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E WERE told to expect a speech that would leave no room for doubt about what Andy Burnham believes in, and we got one. There might not be much detail yet about how the Burnham Revolution will unfold but there is no ambiguity, either. The Prime...
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CHANCELLOR SAYS ‘WE DON’T HAVE THE MONEY’ OF THE BLAIR AND BROWN YEARS
CHANCELLOR John Healey has warned Labour members that the government does not have available funds to spend more on public services. In his address to party activists, Healey said Tony Blair’s government in the late 1990s and early 2000s had more...
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CONSUMERS ON EDGE AS PRIVATE SECTOR GROWTH STUMBLES
RETAILERS have called on John Healey to slash the “burdensome” cost of doing business or risk further price rises, after consumer confidence slipped for the first time in four months through September. The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which...
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RAC U-turns on London listing plans and explores private sale
PUBLIC borrowing overshot expectations by billions of pounds in August, laying bare the fiscal tightrope facing John Healey as he prepares to deliver his inaugural Budget next month. The Office for National Statistics said borrowing exceeded £18bn...
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Expanded ‘mansion tax’ would double volume of homes affected
THE NUMBER of London homeowners set to be clobbered by the so-called mansion tax could as much as double if the threshold for paying the levy is cut, a City AM analysis has found. Tens of thousands more property owners will be dragged into paying the...
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I’M NOT JUST A ‘SOCIALIST WITH TIKTOK’
ANDY Burnham has warned Brits to expect a “challenging” Budget as he hit back at his former adviser for accusing him of being a “socialist with better TikToks”. Burnham’s comments will be interpreted as an indication that tax hikes will likely form...
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PRESSURE BUILDS IN BOND MARKETS
THE Bank of England is facing mounting pressure to raise interest rates tomorrow amid a global bond market rout fuelled by concerns over runaway government borrowing and sticky inflation. Investors told Threadneedle Street it was “essential” to rein...
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Crispin Odey loses battle against City ban
BATTERSEA Power Station has entered the final phase of its £5bn regeneration project after its Malaysian owners submitted plans for the site’s remaining 16 acres. The neighbourhood’s newest development will add as much as 3.2m sq ft of residential,...
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NO WELFARE CUTS TO PAY FOR DEFENCE
ANDY BURNHAM has said an uplift in defence spending will not come “at the expense” of benefits. During Prime Minister’s Questions, Burnham said “national security can’t come at the expense of social security” in response to attacks from Tory leader...
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BANK CHIEF WARNS ON INFLATION
BANK OF ENGLAND governor Andrew Bailey has warned inflationary pressures are buffeting the UK economy and energy prices could rise further next year, in a sign of the cocktail of economic pressures facing the government as it approaches its first...
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NEXT HAILS VICTORY IN PAY DISPUTE
RETAIL giant Next has won an equal pay appeal allowing it to pay warehouse workers more than shop-floor staff, warning that its defeat “would have represented a hammer blow to retail employment in the UK”. The FTSE 100 retailer, which is run by...
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‘LARGE TAX HIKES ON THE WAY’
CHANCELLOR John Healey is likely to roll out “large tax hikes” at his maiden Budget after a rout in global bond markets pushed the cost of government borrowing to near two-decade highs, economists have said. A jump in the 10-year gilt yield yesterday...
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ENDOF SUMMER SALE!
THE London Stock Exchange risks being gutted of even more blue-chip firms this year without urgent action, a group of top advisers has said, after three more listed companies accepted bids from foreign buyers. The cohort warned that “complacency is...
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BAILEY WARNS OF GLOBAL AI MARKET RISK
THE governor of the Bank of England and chair of the Financial Stability Board, Andrew Bailey, has warned that countries are unprepared for the consequences of advanced AI and that the wider economy remains vulnerable to a dramatic market correction...
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‘CHAOTIC’ JOBS REFORM COULD COST FIRMS £3BN
THE government faced backlash from business groups yesterday after revealing its “chaotic” crackdown on zero-hour contracts could cost businesses nearly £3bn every year, higher than previously expected. The cost of the new rules, which will force...
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HOUSING SECTOR CALLS FOR HELP
THE government is facing calls to slash stamp duty and revive a help-to-buy scheme as a drop-off in activity in Britain’s property market threatens to drag on the economy. London-listed developer Bellway became the latest firm to call on Chancellor...
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COST OF DOING BUSINESS CRISIS
BRITISH companies are facing a “cost of business crisis” as a string of controversial government policies have pushed up the average firm’s expenses by 70 per cent in a decade, one of the country’s largest industry bodies has said. A typical firm with...
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CITI BOSS HITS OUT AT BANK TAX FEARS
THE BOSS of Citigroup has warned the government that “money votes with its feet” and there are “very viable” alternatives to London should Andy Burnham decide to hit the banking sector with higher taxes. Dame Jane Fraser, a Scot credited with turning...
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COURTS GIVE BACKING TO NEW RUNWAYS ECONOMIC BOOST AS GATWICK AND LUTON GIVEN GREEN LIGHT
THE UK economy is set for a £2.5bn boost after Gatwick and Luton airports’ expansion plans were cleared for take-off yesterday. Courts dismissed challenges brought by environmental campaigners against the two hubs’ growth plans in separate rulings on...
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ASTRAZENECA’S POSSIBLE $400BN MEGADEAL SPARKS SHARE PRICE SLUMP
ASTRAZENECA had more than £12bn wiped from its valuation yesterday as investors baulked at a potential megamerger with US rival Bristol Myers Squibb. Shares in the Cambridge-headquartered drugmaker, Britain’s second most valuable listed company, fell...
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DIFFICULT DECISIONS
ANDY Burnham warned he will be forced to take “difficult decisions” to fund a sweeping overhaul of the social care system yesterday in a sign the government will turn to the taxpayer to finance the plans. In a press conference at a care home in North...
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AI sell-off ramps up as investors ditch chip stocks
A GLOBAL rout in chip stocks plunged the Nasdaq into correction territory on Tuesday just hours after South Korea’s bourse was forced to halt trading, in a sharp change of fortunes for what has been one of the year’s top performing exchanges. New...
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CITY ALARM OVER SUMMER OF TAX RUMOURS
ANDY Burnham and John Healey are facing a growing backlash from the private sector as another summer of tax speculation looks set to plunge bosses across key industries into uncertainty. Property chiefs yesterday condemned rumours of reforms to the...
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OPEN AI HACK SPARKS UK PROBE
THE UK government is probing the first known case of an artificial intelligence model breaking out of a controlled test by itself and hacking another company’s systems. Officials at the government-backed AI Security Institute (AISI) are investigating...
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TAX RISES NAILED ON WITH £22BN POLICY BILL
CHANCELLOR John Healey will be forced to launch another round of major tax rises in the autumn, leading economists have warned, after a City AM analysis found £22bn of spending pledges are not accounted for in official forecasts. Less than 24 hours...
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BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS
Andy Burnham helped prepare breakfast during a visit to The Passage Homeless Charity, just hours before becoming Britain's new prime minister
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TICK TOCK TRIPLE LOCK?
ANDY Burnham is facing fresh pressure to call time on the pensions triple lock after the world’s top economic organisation warned an overhaul of the policy was “necessary to reduce fiscal risk”. The Prime Minister-to-be has doubled down on Labour’s...
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BOND ROUT TO BIND BURNHAM
THE UK’s borrowing costs sailed past five per cent for only the third time since the onset of the Iran war on Tuesday, strangling Andy Burnham’s financial breathing room just days before he enters Downing Street. The yield on the UK’s 10-year...
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REEVES’ LAST STAND
RACHEL Reeves is set to issue a stern warning to her successor as chancellor as she battles to defend her record in office ahead of the overthrow of Labour’s electionwinning leadership. In what is widely expected to be her final act as Chancellor...
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Hold, please: Virgin Media fined £28m for call centre chicanery
VIRGIN Media has been slapped with the media watchdog’s largest ever fine for direct harm to consumers after it was found to have mishandled millions of calls. The telecoms giant has been hit with a £28m fine after it was found to have put customers...
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BURNHAM FACES FINANCIAL STORM
THE growing cost of pensions is set to help swell UK public debt to three times the size of the economy and will place ‘unsustainable’ pressure on the public finances, the budget watchdog has warned, days after Andy Burnham pledged to retain the...
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BROADCASTERS TAKE ON RIVAL US STREAMERS
ITV and Sky executives have said they can make no guarantees on job cuts after the two companies announced a £1.6bn merger on Monday. Employees of ITV have been warned the tie-up between Britain’s two biggest commercial broadcasters could lead to...
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KANE AND ABLE: ENGLAND TRIUMPH
Harry Kane’s brace saved England from World Cup humiliation as Thomas Tuchel’s men survived an almighty scare against the Democratic Republic of Congo to set up a clash with co-hosts Mexico. A decade on from the humiliating Euros exit to Iceland,...
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Banking on the future: Barclays takes on 999-year Wharf lease
A ROCKETING rally for defence contractors swept over London’s stock market yesterday, in the wake of Keir Starmer’s long-awaited announcement of his £15bn Defence Investment Plan (Dip). It was a Dip that fired up the City. The rally was broad – running...
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RICHARD CARING POISED TO SNAP UP ICONIC CITY SPOT
RICHARD Caring is in advanced talks to buy iconic City restaurant 1 Lombard Street, marking his first foray back into the restaurant business since the £1.4bn sale of his empire. A deal for the Lombard St restaurant, located in a former banking hall,...
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...as City firms let staff stay home during sweltering heatwave
CITY firms have told their workers to stay away from the office as London is hit with a record June heatwave. Several multinational companies headquartered in the Square Mile have advised their employees to consider remote work in a bid to dodge the...
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COURT CLEARS GATWICK PLAN
GATWICK Airport has moved a step closer to breaking ground on its eagerly anticipated expansion after a court dismissed a pair of legal challenges brought by local campaigners. In a ruling, High Court judge Mr Justice Mould said the government’s...
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City on alert over choice of Chancellor and policy direction
bour figure gets the backing of 81 MPs to launch a leadership bid after 9 July. Streeting, who had said he would stand in a contest and appeared to criticise Burnham’s stance on economic issues, said he had spoken “at length” to the front-runner,...
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AO World boss blasts Labour over ‘fantasy land’ employment costs
THE boss of AO World has hit out at the government after it shifted hundreds of jobs to South Africa in a bid to dodge soaring employment costs. John Roberts, chief executive of the electrical retailer, claimed the UK’s political class lives “in an...
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AND THEY'RE OFF...
Royal Ascot, the greatest flat racing festival in all of horse racing, is underway and thousands of punters have dressed to impress in Berkshire. Over the course of the spectacle, which features 35 races over five days through to Saturday, over 300,000...
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TOUR DE SQUARE MILE
The Square Mile was transformed into an Olympicstyle time trial cycling circuit at the weekend as Nocturne returned to the City of London. The festival of cycling saw two days of racing around the capital, with XTX Markets winning the City Criterium –...
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SPACE RACE
SPACEX is set to launch the largest retail allocation ever attempted in a megacap IPO as part of its hotly anticipated listing on the Nasdaq tomorrow, with around 30 per cent of shares reserved for retail investors. Bret Johnsen, SpaceX CFO, has said...
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UK MUST NOT ‘STICK HEAD IN SAND’ OVER AI
SIR Keir Starmer has said Britain must not “stick its head in the sand” on artificial intelligence, with the technology set to fundamentally reshape the UK economy. The Prime Minister used his speech at London Tech Week to unveil a major sovereign...
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‘TIPPING POINT’
THE boss of the UK’s most influential business group used a landmark speech to warn that the heavy business tax burden is nudging British firms towards a “tipping point”, directly linking the Labour government’s troubles to cost pressures on firms. At...
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British investors offered a ticket to blockbuster SpaceX IPO
A GROUP of influential City chiefs have thrown their weight behind an industry-wide campaign to tackle “disinformation about London” and promote the capital as an innovative hub for global investment. All four of the financial sector’s largest...
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MINISTER’S DAMNING MESSAGES
ONE of Keir Starmer’s closest allies vented his frustration with Downing Street’s economic policy as he complained to Peter Mandelson about the government’s efforts to fund welfare spending through higher taxes, the latest Mandelson files have...
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Blair is Labour’s last sensible voice
FTER reading Tony Blair’s essay on the state of Britain (and the state of the Labour party) I was struck by the realisation that large parts of it sounded as if they’d come straight out of one of my own columns. Regular readers will know that I’ve...
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BP’S CHAIRMAN FORCED OUT BY BOARD AFTER ALLEGATIONS OF BULLYING AND ‘CONCERNS’ ABOUT HIS CONDUCT
TEMPERATURES may be hitting record highs in the capital but City commuters are unlikely to find relief from the heat underground, after TfL decided to decommission the air conditioning systems at one of its busiest stations. of manner; it was not about...
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TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE
AMERICAN tech firm Palantir should challenge Sadiq Khan in court after the London mayor blocked a £50m contract with the Metropolitan Police, former government legal officer Sir Michael Ellis has said. Sir Michael Ellis KC, a former Tory attorney...
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HS2 TO BLOW £33BN HOLE IN REEVES’ PLAN
THE government will need to find as much as £33bn in additional cash from tax and spending measures or from other departments to fund its revamped plans to deliver HS2. According to a City AM analysis, the Department for Transport’s updated proposals...
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‘GOLD-PLATED FOLLY’
HS2 is now poised to cost the taxpayer as much as £102bn and will not run from Euston until at least 2040, according to the transport secretary who blasted the project as a “massively over-specced folly”. Heidi Alexander said the cost of the ill-fated...
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BURNHAM VOWS TO END ‘40 YEARS OF NEOLIBERALISM’ AS HE KICKS OFF CAMPAIGN
LABOUR leadership hopeful Andy Burnham has called for the government to abandon “40 years of neoliberalism” as he promised to reverse privatisation and reduce the cost of energy, rent and transport. In what has widely been interpreted as Burnham’s...
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EAGLE HAS LANDED
Donald Trump was greeted on arrival in Beijing by China’s vice president Han Zheng ahead of two days of high-stakes talks with President Xi Jinping
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