Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sir Sadiq Khan has announced that he will go ahead with plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street after receiving what he dubbed “overwhelming public and business support” for the contentious proposal.London’s Labour mayor has long advocated removing traffic from the capital city’s main shopping street despite previous opposition from Westminster council, the local borough. On Tuesday, Khan said he was moving forward with the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street with detailed proposals to be published later this year. He said City Hall would set up…

It has been a year since the Labour party swept to victory promising stability, competence and renewal in the face of a grim economic inheritance. With the next UK general election still four years away, Sir Keir Starmer’s government has time — but not much room for error. Self-imposed fiscal rules and manifesto pledges have left chancellor Rachel Reeves boxed in and the party is showing little tolerance for the painful trade-offs needed. As Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK party sucks up support from discontented Britons, Labour is under mounting pressure: Can the government drive growth? Can it revive tattered…

One big Izzy scoop to start: Millennium Management, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, is in talks about selling a minority stake to external investors at a $14bn valuation, as it presses ahead with plans to open up its ownership for the first time.Another scoop: Sabadell is exploring a sale of its British bank TSB, as the Spanish lender seeks to fend off an €11bn hostile approach from its domestic rival BBVA.And a final one: Spotify founder Daniel Ek is leading a €600mn investment in Helsing, valuing the German defence tech group at €12bn and making it one of…

A high-profile mistake in the UK’s inflation data is prompting scrutiny of other weaknesses in the way the indicator is compiled, as the Office for National Statistics battles to restore faith in the quality of its output. The ONS admitted this month to an “error” in its regular consumer prices index report, which wrongly added 0.1 percentage points on to the headline rate of inflation.However the mistake — which the ONS blamed on faulty data from the Department for Transport — comes as other aspects of its methodology come under greater focus, from hotel costs and live music tickets to the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Chancellor Rachel Reeves is exploring reversing a decision to charge UK inheritance tax on the global assets of non-doms, following a spate of departures and lobbying by the City of London, according to government officials and financiers briefed on the discussions. The exposure of worldwide assets to inheritance tax at 40 per cent — which came into force in April — is the element of scrapping the non-dom regime that is “causing most heartburn”, one government official said. The Treasury is reviewing the…

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to EdinburghThey insisted it would be madness to play golf on Scotland’s east coast in November. Hard men with narrowed eyes, oversized knuckles and wind-burnt faces told me that I was too fragile for the wild Scottish weather. Links golf in late autumn was no place for a softie brought up learning the game in the sunny colonies. Happily for me, though, the sun shone cheerily from a bright blue sky and there was hardly a breath of wind for the three rounds of golf at St Andrews, North Berwick and Bruntsfield.If…

London is at an increased risk of wildfires this summer, the UK capital’s fire service has warned, as it steps up efforts to prepare for blazes by investing in new equipment and sending firefighters on specialist training. London Fire Brigade, which traditionally has fought property fires rather than those in vegetation, told the Financial Times it had been working with counterparts around the world to improve its response to wildfires. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service is among those that have travelled to Catalonia in Spain to learn how to tackle such blazes. The capital was hit by a spate of…

The grand houses of England, from Chiswick to Chatsworth, are heady reflections of the Grand Tour tradition, when young, upper-class men headed to Europe, not Thailand, to complete their cultural education. These posh-boys’ gap years — from the mid-17th to mid-19th century — involved a months-long trip primarily around Italy, soaking up the ideals of antiquity and the beauty of the Renaissance, while filling their shopping baskets with archaeological wonders, fine objects and paintings which now decorate the rooms of the UK’s stately homes. Such was the demand, a roaring trade in fakes was developed to service the need. The joy…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldDonald Trump has signed an executive order directing US government agencies to implement his trade deal with the UK.The president’s order will “operationalise” the US-UK agreement, under which Trump agreed to cut a 27.5 per cent American tariff on cars to 10 per cent for the first 100,000 vehicles shipped from the UK each year. The deal will also ensure UK exports of jet engines and other aerospace parts to the US are spared from US tariffs, according to people…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Doctor Who and Coronation Street have a lot in common. They are British dramas that are among the longest-running shows in their respective genres. They are essential components in the history of their respective networks, the BBC and ITV. But they have another, bleaker commonality: both, in recent years, have experienced record-low viewing figures. Last year, for the first time since it began airing, no episode of Coronation Street was seen by more than 5mn people (in 2013, it still had audiences…