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’s Prevent counterterrorism programme should be extended to include people fixated on violence but who have no specific ideology, according to a government-commissioned report.Prevent, set up in 2003 and expanded after the 7/7 London bombings, would function better if it was formally connected to a broader system for safeguarding and protecting against violence, according to findings published on Wednesday.“As the nature of the threat evolves, it is getting harder and harder to distinguish terrorist from non-terrorist extreme violence,” Lord David Anderson,…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK’s official government auditor has questioned the Ministry of Defence’s handling of a huge data leak that endangered thousands of Afghan nationals and was kept secret for two years.The National Audit Office, an independent parliamentary body that scrutinises public spending, told the Financial Times that the MoD had not told it about the leak “in the established way for sensitive defence matters”.Gareth Davies, comptroller and auditor general of the NAO, was now “considering the implications for the audit of the MoD’s…

Craigengillan had stood untouched for more than a century. Before Mark Gibson took the reins at the turn of the millennium, the 2,800-acre Ayrshire estate and former seat of the McAdam family was forgotten, its house and cottages derelict. “The place had a Sleeping Beauty feel about it,” says Gibson. He set about restoring the properties and landscape — adding nearly 900 acres of native woodlands and protecting the wildlife with more ponds and wetlands. Today, mossy banks and waterways teem with dragonflies, butterflies and lesser-seen birds such as curlew, snipe and kingfishers. At night, “the Milky Way stretches from horizon…

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. The biggest story in Westminster today is the Afghan files scandal. The catastrophic data leak that occurred under Boris Johnson’s government endangered possibly tens of thousands of people. The remarkable super-injunction taken out by Rishi Sunak’s government — extended and defended in court by Keir Starmer’s — obscured both the breach and the secret visa route established to try and save…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Under the gilded ceiling of the Mansion House’s Egyptian Hall about 300 City grandees were asked to charge their glasses of Mâcon-Montbellet La Bergerie to the “health of the chancellor of the exchequer”.Rachel Reeves was speaking for the second time at the Mansion House dinner, fresh from unveiling her ‘Leeds Reforms’ — a long awaited financial strategy that promised to “make the country more active and more confident”.However, amid the grandeur of the occasion on Tuesday night, the gathered audience of chief…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK’s financial regulator has fined Barclays £42mn for failing to properly manage money laundering risks on two occasions. The Financial Conduct Authority on Wednesday said Barclays had been fined for “failings in its financial crime risk management”, including opening a client money account for wealth manager WealthTek, which was shut down for “serious regulatory and operational issues”. “One simple check it could have done was to look at the Financial Services Register before opening the account. Had it done so, it…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.UK inflation unexpectedly rose to 3.6 per cent in June, in a setback for the Bank of England as it seeks evidence that price pressures are cooling alongside slowing economic growth.Wednesday’s figure from the Office for National Statistics exceeded the prediction of analysts polled by Reuters that inflation would remain at May’s level of 3.4 per cent.The numbers come as the BoE gauges whether to cut in its key interest rate again as soon as August. In June, the Monetary Policy Committee…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.As a new parent, I’m eager to start saving for my child’s future. Are Junior Individual Savings Accounts still the most tax-efficient way to save, or should I consider alternative investment vehicles?Laura Ripley, chartered financial planner at BRI Wealth Management Laura Ripley, chartered financial planner at BRI Wealth Management, says saving for your child from their birth or early age is a great idea; the power of compounding means the earlier you start, the bigger the savings will be and even a…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Agriculture myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Brussels will propose that fruit, vegetable and milk in schools should be “Made in Europe” as part of a wider push to favour domestic industries from defence to agriculture.The European Commission will say on Wednesday that milk, fruit and vegetables bought through its schools scheme should be produced in Europe, in a signal to schools to buy more locally, according to a draft proposal seen by Financial Times. The scheme funds about €220mn worth of produce per year.The “Made in Europe” clause reflects…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Almost one in four British households are late paying their energy bills, according to new figures that shows how families are struggling to pay despite global prices falling over the past two years. Some 24 per cent of households are currently past their energy bill payment due date, figures compiled by consultancy Baringa show. This has risen from 18 per cent in December 2024, though is lower than the rate of 29 per cent who were behind in May 2022, after wholesale…