Author: Blake Anderson

Rarely has an email created such danger — or carried so high a cost. When a British soldier pressed send three years ago, they unwittingly placed thousands of lives in danger and put the UK government on the hook for billions of pounds.The soldier had accidentally leaked a vast database containing details of Afghan nationals who worked with the UK before the Taliban retook power in 2021. Fearing reprisal, they had applied online to seek sanctuary in Britain.If the Taliban obtained the records, they would have confirmation that those on the list — former translators, intelligence analysts, special forces operatives…

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. Taxes will go up in the autumn, but for whom? (The short answer is “everyone”, but bear with me.) Ministers have sparked confusion over the past few days by making contradictory statements on the matter. Some more on that below. Inside Politics is edited by Harvey Nriapia today. Follow Stephen on Bluesky and X. Read the previous edition of the newsletter…

At least 665 Afghans whose highly sensitive personal details were leaked in the database breach are preparing to sue the UK Ministry of Defence, seeking at least £50,000 each in compensation.Thousands more may now join the legal action, led by Barings Law, after learning their data was compromised. The British government has only started to inform the Afghan victims about the data breach in recent days, ahead of the reporting blackout ending on Tuesday. Until the super-injunction was lifted, it also gagged Barings Law, impacting the proposed class action. Source link

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK government set up a secret multibillion-pound scheme to relocate thousands of Afghans to Britain after a data leak put them at risk of reprisals from the Taliban — and gagged the media with a super-injunction.The names, contact information and other personal details of about 25,000 Afghans, people who worked closely with the UK before the Taliban seized power and some of their family members, were accidentally disclosed by a British soldier in emails in February 2022.The leak of the vast,…

It was a lawsuit unlike any other. On August 25 2023, just days before he resigned as UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace asked judges in London for an injunction to keep a historic national security debacle secret.The Ministry of Defence had recently discovered that 18 months earlier a British soldier had mistakenly released a highly sensitive dataset identifying thousands of Afghans who had worked with the UK before the Taliban retook power, and were now at risk of reprisals.Whitehall only learned about the leak after someone posted on Facebook extracts from the list, which featured details of about 25,000 people.The…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK financial regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The chancellor has announced plans to reform the ringfencing rules that force UK banks to separate their retail and investment banking activities, as part of a raft of measures to soften regulations and drum up more investment in financial markets.Rachel Reeves said the changes to the heavily criticised ringfencing rules would help to free up capital for banks as part of the government’s drive to boost growth by putting “the UK ahead in the race for financial businesses”.The chancellor announced the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The FTSE 100 has reached 9,000 points for the first time in its history, as UK stocks benefit from global investors diversifying away from the US and from London’s trade deal with Washington.The UK blue-chip stock index has outperformed both the S&P 500 and the Stoxx Europe 600 indices so far this year, having climbed 10.3 per cent.The UK reached a partial trade agreement with the US in early May, which some analysts say has given the London market an advantage over…

England’s higher education system risks long-term decline unless ministers overhaul their “confused, if not incoherent” approach to universities, the outgoing head of the national body for the humanities and social sciences has warned. Dame Julia Black, president of the British Academy, told the Financial Times that the government must take higher education out of the “too difficult box” and “radically” reform the sector by axing its regulator and launching a cross-party commission into its future.“The way universities are viewed by government is very confused, if not incoherent. There is nobody within government looking at the university system as a whole and…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK tax myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.City grandees have warned that further tax increases could prompt more wealthy people to leave Britain and deter many individuals from saving for retirement, calling on the chancellor to provide “stability”. Chairs, chief executives and founders of some of the UK’s largest wealth managers told the Financial Times that people needed “certainty” over taxation amid rising expectations that Rachel Reeves will raise taxes to plug a gap in the UK’s finances. The chancellor will deliver her Mansion House speech on Tuesday, in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Measles cases in Europe and Central Asia have climbed to their highest level for more than a quarter of a century, according to the World Health Organization, more than doubling between 2023 and 2024 as vaccination rates failed to recover to pre-pandemic levels.Outbreaks of the viral disease have killed children in the US and UK, stoking fears that vaccine hesitancy in high-income countries is threatening hard-won gains from mass immunisation programmes.“In many ways, vaccination has been a victim of its own success,”…