If there is a Great British Bully, it is probably Flashman, the vicious schoolboy villain of Thomas Hughes’s Victorian novel Tom Brown’s School Days. Among other things, Flashman toasted Tom in front of a fire as a punishment. Flashman’s abuse would still count as bullying, according to Dominic Raab, who resigned as UK deputy prime
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British businesses said that economic activity accelerated at the fastest pace in a year this month, while input cost inflation slowed off the back of falling fuel and energy prices, according to a closely watched survey released on Friday. The S&P/Cips global flash UK composite purchasing managers’ index, a measure of private sector activity, rose
Shortly before his exit, Logan Roy, the anti-hero of the HBO drama Succession, rallies the journalist “pirates” at his television news network in New York City. “This is not the end. I’m going to build something better, something faster, lighter, meaner, wilder,” he shouts defiantly. “And I’m going to do it from in here, with
Oliver Dowden, the cabinet office minister and a longstanding ally of Rishi Sunak, has been appointed deputy prime minister, replacing Dominic Raab. Dowden, a political fixer and former Conservative party chair, first made his reputation as David Cameron’s deputy chief of staff in Downing Street, before later becoming an MP. It was widely expected in
Asian stocks sold off and European markets were steady on Friday as investors worried about the prospects for China technology stocks and progress in political negotiations over the US debt ceiling. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index posted its largest daily drop since late February, falling 1.8 per cent with all sectors in negative territory. The
Even on the day the museum is closed to visitors — a Tuesday — the vast courtyard of the Palais du Louvre in central Paris is teeming with tourists taking selfies in front of IM Pei’s glass pyramids and hawkers selling miniature Eiffel Towers decked with sparkling lights. But the Café Marly, a French brasserie
The writer is the author of ‘Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The Surprising Story of the British Economy’ It is becoming worryingly easy to use the dread phrase “the 1970s” when discussing Britain’s economy. Inflation has been persistently high, industrial unrest continues to dominate the news agenda and all against a backdrop of an
Dominic Raab has resigned as the UK’s deputy prime minister after an independent report into bullying claims against him upheld two of the allegations. Raab, who was also justice secretary, issued a letter on Twitter on Friday morning saying he wanted to “keep his word” having promised to resign if the inquiry by employment lawyer
Good morning. Yesterday morning, Westminster was awash with rumours that Dominic Raab was soon to be sacked: at time of writing, Raab is still very much in place. These rumours can fly through a parliamentary party at times and it is a useful reminder of a neglected truth about politics: there ultimately aren’t a lot
A gold-plated European parliament pension scheme is set to run out of money within two years, putting payouts at risk for almost a thousand members including the Brexiter Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen, the French far right leader. Senior MEPs are fighting to avoid a €300mn taxpayer bailout of a special voluntary scheme for
China is building sophisticated cyber weapons to “seize control” of enemy satellites, rendering them useless for data signals or surveillance during wartime, according to a leaked US intelligence report. The US assesses that China’s push to develop capabilities to “deny, exploit or hijack” enemy satellites is a core part of its goal to control information,
Ursula von der Leyen sat in the VIP carriage of a Ukrainian train, a slight figure clad in a collared shirt and light jumper. Rattling through dark, forested countryside an hour outside Kyiv, the European Commission president and her entourage were making their way back towards the EU border. The table had been cleared of
London has always been a demographic conveyor belt. Every year, it pulls in tens of thousands of recent graduates. They spend a decade or so climbing the professional ladder in the hope of making enough money to get on to the housing one, and then in their thirties many of them bid the capital farewell
Investors representing $4.5bn of wiped-out Credit Suisse bonds have filed a lawsuit against Switzerland’s banking regulator, in a dispute which challenges the country’s reputation as the world’s most politically stable and reliable financial centre. The claim is the first to be brought by holders of $17bn of Credit Suisse convertible bonds which were rendered worthless
Once upon a time, pensions ensured that people could live a comfortable and happy retirement. Not any more. Pensions are a magic wand to wave at a variety of UK economic problems, from an ailing stock market or low productivity to regional inequality. To the extent that they can play a role in tackling these
As the term of their mortgage neared its end in September last year, Iona and her husband began the search for a new deal. The couple, both architects in their mid-30s who asked to remain anonymous, saw their 1.6 per cent rate leap to 4.7 per cent on the best three-year fixed deal they could
UK consumer confidence increased in April, according to data published on Friday, suggesting early signs of an economic recovery. The consumer confidence index issued by market researcher GfK rose six points to minus 30 in April, following a two-point increase in the previous month. All measures were up over March, with the forecast for the
Rishi Sunak was accused of “dithering” on Thursday as he agonised over whether he can cling on to deputy prime minister Dominic Raab following accusations that his ally bullied civil servants. The prime minister was handed a report into the bullying allegations by employment lawyer Adam Tolley KC on Thursday morning and spent the day
Meta plans to axe more than 10 per cent of its UK workforce and ditch Instagram’s new hub in London, as the social media group retreats from the British capital in its latest restructuring effort. An internal document sent to staff on Wednesday said that at least 687 jobs would be eliminated, primarily in London,
US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has warned that any effort to decouple from China would be “disastrous” as she said that national security measures targeted at Beijing were not designed to “stifle” the Chinese economy. In a major speech on Thursday, Yellen called for a “constructive and fair” economic relationship between China and the US,
Last month, just after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, a team of American economists embarked on the daunting task of crunching 5.4mn tweets. The reason? When SVB failed it was dubbed the world’s first “Twitter-fuelled bank run” by Patrick McHenry, House Financial Services Committee chair. So, the economists — Anthony Cookson, Corbin Fox, Javier Gil-Bazo, Juan