UK government borrowing since April hits £60bn August 21, 2025 The UK government borrowed a total of £1.1bn last month, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), compared to £2.3bn last year and below the fiscal watchdog’s £2.6bn forecast. The total deficit hit £60bn in the months since April, which is £6.7bn more than in the same four-month period of 2024 and the third-highest [...]
Retail giants warn Reeves her tax plans risk UK living standards August 21, 2025 Tesco, Sainsbury’s and John Lewis, along with other UK retail heavyweights, have issued a direct warning to chancellor Rachel Reeves, arguing that her government’s tax policies could undermine its key promise to raise living standards. The retailers claim they are being forced to raise prices in the face of mounting costs, and that additional taxes [...]
Notting Hill Carnival 2025 is make or break for Sadiq Khan August 21, 2025 Mayor Sadiq Khan has staked his reputation – and your cash – on this year’s Carnival going off without a hitch, writes James Ford.
Scotch Whisky is trapped in a tax riddle August 21, 2025 The UK's nonsensical spirit tax regime is an own goal that punishes industries like Scotch Whisky, writes Mark Kent.
GPT-5 is terrible – and that’s a good thing August 21, 2025 GPT-5 failed to wow users, but its less flashy delivery signals a positive shift for AI from at-all-costs advancement to actual use-case.
Moneybox’s wealth focus helps treble inflows to record high August 21, 2025 Moneybox secured its second consecutive year of profitability in 2024 after swathes of new customers poured billions into the firm. The investment platform‘s net inflows more than trebled to £5.8bn, from £1.7bn the year prior – a jump of over 241 per cent. Assets under management also more than doubled to £11.7bn as the fintech’s [...]
Should we be worried about Instagram’s map feature? August 20, 2025 Instagram’s new location-sharing feature, dubbed ‘Instagram Map’, has been rolled out to 170m users, but a journey through the platform reveals a perplexing reality: it’s a digital ghost town. While Instagram’s parent, Meta, has billed the feature as a “new, light way to connect”, many users are finding themselves alone on the map, prompting a [...]
Inside Finsbury Circus Gardens, the City’s biggest green space August 20, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the redesigned Finsbury Circus Gardens. If the Square Mile were to be designed today, it would feature a lot more green space. It wasn’t until the middle of the last century that architects realised the importance of nature in [...]
Gary Neville’s The Overlap and Mark Goldbridge win Bundesliga TV rights August 20, 2025 British Premier League YouTube character Mark Goldbridge and Gary Neville’s The Overlap will broadcast Bundesliga matches after the German top flight confirmed its rights structure. The personality, whose real name is Brent Di Cesare, has specialised in Manchester United hot takes for a number of years, often going viral for reactions to capitulations at Old [...]
Brits call for VPN ban for minors to curb Online Safety Act loopholes August 20, 2025 A majority of Britons believe children under 18 should be banned from using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) following a recent surge, a survey has found. Research from YouGov found that 55 per cent of the public supports a ban for minors, while only 20 per cent think they should be allowed to use them. This [...]