Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK National Wealth Fund will not have the defence industry as one of its priority sectors, despite the government’s efforts to accelerate rearmament efforts. Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Wednesday said she wanted the government vehicle, which will have a budget of about £28bn by the end of the current parliament, to consider investments in “dual-use technologies” and to boost “supply chain resilience” in support of UK defence and security. But laying out its strategy to John Flint, NWF chief executive, the Treasury did…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldBritain is racing to avoid the worst of US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, due on April 2, after “productive” talks on Tuesday that included discussions about the UK’s digital services tax.UK business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has told his officials to carry on talking with Trump’s trade team over the next 48 hours in the hope of securing a deal that would spare the UK the highest level of US reciprocal tariffs.The discussions include the UK’s levy on companies such…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The innocence of that summer is touching to recall now. In a far-off past called 2024, when Britain elected a Labour government, optimists made the bull case for the country. Emmanuel Macron had budget troubles in France and Germany a recession, so the UK struck them as a relative haven. (As though there were three countries on Earth to invest in.) Instead of constant Tory paranoia about a bond market revolt, there would be people in charge willing at last to borrow…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The British Library is set for a £1.1bn extension after securing investment from Japan’s Mitsui Fudosan. The new 12-storey building — to be built on land owned by the national library north of its current campus near St Pancras station — will provide 100,000 sq ft for the library and 600,000 sq ft of office space, including a new headquarters for the Alan Turing Institute. The development, proposed in 2017, marks another significant investment in London by the Japanese property group, which…

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. Labour’s welfare reforms have two masters. The first is to make it easier for people to enter or re-enter the world of work, whether after a period of illness or living with a chronic condition. The second is to declare bankable savings to the Office for Budget Responsibility and keep within the government’s fiscal rules.The problem is these two aims contradict…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.British MPs and peers have written to foreign secretary David Lammy urging him to impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on Dubai officials over the long-running detention of UK national Ryan Cornelius.Cornelius, who along with three other expatriates was in 2011 convicted of defrauding Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB), has been detained in the Gulf emirate for more than 16 years on charges that the letter describes as “dubious”. “We urge you to take immediate and decisive action, including the imposition of Magnitsky sanctions on those…

Being a blog means FT Alphaville can always react quickly to news developments. Unrelatedly, let’s write about last month’s Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meeting.As ING’s James Smith wrote in a note published this week (ahead of the next MPC decision, which will be announced on Thursday):Drama is not often synonymous with the Bank of England. But February’s meeting was nothing short of a bombshell. Catherine Mann, who for months had led the opposition to rate cuts, surprised everyone with her vote for a 50bp rate cut. And that posed the question: if the arch-hawk is prepared to vote…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sadiq Khan has said local residents should not be “dictating” plans for Oxford Street as he promised to push ahead with pedestrianising London’s main shopping street with or without support from locals and Westminster Council. The Mayor of London restarted his years-long effort to banish vehicles from the central artery last year — something the council has opposed in the past — after the UK Labour government granted him new powers to drive the project through the Mayoral Development Corporation. “What history…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Rio Tinto has dismissed support for a review of its corporate structure from two influential shareholder advisers, defending its UK listing against pressure from an activist investor.The Anglo-Australian mining group comprises separately listed companies in London and Sydney but has been under pressure to merge its listings on the Australian stock exchange, where mining companies have traded at a premium to London in recent years.Such a move would further diminish the London Stock Exchange’s standing as a home for mining stocks. BHP, Rio’s…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning a new, multibillion-pound public spending squeeze in next week’s Spring Statement, following the announcement on Tuesday of £5bn in welfare cuts.Reeves is looking for further cuts to fill a hole in the public finances and will trim proposed budgets for Whitehall departments later in the parliament, according to officials briefed on her plans. Sir Keir Starmer, prime minister, has ruled out a return to “austerity” but officials say Reeves has always indicated she will “adjust” spending…