Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Faltering efforts to bring down UK government debt in recent years have led to a “substantial erosion” of the country’s capacity to tackle future shocks and strains on public spending, the independent fiscal forecaster has warned. Efforts to put the UK’s public finances on a more sustainable footing have met with only “limited and temporary” success in recent years, the Office for Budget Responsibility said in its fiscal risks and sustainability report on Tuesday. While underlying public debt is at its highest level since…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Lord Norman Tebbit, one of Margaret Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet colleagues during her premiership and an “icon” to many rightwingers, has died at the age of 94.Tebbit became a scourge of the left during the 1980s as he drove forward Thatcherite reforms such as curbing trade union powers and notoriously dismissed the idea that high unemployment had caused urban riots.“I grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and…

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. Norman Tebbit has died at the age of 94. His historical and political legacy is as one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest allies and his tenure as employment secretary in particular. I’ll remember him as someone who, during his stint as a Telegraph writer, took the time to quite unexpectedly and kindly email the new junior editor on the desk. My thoughts…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK authorities are challenging an average of more than 40 suspected members of the Russian “shadow fleet” every month as they pass the British coast, UK government figures show.UK maritime authorities have challenged 343 vessels about their insurance status between October and June, as part of intensifying European efforts to put pressure on Russia’s oil exports. It is the first time that official UK figures have been released, and give an early insight into how insurance compliance is being used to…

Dozens of universities across the US risk losing an estimated $1bn in collective tuition fees from new international students unwilling or unable to study in the country as a result of actions by Donald Trump’s administration.Tougher scrutiny of applicants, visas processing delays and immigration detentions on campuses and at the border are striking fear among both students and university administrators, which have increasingly looked abroad in recent years to fill places and generate income.FT analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows 162 institutions with at least 1,000 students from urban research universities to small liberal arts colleges…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Rachel Reeves has been warned that bringing back a controversial “golden visa” to woo investors to the UK would risk “rolling out the red carpet to kleptocrats, criminals and spies”, in a letter from some of Britain’s leading anti-corruption campaign groups. Ministers have been considering introducing an investor visa for people who contribute to “strategically important” areas such as AI, clean energy and life sciences, as they try to prevent a potential exodus of millionaires from the UK. This would be a…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.More than half of young adults in the UK have, or are considering, altering “major life milestones” to cope with strained financial circumstances, new research has found.More than one in two 18- to 34-year-olds (56 per cent) have either had to delay or cancel significant life events or have “been forced to rethink” pursuing them due to financial concerns, according to wealth adviser St James’s Place, which surveyed 6,000 UK adults.To save money and avoid overspending, one in 10 of those surveyed…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Labour has been criticised by backbench MPs and trade unions over plans for outsourcer Mitie to host a drinks reception for the UK’s ruling party, despite ministers promising the “biggest wave of insourcing” in a generation.Labour parliamentarians from the north west of England will be able to “relax in a private setting with senior party figures” at the July 15 event at the Shard in London, according to an invitation sent out by the party.Labour — which last year pledged to remove…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A surge in onshore wind turbines in England has yet to materialise one year on from Labour’s lifting of a de facto ban on new projects. Planning authorities have not received any applications for new large scale projects since restrictions were eased last July, according to Financial Times analysis of government data. The fourteen applications submitted between the lifting of the ban and April this year are all for small projects involving one turbine, amounting to a total combined capacity of around nine megawatts…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Aerospace & Defence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Finance and arms bosses have backed calls for the government to make it easier for City firms and banks to provide support to the defence industry by providing a 10-year outlook of its investment projects.A task force led by the CBI and consultancy Oliver Wyman and made up of executives from across the defence and financial industries published a report on Tuesday looking at how to build the UK’s defence capabilities while driving economic growth.Among its other recommendations was for City…