Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Property magnate Nick Candy has left the Conservative party to become the treasurer of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the latest high-profile defection to the rightwing populist party as it rises in opinion polls. Candy, who has given more than £300,000 to the Tories, said he would donate a “seven-figure number” to Reform, as he promised to raise “tens of millions” for the insurgent party. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t a hundred per cent believe [Farage] was going to be…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nigeria’s vice-president launched a scathing attack on UK Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch in an apparent response to her comments on the west African country where she spent most of her childhood.Kashim Shettima said in a speech on migration that Badenoch was free to change her Nigerian first name, in a surprising departure from the norm in a country that often champions members of its diaspora.“Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British Conservative party. We are proud of her in spite of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Birmingham is expected to pay about £250mn to settle a historic equal pay claim, a figure that calls into question the bankruptcy process that forced the city council to make deep cuts to services and agree £750mn in asset sales.The local authority said it was seeking formal agreement on Tuesday from its cabinet committee for a deal with the GMB and Unison unions to resolve the long-standing dispute. The claims go back to a 2017 deal giving striking male refuse collectors favourable…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Renewable energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Renewable energy from wind, solar and hydropower will account for more of the UK’s electricity output this year than fossil fuels for the first time, according to think-tank Ember. The green trio will account for about 37 per cent of the electricity generated this year, overtaking 35 per cent from fossil fuels, according to the study that includes production data and forecasts for the remainder of the year. Wind power may even overtake gas as the largest single source of generation — though the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Shell and Greenpeace have settled one of the largest legal claims against the environmental group, brought after protesters occupied a Shell floating production unit near the Shetland Islands in 2023. Under the terms of the settlement, Greenpeace will donate £300,000 to the charity Royal National Lifeboat Institution after Shell argued that the protest had endangered its crew at sea. The environmental campaign organisation shook off the case by framing it as an attack by a big polluter on freedom of speech and by weaponising…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Brussels is advising EU member states not to allow the UK deeper access to the bloc’s electricity markets, despite industry warnings of higher energy bills for consumers and a slower transition to net zero.In a document setting out policy positions on the upcoming “reset” of EU-UK relations, the European Commission said that its “no cherry-picking” principle towards the UK should apply equally to electricity trading. “The UK’s decision not to rejoin the single market limits the possibilities for other options to be considered,…

Treasury chief secretary Darren Jones on Tuesday launched a six-month “line by line” review of £1.2tn in UK public spending, equipped with a new device to keep ministers in line: a “dashboard” that starts flashing at them if they blow their budget. Ministers will need to input their spending plans within limits that some economists believe will be extremely hard to achieve without forcing further cuts on key public services. “There’s a dashboard that starts flashing at them if they type in too much money for their budget,” Jones told the Financial Times. “It tells them that they’ve blown their…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK employment myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Workers in England are more likely to be overqualified than in any other advanced economy in the OECD, according to a study that raises questions about the opportunities available to British graduates.More than one-third of employees aged 25 and over reported having higher education levels than required for their job, according to a once-a-decade survey published by the organisation on Tuesday. The rate has risen from around 30 per cent in 2012 to more than 37 per cent in 2023, the highest…

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. Pat McFadden delivered a good, thoughtful speech on the “how” of public sector reform, citing recent examples of best practice that he thought the government could learn from. Equally importantly, he recognised that for governments to innovate they had to be prepared to fail.If Labour can deliver on this, it will be exciting stuff that benefits all governments, but I don’t…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Construction equipment rental group Ashtead has announced plans to move its listing from London to New York, in another blow to the UK stock market.In a statement on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 group said: “The board has concluded that the US market is the natural long term listing venue for the group” and that moving its primary listing to New York was in its best interests. Almost all the group’s operating profit comes from North America, a key area of growth for the…