When I was a green young journalist making my way on a London society column, I remember hanging around the doors of the Groucho Club in Soho trying to talk my way in. Someone tapped my shoulder. It was the artist Peter Blake. He and his wife Chrissy, regulars at my father’s café, had known
News
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The writer is an FT contributing editor and writes the Chartbook newsletter In a world of polycrisis, in which intersecting problems compound each other and there are few easy wins, it is all the more
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. It isn’t quite true that the Premier League has conquered the world. Some atolls in the Bering Sea are holding out. Rumours persist of villages throughout the Eurasian Steppe where children are still allowed
Only one man in Turkey has rivalled Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for laudatory press coverage in recent months: the president’s candidate to reclaim Istanbul from its opposition mayor. Once a relatively low-key urbanisation minister, Murat Kurum has become a star fixture of government-friendly media in the run-up to local elections this Sunday. From parading with pop
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Prime minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to introduce a highly complex tax regime for UK wine importers is going to drive up prices, reduce consumer choice and tie up small businesses in red tape, the industry
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Ministers have accepted that Thames Water bills will have to rise, as they seek to persuade investors to put more money into the troubled company and stop it sliding towards a politically disastrous nationalisation. Steve
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The runaway train that is the US stock market has now been rattling along so far and so fast that some investors are wondering whether they can hop off without breaking a limb. It is
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Donald Trump endorsed the Bible this week. You might have thought that God’s presence was enough for believers at Easter, but the former US president has licensed his name, likeness and image to the “God
In early November, a group of around 20 top managers from luxury group Kering and British online retailer Farfetch gathered in the Paris-based group’s elegant board room. Ostensibly the meeting was an opportunity for Farfetch founder José Neves to present his strategy as a retail partner to the new top executive team at the owner
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. European officials have accused an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin of bribing EU lawmakers as part of a Russian influence operation in the run-up to bloc-wide elections in June. Ukrainian oligarch and longtime political operative
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US foreign policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Joe Biden has vowed to keep working to secure the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been detained in Russia for a year, as Republicans and Democrats in Washington
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has resigned as leader of the Democratic Unionist party after being charged with “historical” offences. Donaldson, 61, led the Northern Ireland party since 2021 and has been a key player in the
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. US inflation rose slightly to 2.5 per cent in February, according to the metric that the Federal Reserve uses for its target. The rise in headline Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation, from 2.4 per cent in
London’s Soho, reflects Sony Music boss Rob Stringer, has changed since his days as a cub A&R man spending boozy afternoons in now vanished bars and clubs. We are meeting at Dean Street Townhouse, a restaurant opened by his friend and Soho House founder Nick Jones. It serves the sort of posh pub grub priced
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Imagine that a James Bond villain decided to achieve world domination not with armies or drones but through our brains. They might manipulate our minds to get us addicted to fantasy worlds, turn us against
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Israeli air strikes on the northern Syrian province of Aleppo have killed and wounded numerous civilians and military personnel, Syria’s defence ministry has said. “The Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Swiss agricultural chemicals company Syngenta has called off a $9bn Shanghai listing that would have been one of China’s largest initial public offerings in years, as the country’s stock markets struggle in the wake of
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK property myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Mortgage brokers have welcomed an “innovative” home loan aimed at first-time buyers, which requires a deposit of just £5,000 for homes worth up to £500,000. The mortgage, launched this week by Accord, an arm of
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. French inflation has fallen faster than forecast to its lowest level since July 2021, while price growth also undershot expectations in Italy to boost hopes that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates soon.
Thames Water is in trouble: cash-strapped, struggling to control sewage outflows and water leakage, and without the storage capacity to deal with shortfalls during hot weather. Concerns over the future of Britain’s biggest water provider reached a peak this week when investors refused to inject £3bn of much-needed equity, despite nearly a year of negotiations
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The UK property sector has a proud tradition of being the gloomiest corner of the European market in every crash. Not this time. Global real estate, squeezed by rising interest rates, is in the midst