Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.I have complained on gardeners’ behalf since early March about the British weather and its effects at ground level. It is a joy at last to record the opposite, albeit briefly. Sunday June 8 was a dream day for gardening in Britain. Prolonged rain on the Saturday made the soil workable. Weeds could be pulled or dug out easily. If you want to know what makes me happy, it is a day of intermittent cloud, sunshine after rain and damp earth. If…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer, an FT contributing editor, is chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts and former chief economist at the Bank of EnglandRachel Reeves is stuck between two insufferable abstract nouns: profligacy and austerity. The chancellor stands accused by those to her right of overborrowing, imperilling the nation’s creditworthiness. She simultaneously stands accused by the left of underspending and imperilling the nation’s citizens. Such is a politician’s lot.While both claims are exaggerated, the government appears to be more politically exercised by the…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Health sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Queen Mary University of London is to develop a large biomedical campus in a deprived part of the East End, after signing a deal with the government to buy 80,000 sq m of land alongside its existing Whitechapel campus.Colin Bailey, Queen Mary’s principal, estimated that development of the largely derelict site into a world-class life sciences centre would cost about £750mn, which the university would fund in partnership with the private and public sector. Although many UK universities are showing signs of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Councils in poorer northern areas of England are set to be given £2bn of more generous Whitehall grants at the direct expense of more prosperous, typically southern authorities, which may have to raise council tax to fill the gap. The UK government has announced an eight-week consultation on a “progressive” redistribution of local authority funding to tilt the balance of taxpayer support towards areas with the highest needs.The move by Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government is likely to benefit many councils run by…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Britain’s MPs have narrowly voted to legalise assisted dying, backing a landmark bill and paving the way for one of the most consequential societal shifts in decades.The legislation to allow anyone with six months or less to live to seek help to end their own life was carried by 314 to 291 votes and will now be pushed through to the final stage of scrutiny in the House of Lords. The bill would give anyone with a prognosis of less than six months…

Will he? Won’t he? President Donald Trump has given little indication as to whether America will join in the conflict between Israel and Iran. So where does this leave the UK and its assets in the region? How does the prime minister play his hand with the president, and what does that mean for his relationship with his own party, especially given Labour’s track record? Host George Parker is joined by the FT’s Middle East editor Andrew England, alongside regular guests Robert Shrimsley and Miranda Green, to discuss Sir Keir Starmer’s options. Follow George on Bluesky or X: @georgewparker.bsky.social, @GeorgeWParker;…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.US private equity group Apollo will provide £4.5bn in debt financing to support the UK’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, easing mounting financial pressure on the delayed and over-budget project. The investment-grade package will be provided as unsecured debt at an interest rate just below 7 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter. The debt package addresses a significant gap in the finances of the Somerset-based project, which has struggled with a shortfall since China General Nuclear Power Group…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Pro-Palestinian activists broke into the UK’s largest Royal Air Force base on Friday, claiming to have damaged military aircraft in a protest against British support for Israel’s war in Gaza.The campaign group Palestine Action said its members broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, sprayed red paint into the engines of two Airbus Voyager planes, and “caused further damage” with crowbars. A video posted by the group on X shows two protesters crossing the runway on electric scooters before spraying paint into the…

I wake to a lingering dampness. The air feels cold – and thick, as if it’s heaving with the historic breath of every hiker who has ever spent the night here. There are bodies in sleeping bags scattered around; they look like multicoloured logs. I roll onto my side, and pick up my phone to check my Oura sleep score. No service.I wouldn’t say it was a comfortable night’s rest. It’s 5am and I slept in a bothy, an ancient farmland refuge deep in the heart of Wales. My back feels stiff, as it should considering I’m lying on a…

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. Vicky Foxcroft, the Labour MP for Lewisham North and former shadow minister for disabled people, has resigned as a government whip in opposition to the government’s planned welfare cuts.I don’t have much new to say on this: Labour’s pre-election promises on tax and spend are forcing them into a painful collision with their own backbenchers, while their various attempts to shift…