Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nearly “one child in every classroom” is now born through IVF in the UK with egg-freezing hitting a record high, the fertility regulator has said, as people increasingly delay parenthood against a backdrop of historically low birth rates.More single patients and female same-sex couples are opting for assisted fertility treatments, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority found, highlighting how the sector “could develop in the years to come”, according to chair Julia Chain.“IVF is helping more people have babies, including patients of…

He was the political mastermind who oversaw Labour’s historic landslide victory nearly a year ago. Now Morgan McSweeney has become a lightning rod for criticism as the government faces its biggest ever parliamentary rebellion.McSweeney, the soft-spoken chief of staff to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, played a crucial role in purging left-wing Labour MPs, rebuilding the party as a centrist force and setting the government’s agenda.Under the Irishman’s encouragement, Starmer swapped his previously left-wing clothing for a more patriotic, fiscally responsible, immigration-sceptic stance that helped deliver him into Number 10 with a massive majority.But with Labour behind in opinion polls,…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sir Keir Starmer will on Thursday launch a new trade strategy focused on boosting UK services exports, while strengthening anti-dumping defences to protect Britain from the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariff war.Trade minister Douglas Alexander said Starmer would set out a policy based on hard-headed “pragmatic patriotism”, embracing free trade and seeking to build markets across the world, including China and the Gulf.“Our strategic response to this new world can’t be based on nostalgia or post imperial delusion, let alone any…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The unveiling of the UK government’s long-awaited industrial strategy this week was greeted by an unusual sound: polite applause from business leaders and groups such as the CBI and Make UK, the manufacturing body. Given the gloom that Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, caused last year with corporate tax rises, it made a change.The new strategy, which focuses on encouraging high-growth industries including advanced manufacturing and life sciences, gave them many things for which they asked. These include cuts to high industrial energy…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has vowed that the UK government “will go ahead” with next week’s vote on welfare reform in the face of the biggest potential rebellion of Labour MPs since the party took office almost a year ago.“What I can tell him . . . is we will go ahead on Tuesday,” Rayner told Sir Mel Stride, the Conservative’s shadow chancellor, following speculation across Westminster that the bill could be pulled or postponed.Rayner, who was covering at Prime Minister’s Questions for Sir Keir…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the House & Home myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The price for the property seems high. Too high; you have done your due diligence. But you are set on buying. How do you make the sellers see sense so you can achieve what you believe to be a fair or good price?It’s an age-old question, but one that feels relevant right now — in prime central London, for example, sellers currently outnumber buyers; the number of price reductions were up 36.4 per cent in April and 20.1 per cent in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Babcock International raised its profit targets and dividend on Wednesday, sending shares in the UK’s second-largest defence contractor up more than 12 per cent and cementing its position as the best performer on the FTSE 100 index this year. The company, which maintains the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines and builds warships such as the Type 31 frigate, hailed a “new era for defence” as it also announced its first share buyback programme.“This is a new era for defence,” said David Lockwood, Babcock…

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 government’s difficulties over cuts to welfare spending are in large part a policy problem. But they are also a product of a dysfunctional political operation. Some thoughts on the latter in today’s note. Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Follow Stephen on Bluesky and X, and Georgina on Bluesky. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK government pledged to spend close to £500mn on transport and infrastructure improvements to secure the vast Bedford theme park planned by US media group Comcast, said people close to the talks.The scale of taxpayer support from a government under tight fiscal pressure is a sign of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s desire to attract billions of dollars of inward investment as he tries to boost the stagnant UK economy.Comcast, which was considering other countries for the site of its first…

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to WimbledonFor two weeks of the year, Darren Powell, co-owner of Wimbledon Park Sports in Wimbledon, south-west London, sells towels. Towel upon towel upon towel. Around 2,500 of them, by his estimation. In late June and early July — Wimbledon fortnight — the official Wimbledon court towel, priced at £40, is the single best-selling item in the small but well-stocked specialist racket-sports shop, which this year celebrates four decades on Wimbledon Park Road, the busy thoroughfare that funnels tennis lovers from Southfields Tube to the All England Lawn Tennis Club, home of…