By: Ali Lyon

chief reporter Ali Lyon is the chief reporter at City AM, responsible for covering the full gamut of business, finance and wealth news. He has been at City AM full-time since July 2024. Get in touch with tips via email: ali.lyon@cityam.com. Follow Ali on X: @alilyon_94

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Crane drain: Construction falls to 10-year low

December 22, 2025

Commercial property development in the UK has plunged to its lowest level in over a decade, as tighter monetary conditions and sparse demand continue to weigh on construction. According to a fresh analysis from Costar, just 68m square feet of offices, industrial and retail sites was being developed at the end of September, a 16 [...]
Hospitality business rates set to nearly double by 2028 despite government tax cut claims

December 20, 2025

Hospitality venues across England will see their business rates bill nearly double in the next three years as a result of the government’s controversial overhaul of the commercial property tax. A fresh analysis of government figures found that most pubs, restaurants and hotels will pay over £32,000 more on property tax by 2028, despite ministers [...]
Heathrow ‘under pressure’ amid rising costs

December 19, 2025

Heathrow Airport has warned that rising employment costs and the government’s controversial business rates overhaul will wipe out the additional revenues generated from a record number of passengers passing through the west London hub. In an update to bondholders, the UK’s largest airport revealed its profit had plummeted by 38 per cent in the nine [...]
Bank of England cuts interest rates to near three-year low

December 18, 2025

The Bank of England has delivered a pre-Christmas rate cut, reducing its central interest rate to 3.75 per cent amid a deteriorating labour market and signs price rises will continue to slow into the new year. In a close 5-4 vote that was decided by Andrew Bailey, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) chose to reduce [...]
Britain is ‘too pessimistic’ to succeed

December 18, 2025

Britain is in the grips of an overly pessimistic mindset that is preventing it from taking the risks and making the reforms needed to reawaken its economy, the former chair of Deutsche Bank has said. Dr Paul Achleitner said that while structural issues were largely behind the paucity of growth across Europe and the UK, [...]
Government injects £120m into Ineos’s Grangemouth plant

December 17, 2025

The government has piled over £100m into Britain’s last remaining ethylene plant in Grangemouth, saving hundreds of livelihoods after its owner warned that sky-high energy costs had left it on the brink of closure. Ministers inked a “landmark partnership” with Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos on Wednesday to secure the future of the Falkirk plant, which [...]
FCA boss: Treasury and MPs slowing deregulation push

December 16, 2025

The pedestrian pace of government and parliament is preventing City watchdogs from introducing pro-growth measures fast enough, the boss of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said as he called for the introduction of statutory timetables to ensure the Treasury ratifies deregulation faster. Nikhil Rathi told the Treasury Committee that the FCA was “moving as [...]
Reform government would partially nationalise Rolls-Royce through ‘strategic stake’

December 16, 2025

A Reform government would partially nationalise Rolls-Royce as a quid pro quo for helping it ramp up its small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear programme “as fast as it possibly can”, its policy chief has said. In a wide-ranging interview setting out his party’s plans for the UK economy, Zia Yusuf told City AM that Reform [...]
‘Picking winners? This is about backing champions’ – Reform’s Zia Yusuf on a radical approach to business

December 16, 2025

Reform has by any measure enjoyed an incredible 2025. But for much of the poll-topping year, its economic vision has remained an unknown entity. Ali Lyon met policy chief Zia Yusuf to hear, for the first time, his party’s plans for Britain’s flatlining economy and the millions of businesses in it. Zia Yusuf is feeling [...]
Tribunal backlog hits record high ahead of workers’ rights bill

December 12, 2025

The backlog of employment tribunal cases hit a record high between July and September, in a further sign that the UK’s legal system will struggle to absorb any uptick in unfair dismissal claims caused by the government’s workers’ rights package. According to newly released Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures, there were a record 515,000 open [...]

British Airways travellers hit as 3,000 luggage items stuck in Heathrow

Beer, kits, hospitality and stadia can take Women’s Super League to greater heights

Electra/Persona at the National Theatre review: A dull mash-up of Sophocles and Bergman

By: Ali Lyon

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