Author: Blake Anderson

The 1986 neo-noir crime drama Mona Lisa portrays the area around King’s Cross station, in London, as a squalid, hellish realm of prostitutes and drug lords, a landscape of vice and exploitation. It could have been the story of at least half a dozen mainline train stations in major urban hubs across the world at the time. It was not a place you would want to buy a home. Little changed in the next decade or so. When Nicky Fuller bought a two-bedroom flat in a converted warehouse in Ice Wharf, on the station’s doorstep, in 1999, it was still the world…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Brussels is drafting proposals to tear up the EU accession system used since the cold war, replacing it with a contentious two-tier model that could fast-track Ukraine’s entry in any peace deal to end Russia’s invasion. The overhaul plan under discussion at the European Commission, while preliminary, is already unsettling EU capitals alarmed at an “enlargement-lite” approach with sweeping implications for the union, according to seven senior officials involved in the talks. Ukraine, which became a formal EU candidate country soon after…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.I was born in Devon on a wild, witchy night and lived there until I was about four years old, when we moved to London. My childhood memories are very much in the setting of my granny’s house. It was a 16th-century thatched cottage in the middle of nowhere on Dartmoor, and there was always a roaring fire in the background – very spooky, very Wuthering Heights. She would take me up to the moors and point out dewdrops on cobwebs, and she’d call patches of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The City of London is encouraging top bankers, lawyers and executives to push positive messages about the UK to counter rising disinformation about crime that threatens investment in Britain.The intervention comes amid a sharp increase in the amount of social media posts spreading fake or misleading news that is fuelling false narratives about safety in the country, including claims that the capital has become dangerous and lawless. The government, police and cyber experts have already expressed alarm about the creeping spread of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Ministers are set to promise a new version of HS2’s cancelled leg between Birmingham and Manchester as part of an overhaul of rail infrastructure in the north.On Wednesday, the government will announce its much-delayed plans for major new and upgraded east-west rail links across the north of England, in a project known as Northern Powerhouse Rail.The plans will include a commitment to a new Birmingham to Manchester line after NPR is delivered, according to two people familiar with the matter.Labour has not…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Automobiles myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Sales of new cars in the UK topped 2mn for the first time since before the pandemic as BYD and other Chinese brands increased their share in Europe’s second-largest electric vehicle market.Some 2.02mn cars were registered in Britain last year, up 3.5 per cent from 2024 and compared with 2.31mn sales in 2019, according to annual figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders on Tuesday. “It’s obviously not a full recovery,” said SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes. “If you strip out…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The number of irregular migrants arriving in the UK by small boats jumped by 13 per cent in 2025 to more than 41,000, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s vow to “smash the gangs” trafficking people from France.The annual total of 41,472, barring any late revisions to Home Office data for the final days of last year, is the second-highest on record, surpassed only in 2022 when almost 46,000 people crossed the English Channel.Irregular migration has surged up the political…

SEEFresh artwork at London restaurant Sketch Maske-XXXVI, 2019, by Jonathan Baldock, to be displayed at Sketch from 13 January © Tood-White Art PhotographyWhen: from 13 JanuaryClick: sketch.london“I’ve always imagined Sketch as a living, ever-changing work of art,” says Algerian-born restaurateur Mourad Mazouz of the Mayfair hotspot he opened in 2002. Alongside the infamous egg-shaped loos, the Gallery restaurant has “continuously evolved”: it’s been adorned with drawings by David Shrigley, textiles by Yinka Shonibare and, from 13 January, British artist Jonathan Baldock will take the stage. The London-based artist is bringing a series of playful and colourful ceramic “masks” to the walls…

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to London2025 marks our third publication of the FT’s annual list of London’s best new restaurant openings of the year — a hat trick of coming to the same conclusion. It has been a bumper year for restaurant launches, despite the increasingly challenging economic environment faced by hospitality. That sentiment seems as potent as ever, as over the past 12 months announcements snowballed through our inboxes and fuelled endless conversations about how many new spots were joining the ranks this year, while industry figures across the UK increasingly joined forces to lobby…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Germany’s parliament is set to agree to more than €50bn in military purchases on Wednesday, rounding off a bumper year as the EU’s largest nation ploughs ahead with a vast rearmament.Members of the Bundestag’s budget committee, which has the power to block or approve all significant weapons purchases, have been asked by officials to sign off on projects including a €21bn order for clothing and protective equipment for soldiers, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.Other contracts include a €4bn deal…