Author: Blake Anderson

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.“The last thing we wanted was to become professional artists,” say The Singh Twins as we chat in the verdant surrounds of London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It’s the eve of the world premiere of their exhibition The Singh Twins: Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. “Art was just a hobby,” says Amrit. Her identical twin Rabindra nods slowly. “The more our teachers pushed us towards art, the more determined we were that we weren’t…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Lloyds Banking Group has said it will take an additional £800mn provision to cover the cost of the long-running car finance mis-selling scandal.The move by Lloyds to take an extra charge comes after the Financial Conduct Authority said last week that the mis-selling scandal would cost banks a total of £11bn.Lloyds is the UK’s biggest provider of car finance through its Black Horse business and has already taken a £1.2bn provision to cover the cost of the compensation scheme.According to a statement…

It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when it comes to the built environment, that ambiguity is contentious — particularly when demand for new housing is so urgent. The British government estimates that it needs to build up to 300,000 homes annually to keep pace with the country’s needs; last year a Financial Times analysis put the number closer to 500,000. Historically, such large-scale development may have not been welcomed, but a YouGov study in 2024 found that 61 per cent of Britons support new housebuilding, with only 10 per cent strongly opposed.What the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will on Wednesday attempt to shake off a race row that has gripped her party conference with a speech focused on the economy and a promise to drive down Britain’s deficit.Badenoch will seek to carve out a niche for the Conservatives as the party of spending control in contrast to what Tory officials claim are the “fantasy economics” of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.The Tory leader claims she could save £47bn a year through cuts to areas such as…

The UK secondary office market — lower quality offices, or those in locations that have gone out of fashion — is in a tough spot. Prices are falling, attracting tenants is difficult as work habits change, and a surge in construction costs has made it more expensive to convert the buildings to another use.“There are a load of buildings in the office market that are secondary and are no longer fit for purpose,” says Hugh White, head of national capital markets at BNP Paribas Real Estate. “There’s a lot of small business parks or standalone buildings that have just had…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Rachel Reeves will struggle to convince the UK’s fiscal watchdog that recent government moves can noticeably improve growth to help fill a hole in the public finances worth tens of billions of pounds, economists have warned.The chancellor said on Friday that she wanted the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to give the government credit for policies such as a mooted youth mobility scheme with the EU so she could mitigate the need for fresh tax increases in the Budget on November 26.But…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldUK health secretary Wes Streeting has told the British public not to “pay any attention” to remarks by Donald Trump claiming that the use of paracetamol during pregnancy was linked to autism in children.“There is no evidence to link the use of paracetamol by pregnant women to autism in their children — none,” Streeting said.The health secretary cited a major study conducted in Sweden in 2024 that involved 2.4mn children and did not substantiate claims of a link between the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.What are the five most important decisions you’ll have to make about money in the future? In some ways, it would be easier to suggest 50! I’ve compiled this list with teens and twenty-somethings in mind, but I hope that giving some serious thought to these questions will also help young professionals deal with their financial lives. Mastering MoneyThis article is part of Mastering Money, an FT Schools report for students and teens on how to make good financial decisions. Other articles…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A former British paratrooper on Monday became the first person to stand trial for killings on Bloody Sunday in 1972, when soldiers opened fire on civil rights protesters in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry, fuelling three decades of conflict.“Soldier F”, who cannot be named because of a court order, was shielded from view behind a black curtain in Belfast crown court as the high-profile case into one of the most brutal events in Northern Ireland’s Troubles got under way. Dozens of…

This article is an on-site version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. If you’re not a subscriber, you can still receive the newsletter free for 30 daysGood morning. As I mentioned yesterday, I re-read Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli on a recent trip.I promise that I won’t do reflections on my holiday reading every day, but for today, some more on a stray observation in the book by Tony Blair’s former chief of staff.Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Follow Stephen on Bluesky and X, and Georgina on…