Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Trump administration has raised concerns with the UK government over plans by one of China’s largest wind turbine makers to supply North Sea wind farms from a new factory in Scotland.A US official told the Financial Times that Washington had warned London about what it argues are national security risks attached to allowing Mingyang to build a plant in the UK.The US intervention comes as British ministers review whether they should block the factory, amid questions raised by politicians over cyber…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Exploring a regional museum in Sweden, Rachel Elwes was stopped in her tracks. The bold multicoloured cubist work that had caught her eye was accompanied by the label “Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (1884-1965)”, otherwise known as GAN. “Who on earth is GAN?” she thought. Elwes is no novice. An American-born curator and art historian, she has handled countless modern masterpieces since establishing the London-based dealership Ben Elwes Fine Art with her husband Ben Elwes in 2004. But GAN was unknown to her. Thus began…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A few years ago a friend of mine suggested an adventure. Did anyone, she asked, want to try visiting Stonehenge for the winter solstice?We did. A group of us convened in the small hours for the drive down from London to Wiltshire. Having failed to anticipate the traffic caused by thousands of people on the same mission, we had to abandon the car by the side of a country lane and run miles to reach the stone circle just in time for…

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. A news story that revealed fugitives — wanted for murder and child rape in Brazil — have been able to remain in the UK under human rights laws has brought an internal Labour debate into the open: about whether and how the UK should seek to reform the UK’s application of the European Convention on Human Rights. Some thoughts on the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Britain’s transport secretary will on Wednesday admit that the High Speed 2 rail line faces new cost overruns and its completion will be further delayed by years as she seeks to blame the previous Conservative government for mismanagement. Heidi Alexander will tell MPs that the last administration overspent on the controversial railway line by signing contracts when advised not to and spending £2bn on a northern leg of the project that it then cancelled. She will also cite allegations that “parts of the supply…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Industrials myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The closure of the UK’s largest fibre glass factory will be confirmed on Wednesday despite efforts by ministers to find a last-minute buyer, in a blow to the government’s industrial strategy.Electric Glass Fiber UK, which manufactures glass fibres used in electric cars and wind turbines in Wigan, employs about 250 people and has been hit by a combination of weak sales and Britain’s high industrial electricity prices.The factory’s Japanese owner, Nippon Electric Glass, decided in a board meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday to…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.UK inflation fell to 3.4 per cent in May, in line with expectations, as the Bank of England seeks evidence that recent price rises are under control.Wednesday’s reading from the Office for National Statistics matched forecasts in a Reuters poll of analysts and marked a decline from April’s 3.5 per cent figure.The numbers came a day before a BoE policy meeting at which the central bank is expected to keep its key rate unchanged.The Monetary Policy Committee last month lowered borrowing costs…

Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to target Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as “the real opposition” was a seismic political choice, elevating the right-wing populist party from outsiders to the status of Britain’s potential government-in-waiting.The controversial move, executed in a speech last month, has divided opinion, with some Labour strategists warning that Starmer has taken a big risk by lending credibility to Farage and his start-up party.“Keep it coming Keir,” Farage told the Financial Times. “We’re laughing our socks off.” But Starmer’s allies insist the strategy will help stall the Farage bandwagon and that Labour will have the last laugh.Starmer disclosed his…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Pro-business policymakers like to close their eyes and think of Singapore. The tiny city state, with its low taxes and ease of doing business, was held up as a role model by the Brexit camp ahead of the 2016 referendum. A decade later a House of Lords committee is taking up the chorus, recommending last week that UK financial regulators follow its example. Many businesses have heeded the siren call. Dyson decamped there from Wiltshire in 2019, insisting the move was about “future-proofing”…

With sold-out shows and an award-winning hit film, Belfast rap group Kneecap have become the standard-bearers of a new contemporary Northern Ireland. Now they face their toughest gig yet: a high profile London court appearance. Band member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27 — who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, meaning “My Friend” in Irish — is due to appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing over a terrorism charge. It relates to his display of a flag allegedly in support of Lebanese militant group Hizbollah at a concert in London last year, one of…