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 far-right movement is more synonymous with the thuggery and violence of this summer’s anti-immigration riots than with dinner meetings. And it is more readily associated with incendiary personalities such as Tommy Robinson than with softly-spoken men who publish articles and give PowerPoint presentations. But where some wear their intolerance openly, others are pushing an extreme rightwing agenda in a more discreet, insidious manner by influencing powerful people to help finance, disseminate and normalise racialist “research”.The urgent and unsettling Channel 4…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK employment myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Labour’s package of workplace reforms will cost UK businesses up to £5bn a year as companies get to grips with the new rules, the government said in an analysis of its employment rights bill. The extra costs are expected to be about 0.4 per cent of Britain’s total annual pay bill of £1.3tn, although certain sectors of the economy will be hit harder.The British Chambers of Commerce warned that companies risk being “buried under a mountain of additional cost”, with firms already braced…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt has drawn up the political battle lines ahead of next week’s Budget by warning that Rachel Reeves is set to “trash” Britain’s economy through a set of tax hikes on business.Hunt told the Financial Times that a decision by the Labour chancellor to increase national insurance contributions for employers would be “an absolute disaster”, hitting profits, investment and job creation.He said Treasury officials — some of whom still advise Reeves — suggested hiking employer NICs in 2022 in…

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Britain’s chancellor Rachel Reeves faces competing pressures to balance the books at her first Budget next week. She reckons that the UK has a £40bn gap in its day-to-day spending needs. Her estimate includes an admirable effort to protect key departments from real-terms spending cuts, and to build up a fiscal buffer. It also covers her own commitment to public sector pay rises; part of a £22bn “black hole” she claims the previous government left behind. Savings must be found, and painful…

Launching a “national conversation” about the future of England’s NHS on Monday, health secretary Wes Streeting admitted it was in the midst of “the worst crisis in its history”. While the government is calling on health staff and the general public to submit ideas for a new “10-year health plan” to rebuild the service, there is a growing acceptance that as well as new ideas, the NHS needs more money.   As health leaders press for a substantial funding injection in the Budget on October 30, the latest data underlines the scale of the strains on the taxpayer-funded system.Day-to-day spendingJust three months into…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK Serious Fraud Office is investigating a hotel and conference centre in Birmingham built by Britain’s second largest trade union that has been valued at tens of millions of pounds below its construction cost. There has been a long-running controversy over the valuation of the four-star venue called Aloft, which was commissioned by Unite the Union as a commercial venture, with 195 bedrooms and space for 1,200 conference guests.The venue has been valued at just £29mn, despite Unite spending about £112mn of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK ministers have taken a big step towards redesigning the flight paths aircraft use to take off from and land at London airports, in a change that could lead to greener flights but also new noise pollution in parts of the capital. The Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority on Tuesday announced a consultation on the formation of a new “airspace design service” to redraw “the way planes fly in, out and over the UK”.The review by ministers and the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK has launched a major review of sentencing policy as part of efforts to ease overcrowding in English and Welsh prisons and ensure “no government is forced into the emergency release of prisoners ever again”.Led by David Gauke, the former Conservative justice secretary, the review will explore “tough alternatives to custody” as a way of addressing overcrowding in jails, which have been at the brink of capacity for more than a year.The review was announced on Tuesday by the justice ministry,…

For many people across the UK, bills are soaring. This year the much-needed £300 Winter Fuel Payment has been axed for many state pensioners with people looking at any way that they can save money whilst staying warm.To help, energy specialists at Grant Store are urging pensioners to look at what appliances they leave plugged in and if there’s any that even seem harmless, they should be turned off. This is because even on standby, many items we use often can quietly sap electricity and pile on extra costs.The expert stressed: “Many people don’t realise that appliances like TVs and…