14, 2025 David Lammy is expected to spend the day in talks with counterparts across the Middle East after Iran launched retaliatory attacks against Israel overnight. The Foreign Secretary will be briefed by officials on Saturday and will speak to figures in the Middle East and elsewhere. It comes after conversations with representatives from Iran, Jordan and [...]
Was Reeves’ Spending Review a fintech endorsement? June 14, 2025 Rachel Reeves has promised to back UK fintech and in Labour’s inaugural Spending Review, she piled billions into the tech sector. The Chancellor handed the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) a hefty £16.5bn budget as she took the chop to other departments. DSIT’s expenditure limit is set to grow 7.4 per cent by [...]
Free Thinking: Mel Stride on Farage’s ‘fantasy’ economics and why Tories are different June 13, 2025 City AM's Opinion and Features Editor sits down with Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride for a very special episode of Free Thinking.
Reeves has ‘killed’ Old Kent Road regeneration by scrapping Bakerloo Line extension, say developers June 13, 2025 A major south London regeneration scheme faces an uncertain future after developers warned that the government’s spending review has “killed” the project by not providing funding for the long-expected Bakerloo Line extension. Described as ‘fundamental’ to the regeneration project, the Bakerloo Line extension missed out on funding in Rachel Reeves’ spending review on 11th June. [...]
Private school VAT campaigners lose court challenge June 13, 2025 A group of families with children at private schools have lost their High Court battle over the government’s decision to apply VAT on school fees, with a judge ruling it did not sufficiently infringe on pupils’ human rights. Campaigners had brought legal action against the Treasury, arguing that the change to private schools’ tax status [...]
UK housing market: ‘Not fixed, but less broken’ June 12, 2025 Decades of underinvestment, underbuilding and overegulation have clobbered the housing market. The UK is now short about 4.3m homes, with the worst crisis in cities. Labour, which made solving that crisis a central mission of its first year in government, has made tracks to get Britain building again – reforming planning, trying to bridge the [...]
Council tax spike to pay for Reeves spending plans June 12, 2025 Council tax will rise at the fastest pace in over two decades, fresh analysis has suggested, after a government document said it expected bills to rise to pay for local services. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has pointed to government documents published shortly after the Spending Review ended suggesting Brits will have to pay [...]