Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Revolut has yet to receive the green light from UK financial regulators to provide consumer credit services to its 11mn customers in Britain, marking the latest hurdle for the $45bn fintech to become a full-service UK bank. The group is still awaiting authorisation from the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority after applying for a consumer credit licence last year, which would enable it to offer credit cards and other services in the UK, according to people…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK banks myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The boss of Lloyds Banking Group has likened forcing pension funds to invest in UK assets to “capital controls”, arguing that tackling the housing crisis and improving Britons’ financial resilience would be a better way to grow the economy.Charlie Nunn said mandation would put funds “in conflict” with their fiduciary legal obligations to find the best returns for pensioners. “Mandating allocations of pension funds is a form of capital control. I have spent 10 years of my working life in China and…

“I’ve been told previously by people that the best thing about Birmingham was leaving it,” says jewellery designer Laura Vann, who grew up in the English West Midlands city. So new global recognition of its jewellery skill is “sweet vindication” that helps her “reframe the narrative” about Birmingham.Last month, the World Crafts Council (WCC), a Unesco-affiliated organisation, named Birmingham as a World Craft City for jewellery and allied trades. Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter is a historic manufacturing hub that in its heyday, around 1913, employed more than 70,000 people. In 2022, it was estimated it housed more than 600 businesses, employing…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Ministers have announced a £500mn scheme to help disadvantaged children that apes one of the most popular policies of the Tony Blair government. Sir Keir Starmer’s government is seeking to get back on the front foot after a damaging fortnight — while a new poll on Sunday showed the Labour party is on track to be trounced by Reform UK at the next election. The government said it would roll out hundreds of “Best Start” family hubs offering parenting support and youth…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This week’s fireworks in the gilts market, as investors fretted that the chancellor’s tears in the House of Commons portended her departure, marked the latest in what have become regular bouts of volatility in UK government bond prices.After selling off with the pound on Wednesday afternoon when Sir Keir Starmer stopped short of giving Rachel Reeves his full backing, gilt prices recovered after the prime minister made fuller public expressions of support, saying Reeves would be chancellor for a “very long time…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is the Conservative MP for TonbridgeFor centuries, this country has upheld an unspoken social contract. That each generation will create a better future for the next. That deal is now broken. This is the result of decades of policy choices that have systematically benefited one generation — the baby boomers — initially stimulating the economy but now choking it as wealth is transferred from young to old. Two bad policies in particular have influenced this trajectory. The first was a set…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sixteen years after Britain’s first high-speed rail service was launched, an official government review into the economic impact of HS1 on the south-east has concluded the £7.3bn scheme provided “poor value for money”.The report, which was sat on by ministers for two years, comes at an awkward time for the government as it struggles to prevent further cost overruns and delays on the much larger HS2 scheme from London to Birmingham. HS1, which links London St Pancras International station with the Channel Tunnel…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Oil & Gas industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer is David S Lobel professor in business and sustainability and professor of political economy at Stanford UniversityI recently served as an expert witness in court. A question put to me was: how will increased production of natural gas contribute to climate change? This question is relevant for European policymakers as well. The demand for natural gas is expected to explode over the next few decades. The UK plans to increase its import of gas and, while the EU…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Utilities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.One of Britain’s largest trade unions says electricity networks are failing to invest enough in maintenance, raising further doubts over the sector’s resilience following a damning report into a substation fire that led to the closure of Heathrow airport. Sue Ferns, senior deputy director-general of Prospect, said it had “repeatedly” raised questions with Ofgem, Britain’s energy regulator, over the resilience of the network and argued that the way the sector is regulated disincentivises prompt maintenance. The union has thousands of members who work in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.British production of the Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft has ground to a halt because of a dearth of new orders, sparking fears of a loss of critical aerospace industry skills in the UK.The Typhoon has for decades been assembled at BAE Systems’ sprawling factory in Warton, Lancashire. Work on the final assembly line, however, has now wound down as the factory prepares to deliver the last Typhoon jet for Qatar under a £5bn order placed in 2017.“There is one jet in the…