Shawbrook weighs Aldermore bid as Firstrand looks to offload challenger bank May 25, 2026 Shawbrook is reportedly weighing up a merger with rival Aldermore after its owner put the challenger bank up for sale. The lender, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange last year, is in the early stages of considering a takeover, according to Sky News’ Mark Kleinman. South Africa-based financial services group Firstrand, which bought Aldermore [...]
UK should learn from Australia’s pension funds May 25, 2026 Australia's pension funds have a long-term, globally minded investment approach that many countries, including the UK, admire.
Industry chiefs slam packaging tax that could push food prices higher May 24, 2026 Industry bosses have hit out at the government and warned that food prices will rise by more than necessary as the packaging tax is set to be introduced. The government had been scrambling to find ways to limit a price surge in the coming months, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves setting out incentives for families to [...]
Oyster Shed: Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone helps pub chain Young’s to biggest day of takings in 200 years May 22, 2026 One of the Square Mile’s best-known watering holes has marked the biggest single day of takings of any venue owned by pub chain Young’s since it was founded nearly 200 years ago, City AM can reveal. And the Oyster Shed had a helping hand from one of the best-known names in UK television: Jeremy Clarkson, [...]
Businesses brace for more layoffs as redundancy warnings climb to post-Pandemic high May 22, 2026 Last year emerged as the most severe year for redundancy warnings since the height of the Covid pandemic, and early 2026 is already accelerating that trend. According to new data from the Liquidation Centre, sourced via an FOI, 2025 was the most severe year for redundancy warnings since 2020, with 315,605 jobs flagged for potential [...]
Rachel Reeves oversees borrowing spike as benefits spending offsets tax haul May 22, 2026 Rachel Reeves oversaw a surge in borrowing in the first month of the financial year as April’s figures hit the highest since 2020 on higher benefit spend. Government borrowing – which marks the difference between total public sector spending and income – topped £24.3bn in April 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). [...]
Business doesn’t want a ‘partnership’ with the state May 22, 2026 Threatening to cap supermarket prices shows this Labour government views business as a mark, not a partner, says Elliot Keck Former US President Ronald Reagan once said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help'”. The modern equivalent is surely “we want to build [...]
No, London’s economy hasn’t lost its lustre. Here’s why May 21, 2026 The FT has once again remembered to write about London, the city in which the paper was founded and where the lion’s share of its staff, and its readership, is based. Though it turns out the pink’un hasn’t many nice things to say. London’s economy has lost its lustre, the paper writes. Among the evidence [...]
PRs: This is how to handle conflict May 21, 2026 As a humanities student, one of the academics I cited regularly was the 20th century philosopher AJ Ayer. Ayer is credited, among other things, with popularising, in the English speaking world, the movement of logical positivism – which, to oversimplify, is a theory of the meaning of statements about the world. Few academics were more [...]
Firms accelerate job cuts as 12-month growth run ends May 21, 2026 Firms have accelerated job cut plans across the private sector as a 12-month run of business growth has come to an end, new data has revealed. Employers have now slashed headcount levels in each of the last 20 months, with the pace of job shedding in May coming at a faster pace, S&P Global researchers [...]