Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK civil servants must spend at least 60 per cent of their working hours in the office, the government has resolved this week as it reintroduces monitoring data on Whitehall working patterns.Cat Little, Cabinet Office permanent secretary, wrote to other heads of departments on Wednesday setting out the fresh commitment to the target, according to officials. The move comes after Whitehall chiefs re-examined the rule, first introduced in November last year under the Tories, and amid speculation that Labour ministers would allow…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Inflation is fading more rapidly than central bankers expected but the UK needs to see a continued retreat in services price growth from current levels, the Bank of England governor said on Wednesday. Speaking after consumer price growth fell below the BoE’s 2 per cent target, to 1.7 per cent in September, Andrew Bailey said he was seeing a “good story” when it came to slowing headline inflation.But he also warned that services inflation remained above levels that were consistent with the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sir Keir Starmer has dismissed calls for reparations for historic slavery ahead of the annual Commonwealth summit, saying he would rather focus on contemporary challenges to member nations such as climate change.The prime minister, speaking to journalists on the flight to Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa on Wednesday, said he did not want to endure “very very long endless discussions about reparations on the past” and instead wished to look to the future.Joshua Setipa, former trade minister for Lesotho…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Falling cocaine prices have led to a surge in fatalities that have driven the number of drug-related deaths in England and Wales to the highest level on record. Fatalities in England and Wales where drugs were mentioned on the death certificate increased by 11 per cent in 2023 to 5,448, according to the Office for National Statistics, with almost half of deaths involving an opiate such as heroin or morphine.Deaths involving cocaine increased by 30.5 per cent to 1,118, the highest on…

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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. We have the first diplomatic row of the new Labour government: after Donald Trump accused the Labour party of interference to help Kamala Harris in the presidential election:The complaint filed by Trump’s campaign to the independent Federal Election Commission accuses the Labour party of sending strategists and staffers to help the Democratic presidential candidate’s election campaign and says Harris has accepted…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.German arms maker Rheinmetall will produce gun barrels in the UK as part of a sweeping new defence pact between Berlin and London aimed at deepening military co-operation and bolstering support for Ukraine. A new factory will form part of a worldwide drive by supporters of Kyiv to boost the production of artillery and ammunition after Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion depleted stocks and rammed home the inadequacies of existing supply chains. The plant, whose location is yet to be determined, will from 2027…

UK ministers are keen to apply break clauses in contracts for asylum accommodation with outsourcers including Serco and Mears in an effort to renegotiate terms or end the deals.Home Office ministers were “shocked” by the profits made by Serco, Mears and Clearsprings Ready Homes on multiyear contracts signed in 2019 and hope to use break clauses in 2026 either to revise the original terms or terminate, said two people briefed on their thinking. “They [the companies] made way more than was originally envisaged because the asylum system became so out of control,” said one of the people. The Home Office…

Let’s play make-believe. Imagine you’re a youngish person working in or around British politics. You’ve got a degree in economics or something similarly impractical from a fancy university. And you’ve secured a great gig doling out advice to a minister who has no background in finance. You project smartness, but this has its downsides. For instance, your new employer assumes you’ve got some insight into how the bond market works, and what on earth it is saying about the state of the world. No sweat. FTAV is here to help you out.We’ll unpick the mystery of why yields drive prices (the…

The UK government wants UK investors to put more money into the UK economy. That ambition may prompt rhetoric and even concrete reforms in next week’s Budget.This will leave me feeling shifty. Yes, friends, I confess it: I am suffering from unpatriotic portfolio shame. My investments are those of a cheese-eating declinist. A posse will come for me soon.Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already launched a “landmark” review of UK pensions savings, which aims to encourage UK investment. The Labour party had even promised to create a “Brit Isa”, before post-election cold feet set in.Meanwhile, we would-be citizens of nowhere have…