Author: Blake Anderson

Warren Stephens took control of his family’s investment bank in 2005 after the death of his father Jack, just as Wall Street entered a debt bubble that would nearly collapse the global financial system three years later.But Stephens, Donald Trump’s pick to be the US’s next ambassador to the UK, was hardly a banker in the style of hard-charging rivals in New York. While Bear Stearns and others collapsed in 2008 under hugely levered balance sheets, Stephens Inc, the firm founded by grandfather Witt during the Great Depression, survived thanks to its decision to carry debt of just two times…

“A villainous place full of filthy-looking people,” declared the politician and journalist William Cobbett (1763-1835) of Deal, the coastal town on Kent’s eastern tip. With its long, low shoreline and proximity to France, the place has long provided easy access for all manner of invaders — and enjoyed a heyday of piracy and debauchery.How things change. The beach — where, on a clear day, you can see the continent — is still pivotal to Deal’s appeal. But newcomers now have a more genteel agenda, seeking to put down roots in its Georgian seafront town houses and historic cottages, and relish…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Lee Child, Malorie Blackman and Penguin Random House have called on ministers to reform the English literature curriculum in schools in England, warning that writers of colour are under-represented in the classroom. The call to make school syllabuses more reflective of social diversity — which has been organised by the publisher PRH and backed by other authors including Dawn French, Ali Smith and Stephen Fry — comes as the Labour government consults on an overhaul of the curriculum. In a letter to…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The head of the British military has warned the world is on the brink of a third nuclear age with an “almost total absence” of guardrails to keep it safe.Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said this new era, which followed the first nuclear age of the cold war and the disarmament efforts that followed it, was “more ambiguous and more dangerous than we have known in our careers”.The central question, Radakin said, was whether western countries were “able to recognise that one era…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sir Keir Starmer will on Thursday seek to revitalise his faltering government by setting targets intended to convince disgruntled voters he is making progress on their priorities, and to spur Whitehall into action.Starmer’s “plan for change” will include milestones such as boosting living standards or making streets safer. But the upcoming announcement was on Wednesday branded “an emergency reset five months into his premiership” by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.Although Starmer will claim the new milestones align with voters’ priorities, Labour insiders say…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Rocket-maker Orbex is suspending development of a spaceport in the Scottish Highlands and will move launch operations to a rival site run by SaxaVord in the Shetland Islands. The Anglo-Danish company will halt construction at the Sutherland site, which has received more than £10mn in public funding since 2018, in order to focus on investment in two rockets, it said on Wednesday.However, the company may resume development of Sutherland within the next three years, said Orbex chief executive Phillip Chambers. “The UK needs…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sir Keir Starmer has refused to repeat his manifesto pledge to make Britain the fastest growing economy in the G7, as a new report suggested that the US and Canada were outpacing the UK.Asked by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to affirm the pledge on Wednesday, Starmer told MPs that the UK was on course to be the fastest growing major European economy over the next two years, but stopped short of reiterating the G7 line. The prime minister is instead expected on…

A UK-led operation has uncovered a multibillion-dollar money laundering scheme run out of London, Moscow and Dubai that enabled Russian spies and European drug traffickers to evade sanctions using cryptocurrency.The UK’s National Crime Agency said on Wednesday that its “Operation Destabilise” investigation centred on two companies — Smart and TGR — that acted as a financial hub for cash-rich global criminals and sanctioned individuals relying on cryptocurrency outside the banking system. The NCA said the network had been used by clients including the Kinahan cartel, Irish cocaine traffickers linked to numerous contract killings, as well as funding ransomware groups, and…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Tata Steel’s UK business recorded an almost fourfold increase in pre-tax losses last year after it wrote down the value of its legacy steelmaking operation in south Wales as part of a taxpayer-funded move to greener forms of steelmaking. Britain’s largest steelmaker, which owns the Port Talbot site in Wales, made pre-tax losses of £1.12bn in the 12 months to the end of March 2024, up from £279mn the previous year, according to newly filed accounts at Companies House. Tata said that restructuring…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Scottish government on Wednesday vowed to end the two-child benefit cap next year as it set out record healthcare spending and an increase in social security benefits in a Budget focused on public services. Speaking to MSPs in Holyrood, finance secretary Shona Robison said she would work with the UK government to abolish the cap in Scotland. The cap stops most parents claiming additional child-related welfare payments if they have more than two children.“Be in no doubt, the cap will be…