The UK government is set to abandon its controversial plan to review or scrap all EU-era law by the end of 2023, in a move which has sparked fury among Tory Eurosceptics. Kemi Badenoch, business secretary, told Tory Brexiters this week that the majority of almost 4,000 pieces of retained EU law would remain on
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Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s hard-right prime minister, has endorsed Rishi Sunak’s tough stance on immigration, in spite of misgivings among her officials about backing the UK policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. Sunak and Meloni, who held talks in Downing Street on Thursday, hailed “very strong” relations between the two countries on a range of
The High Court in London ruled on Thursday that a 48-hour stoppage by the UK’s largest nursing union was unlawful, cutting short the most extensive walkout yet over pay. The decision will roughly halve the length of next week’s proposed two-day walkout, the first to affect NHS emergency and critical care, and came as four
Good afternoon. This was the week when Rishi Sunak sought to reboot the Conservative party’s relationship with business with a summit for FTSE 100 chief executives, spurred on by fears that Labour is now stealing a march with the boss class. The obvious difficulty for Sunak is that a bit of Davos-man veneer cannot cover
In recent decades, a set of distinctive rituals has emerged in finance around the phenomenon known as “Fedspeak”. Whenever a central banker makes a comment, economists (and journalists) rush to parse it while traders place investment bets. But if economists at the Richmond Fed are correct, this ritual could soon change. They recently asked the
Wall Street futures gained ground on Thursday as several more strong results from the US technology sector boosted sentiment ahead of the latest set of US gross domestic product figures. Contracts tracking Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent, while those tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were up 0.9 per cent ahead of
“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us” is the classic language of two cowboys psyching themselves up for a gunfight at the OK Corral. It is a phrase ready-made for the grotesque spectacle of two generals blasting each other for control of what is left of Sudan. Two gunslingers at war is
The writer is founder of Sifted, an FT-backed site about European start-ups British politicians seemingly love nothing more than to swap confidential information, gossip, lobby and conspire on WhatsApp, unless, of course, their messages leak. Then, those selfsame politicians, such as Matt Hancock — the former health secretary who inadvisedly shared thousands of WhatsApp messages
US economic growth slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2023 despite strong consumer spending, as the Federal Reserve ploughed ahead with its historic monetary tightening campaign. The world’s largest economy grew by 1.1 per cent on an annualised basis between January and March, according to preliminary data released by the Commerce department on Thursday.
The crisis-stricken CBI will be renamed as part of efforts to demonstrate that it has reformed its toxic workplace culture after weeks of allegations of rape, sexual harassment and bullying, the new boss of the business lobby group has said. Rain Newton-Smith said the rebranding would be necessary as part of a promised “root and
Sharon Wong had decided she had earned a little indulgence as she browsed at Louis Vuitton in La Samaritaine department store, one of Paris’s marquee luxury shopping destinations. “It’s expensive, but I’ve been thinking about it for a few months,” the thirtysomething marketing manager from London said as she examined models of the Petit Sac
One of the (many) times I have been heckled during a panel on crypto was when I argued that it shouldn’t be thought of as money. The only reason to use it other than for speculation, I said, was to buy drugs on the internet. This was a preposterous idea, the heckler retorted; crypto is
Back in 2019, three of the largest US regional banks successfully lobbied regulators to ease their capital requirements by excluding paper losses on their investment portfolios. Doing so, they claimed, would allow them to increase lending — thus supporting the American economy — and better manage interest rate risk. As regulators consider rolling back those
Microsoft’s blockbuster $75bn acquisition of Activision may have been teetering on the edge of failure on Wednesday, but its shareholders had other things on their minds. The software company’s shares jumped more than 7 per cent the day after it reported a resurgence in its cloud computing business and reiterated a determination to capitalise on
Meta’s virtual reality business, Reality Labs, is spending money like a start-up. Unfortunately, it lacks the 10x growth to match. The company’s R&D spend in the first three months of the year exceeded $9bn, equal to 33 per cent revenues. That’s twice as high as Alphabet and Microsoft. The tech sell-off last year has prompted
Meta issued sales guidance above expectations and reported a small uptick in revenues after three consecutive quarters of declines, as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” begins to bear fruit. First-quarter revenues rose 3 per cent to $28.6bn, above analyst expectations for a slight decline to $27.7bn. The company also pointed to second-quarter revenues
The House of Representatives has narrowly approved a Republican plan to raise the debt ceiling in a legislative victory for Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy that will do little to break the stalemate with the White House. Amid fears the stand-off between Republicans and Democrats will plunge the US government into default as soon
Meta shares rose 10 per cent after it reported better than expected sales guidance and a small uptick in revenues after three quarters of decline as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” began to bear fruit. Revenue in the first three months of the year was up 3 per cent from a year ago
The UK government overcame opposition from within the ruling Conservative party on Wednesday to drive divisive new legislation aimed at deterring asylum seekers from crossing the Channel to the UK through the House of Commons. The bill will bar from claiming asylum almost anyone entering Britain on small boats or without prior permission, imposing a
No matter how hard it tries, a company worth more than $2tn cannot position itself as the plucky underdog. Especially when it is able to write a $75bn cheque with ease. On Wednesday, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority declared that it would not approve Microsoft’s blockbuster acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Both companies make noises
The UK must overhaul its approach to executive pay, stock market risk and other “cultural issues” if it wants to arrest a sharp decline in the City of London’s initial public offerings, the author of a landmark report on listings reforms said on Wednesday. Lord Jonathan Hill told the House of Commons Treasury select committee