British Steel: No10 ‘confident’ it will secure materials to keep plant running April 14, 2025 The UK government is confident it will beat a race against time to keep the British Steel furnaces running after taking control of the plant from Chinese owners Jingye this weekend. Civil servants and steel workers were rushing to secure the raw materials to keep the Scunthorpe site’s furnaces going – which supply Network Rail [...]
Deutsche Bank: The market has ‘lost faith’ in US assets April 9, 2025 A “remarkable” sell-off in the dollar and US Treasuries suggests global markets have lost faith in American assets, and risks sparking an “outright financial war” that could force the Federal Reserve into another round of quantitative easing, Deutsche Bank’s top FX analyst has warned. In a wide-ranging note on Wednesday, George Saravelos said that the [...]
US tariffs: Reeves stresses ‘imperative’ to improve UK-EU trading relations April 9, 2025 Rachel Reeves has stressed it is “imperative” for the UK to improve its trading relationship with the European Union (EU), amid US President Donald Trump’s global trade tariff war. The Chancellor’s comments emerged in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) ahead of a crucial summit with EU leaders in London next month. Reeves told [...]
Rachel Reeves approval rating one point above Trump with UK voters, poll finds April 7, 2025 Rachel Reeves’ approval ratings have slumped since March leaving her just one point more popular than US President Donald Trump with UK voters, a poll has found. The Chancellor’s net approval ratings have declined by 12 points since delivering her Spring Statement last month, leaving Reeves at net -43, just one point above Trump on [...]
Scrapping non-doms could cost UK up to £111bn by 2035, ASI think tank claims April 5, 2025 Scrapping the non-doms tax status could cost the UK up to £111bn by 2035, the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) is warning. The UK could also lose some 44,000 jobs by 2030 if the government enacts its plans to abolish the scheme, the free-market group has suggested. These figures are based on just over half [11,050] [...]
Last orders pushed back as government slashes nightlife red tape April 4, 2025 The UK government is set to overhaul licensing laws to give pubs, clubs, and restaurants greater freedom to operate, aiming to revive the country’s nightlife economy and remove barriers to business growth. Key changes, which were announced by the Treasury on Thursday, include a landmark pilot in London granting Sadiq Khan new powers to review [...]
IFS director: Tariffs risk undermining ‘best case’ OBR forecasts April 1, 2025 Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) director Paul Johnson has raised questions about whether the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s forecasts would remain credible should President Trump slap tariffs on UK goods on Wednesday. The OBR’s report included modelling by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published in January. The IMF’s analysis did not consider the potential [...]
Probe launched into ONS governance and data quality April 1, 2025 The government has launched an independent investigation into the UK’s beleaguered statistics watchdog to ascertain how its official data and surveys have become so unreliable. The remit of the probe – commissioned by the Cabinet Office and UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) – will span the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) culture, leadership and structure, and [...]
Motor finance: Lloyds, Close Brothers and Santander brace for ‘shockwaves’ March 31, 2025 Judgement day nears for some of the UK’s biggest lenders as the motor finance scandal heads to the country’s highest court this week. The Supreme Court will decide whether to uphold the Court of Appeal’s October ruling that it was unlawful for banks to pay a commission to a car dealer without the customer’s informed [...]
HMRC v Snacks: Legal tax battles over the UK’s favourites March 28, 2025 There is one tax that has turned a biscuit into a legal battle and a marshmallow into a courtroom mystery, while causing confusion at businesses