Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Fundraising from initial public offerings in London has tumbled to its lowest level in at least 30 years, in a stark sign of the waning attractiveness of the UK’s equity markets for companies and investors. The five listings on UK markets in the first six months of the year raised £160mn, the lowest half-year amount in Dealogic data going back to 1995. The total marks a 98 per cent fall from a bumper six months of fundraising at the start of 2021…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This should have been a week when the UK government showed it was getting to grips with two key priorities: reform of welfare and the NHS. Instead, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s bumbling failure to back his visibly distressed chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Commons on Wednesday capped a disastrous few days for Labour. A sell-off of sterling assets was partially reversed after Starmer belatedly insisted Reeves would be in post for “many years to come” and the two publicly embraced on…

This week’s sell-off in UK gilts, sparked by a tearful Rachel Reeves in the House of Commons, showed how fragile investor confidence is in Britain’s precarious fiscal position. The merest suggestion that the chancellor may leave her job, caused by Sir Keir Starmer’s initial failure to fully back her on Wednesday, was enough to spook holders of the government’s debt — and force the prime minister to cling even more tightly to Reeves’ fiscal rules. Reeves has vowed to balance the government’s books by the end of the parliament, but there is rising market concern that Labour MPs are less wedded…

This article is an on-site version of our The State of Britain newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every week. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersHello and welcome back to the State of Britain newsletter. I’m Madeleine Speed, the FT’s consumer industries reporter, and this week I’m writing about the fraught state of British agriculture. After England’s hottest June on record, farmers face lower yields from parched crops and the prospect of flooding if a bout of heavy rain hits the dry, hard ground.Battered by extremes of heat…

A long-awaited 10-year plan in England for the struggling NHS has been set out by the UK government. The 168-page blueprint for change outlined the detail behind the desire to deliver three shifts: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital and from sickness to prevention.While broadly welcomed by the sector, questions remain over how change will be delivered on the ground. A series of plans for the struggling health service have all promised similar shifts in recent years — yet none have achieved them.  The absence of a clear approach to delivery is “glaring”, noted one senior health official. Others…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the EU trade myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.A final EU-US trade deal is “impossible” before July 9, so the two sides are aiming for a less detailed “agreement in principle”, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday ahead of talks in Washington.The EU and US are edging closer to a tentative agreement following almost three months of negotiations to avert Donald Trump’s threat to impose 50 per cent tariffs on goods from the EU next week.“It’s a huge task because we have the largest trade volume…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK government wants to sell anonymised public data. That makes sense. There’s lots of it and more is accumulating every minute. Totting up industry revenue, the European Commission projects that UK data companies will garner revenue of €30bn this year; add in the EU and it’s €145bn. As for governments, how might they put a price on information? Data may be this century’s oil, but it doesn’t come in barrels at a daily-benchmarked price. Oil costs the same whether the buyer…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The immaculate grass courts at the Wimbledon tennis championships can divide opinion. Some players struggle to find their rhythm on a surface that is unpredictable and unfamiliar. Others revel in it. “I think the most beautiful tennis that we can watch is on grass,” said Carlos Alcaraz, the reigning men’s singles champion, on the eve of this year’s tournament. “The movement is really tough, but when you get it, it’s [like] you’re flying.”Due to its short playing season and high maintenance costs, grass…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Donald Trump attacks “our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities”. Alabama’s Senator Tommy Tuberville calls their inhabitants “rats”. Rightwingers reckon that New York’s likely next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, supports terrorism. Trump’s aide Stephen Miller tweets: “NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.” Across the ocean, British pundit Matthew Goodwin pronounces that London is “over . . . a city in visible decline” with “no real sense of identity”.That’s the rightwing consensus on big multicultural…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Activity in the UK private services sector rose at the fastest rate in 10 months while growth in the prices businesses charge slowed, according to a closely watched survey published on Thursday.The S&P Global UK Services PMI final index rose to 52.8 in June, up from 50.9 in May and the highest since August 2024. The latest reading was above the earlier June estimate of 51.3, and was “indicative of a solid rate of business activity expansion”, S&P said.Tim Moore, economics director…