Work has been getting a bad press lately. We’ve had the “great resignation” trend, the “anti-work” movement, “quiet quitting” and a wave of strikes. It all seems to add up to a sense that work is getting worse and people are fed up with it. I was even asked to join a podcast discussion last
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The Bank of England is set to raise interest rates to their highest level since 2008 on Thursday in the wake of official data last month that showed inflation remained stubbornly high. The expected increase in the cost of borrowing would represent the 12th successive boost by the central bank since it started raising rates
The compensation bill for those affected by the NHS contaminated blood scandal could reach £10bn, according to officials, in a further blow to the UK’s stretched public finances. Ministers have accepted the “moral case” for compensating families of the victims of the scandal, in which tens of thousands of people were infected with HIV and
There was a moment when Turkey’s election debate came down to an onion and a warship. It began when Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the man leading the charge to break President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s grip over Turkish politics, sat at his kitchen table last month, his shirt collar open, sleeves rolled up, and held up an onion.
Staff burnout and demographic changes threaten a permanent contraction in the European health workforce, with the sector’s leaders warning they may never restore the capacity to treat patients to pre-pandemic levels. Across the continent, clinicians are confronting a damaging mismatch between demand and resources, with public spending cuts forcing them to consider different ways of treating patients.
UK consumer spending grew at about half the pace of inflation in April as fast-rising prices continued to suppress demand, even as the leisure sector noted some “renewed momentum”, according to new sector data. The value of retail sales increased 5.2 per cent in the year to April, according to figures compiled by KPMG and
Rishi Sunak has announced plans to cut the time it takes to see a GP in England as the prime minister hurried to deliver on his promise to cut NHS waiting lists before voters go to the polls in a general election expected by late next year. The measures will allow people suffering from a
Mexico’s supreme court on Monday declared unconstitutional part of an electoral reform law pushed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador which advocates said threatened to undermine the country’s democracy. The justices voted 9-2, meeting the minimum threshold of eight votes under Mexican law, to strike down the bill, which completely restructured and shrank the electoral
Britain’s privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540mn the previous year, despite rising household bills and a wave of public criticism over sewage outflows. The figures, based on a Financial Times analysis of the 10 largest water and sewage companies’ accounts, are higher than headline dividends in the year to
US regional banks rallied further in pre-market trading on Monday as concerns over their health eased, with the momentum also underpinning gains for stocks in Europe and Asia. Futures tracking the US S&P 500 were trading 0.2 per cent higher while those following the Nasdaq were flat as investors grew more optimistic over the battered
Apple announced a five-part bond offering, continuing what is shaping up as a busy month for investment grade corporate debt issuance. The company’s filing on Monday to the Securities and Exchange Commission was preliminary, so did not contain details about the size of the offering or pricing. Those details are expected later today. The notes
Rishi Sunak is facing criticism from the rightwing of his ruling Conservative party over his “shameful” China policy and his failure to build more homes, as he tries to limit the fallout of last week’s dire Tory local election results in England. The UK prime minister will convene his cabinet on Tuesday and seek to
The writer is an FT contributing editor The most important word in politics, Margaret Thatcher’s advertising guru once told me, is “moderate”. There is a lesson here for today’s Conservatives as Rishi Sunak’s government reflects on its latest electoral setback. Parties that want to win elections must lay claim to other attributes, but the mantle
When I first moved to Spain last summer, I felt strangely disorientated. I could hardly blame culture shock — I’d been visiting the country for years before I moved to Madrid. I speak Spanish. I have Spanish family. But I’d never lived here, and something was out of place. Then a chance comment from a
The diplomats who craft western foreign policies are preoccupied by Russia and China. But the international question that most worries their political masters is immigration. As one close aide to President Joe Biden puts if: “If we lose the next election, it’ll be over the southern border not Ukraine.” The political pressure generated by migration
Russian forces launched a barrage of air strikes on Kyiv ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, in what the city’s mayor said was the largest drone attack on the capital since Moscow’s full-scale invasion last year. Ukrainian forces said they had shot down 30 “kamikaze” drones in the Kyiv area in the early hours of
The head of PwC in Australia has resigned as chief executive three days after admitting that he had received emails regarding confidential government information on changes to tax avoidance laws to win new business. Tom Seymour, chief executive of PwC Australia since March 2020, has stood down with immediate effect following a discussion with the
Last week, I quoted a recent speech by US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, in which he asked, “How does trade fit into our international economic policy, and what problems is it seeking to solve?” As I’ll argue here, we should start by seeking to solve the problem of concentration and competition. Leaving aside the question
The UK’s failure to attract investments from electric vehicle start-ups or large battery makers was “concerning”, the chief executive of luxury-car maker Bentley has warned. The government needs to deal with energy costs to spur investment and compete with other countries whose incentives are “an order of magnitude more attractive than the UK”, Adrian Hallmark
Former Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker has called for a radical overhaul of how banks are funded so they could withstand a 100 per cent deposit run without following Silicon Valley Bank, Credit Suisse, Signature Bank and First Republic into finance’s graveyard. The recent spate of bank collapses alarmed regulators by showing how
The G7-led price cap on Russian oil exports has forced the Kremlin to raise the tax burden on producers, dealing a fresh blow to an energy sector already struggling with western sanctions, according to officials from the western coalition. An analysis of the tax change by a member of the G7-led coalition, which was shared