‘Fibremaxxing’: How food manufacturers made fibre cool again March 12, 2026 “Fibremaxxing,” the UK’s new healthy eating trend, erupted at the start of 2026, as fibre replaced protein as the go-to fashionable food. Previously mundane, bland foods like prunes and seeded bread surged in popularity, with posts with the hashtags “fibremaxxing” having been viewed more than 150m times on TikTok. Sales of prunes increased 60 per [...]
Is the City still sexy? March 12, 2026 The era of the long boozy lunch and male dominated pints down the pub may be over, but relationships matter more than ever in the Square Mile, says Eva sayers Over glasses of red and lunch at The Quality Chop House (not recommended for vegetarians, like myself), a broker who’s been working in the City [...]
Mandelson wanted a near £550,000 payout – and got £75,000 March 11, 2026 Peter Mandelson demanded a £547,201 payout for the remainder of his time as UK ambassador to the US after being sacked, with a settlement of £75,000 being agreed with the Foreign Office, official documents have shown. In the first tranche of documents to be released by the government relating to Mandelson’s time as ambassador, it [...]
New digital V levels aim to bridge Britain’s AI skills gap March 11, 2026 The government’s new digital V-level is meant to solve two problems at once: the confusion of England’s post-16 qualifications system, and the growing mismatch between what young people learn and what employers now need. From 2027, ‘digital’ will be one of the first three V-level subjects offered alongside education and early years, alongside finance and [...]
Labour’s housebuilding target ‘impossible the day it was announced’ says construction boss March 11, 2026 Labour’s housebuilding target was impossible the day it was announced, the boss of a leading construction materials firm has warned. Rob Wood, chief executive of materials specialist Breedon Group, told City AM the government’s plans to build 1.5m homes by the next general election will fail because Labour is not backing its construction industries. Wood [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Iran war ‘certainly not good’ for UK economy, says Rachel Reeves March 11, 2026 Welcome back to the City AM liveblog for continued coverage of a frenzied week in global markets. The Chancellor has told the Treasury select committee that the ongoing fallout from the Middle east is “certainly not good for the British economy”. Following the “most intense” day of fighting in the region – and just a [...]
Oil shock will be felt well beyond energy markets March 10, 2026 Energy shocks rarely remain confined to energy markets. They propagate through bond markets, fiscal balances and inflation expectations, says Helen Thomas As Winston Churchill once warned: “The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given he is no longer the master of policy, but the slave of unforeseeable and [...]
International Women’s Day: Free markets are not the enemy of feminism March 8, 2026 History tells that if there’s one thing women should fear, it’s not capitalism, it’s the collective, says Victoria Bateman Leftist global histories tell the same story when it comes to women. They present us with a happy world in which women were revered and rewarded by their communities until the advent of capitalism ended this [...]
Grounds for expansion: Airwallex’s Europe chief bets on London in licence pursuit March 6, 2026 As payments giant Airwallex laid out plans to double down on Europe, they turned to a man with experience at a multi-billion dollar deposit holder. The $8bn cross-border specialist was looking for someone to steer the ship amid expansion plans across Europe but in that endeavour didn’t poach a veteran of Wall Street or the [...]
Defence boosts Serco amid asylum hotel decline March 5, 2026 Government defence contracts helped Serco deliver a higher profit in 2025 despite a drop in the use of migrant hotels, once a key revenue stream for the London-listed company. Serco, an outsourcing company that covers government work on everything from migrant hotels to waste collection, was boosted by higher state expenditure both in the UK [...]