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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Jeremy Hunt has wound down a scheme that delivered an extra £200mn a year for social housing in England, in a controversial move that will further squeeze the finances of cash-strapped local councils. The chancellor’s

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Nationwide Building Society has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Virgin Money in a £2.9bn deal that would bolster its ability to challenge the UK’s big four banks. Nationwide is offering a total of 220p

With a general election looming, chancellor Jeremy Hunt was under pressure to deliver sweeteners for voters, notably what he described as “helping families with permanent cuts in taxation”, without appearing fiscally irresponsible. He confirmed the heavily trailed 2p cut in national insurance contributions, a shake-up of the “non-dom” tax regime and the creation of a

Live Opinion3/6/2024, 9:51:25 AM Stephen Bush At the Autumn Statement last year, Jeremy Hunt used most of his “headroom” to introduce a series of genuine “pro-growth” measures: making “full expensing” permanent (a big tax break for companies), increasing the government’s spending on computing power to develop artificial intelligence and further fleshing out its £2.5bn national

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt is set to cut national insurance rates as he puts personal tax reductions at the heart of his Budget on Wednesday. Government insiders confirmed that Conservative whips had been told to

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Venezuela will hold its presidential election on July 28, ending speculation over when polls will be held as political repression increases in the South American country. Socialist strongman President Nicolás Maduro is expected to run

Academics at Imperial College London have worked with scientists at Chinese institutions linked to Beijing’s armed forces and defence sector on research with potential military applications. Since the beginning of 2023, academics at the world-leading British university have been named as co-authors on at least five studies with figures from Chinese organisations at the heart

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Jeremy Hunt will on Wednesday give motorists a £5bn pre-election tax break in the Budget, as hopes rise among Tory MPs that the chancellor has mustered enough money to fund a surprise 2p income tax

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will use the Budget on Wednesday to cut personal taxes, as he scrapes together the money needed to fund a package intended to lift Conservative MPs’ spirits ahead of the general election.

The Conservative party’s grip on office is loosening in part because of its failure to resolve Britain’s housing crisis after 14 years in power, leaving the government under pressure to improve its policy pitch to those most affected — younger voters.  Despite the ruling party’s decades-old commitment to help people on to the property ladder,

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Ukraine could lose the energy war against Russia if stalled US aid does not arrive soon, the chief of the country’s largest private power producer warned. The call from DTEK chief executive Maxim Timchenko

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Israel has “basically signed on” to a six-week ceasefire that would be used to facilitate a second round of swaps of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, a senior US administration official said. Several hurdles remain

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Joe Biden rebuked Israel on Friday, saying it had “no excuses” for not letting more aid into Gaza as he announced the US will soon begin airdropping food into the enclave. Biden’s announcement and criticism

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, alleging the ChatGPT-maker’s multibillion-dollar alliance with Microsoft has compromised the start-up’s original mission of building artificial intelligence systems for the benefit

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. George Galloway has won a divisive by-election contest in Rochdale with the firebrand politician threatening to inflame tensions in the UK parliament over Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Galloway won 12,335 votes on a 37.6 per

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Dozens of people were killed in northern Gaza on Thursday after the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinians rushing towards trucks carrying food but said some had died in a crush to reach the supplies.

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK financial regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The UK’s top financial regulator is resisting Jeremy Hunt’s effort to make pension funds reveal more about their investments, setting the scene for a clash with the Treasury ahead of next week’s Budget. The

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK tax myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Jeremy Hunt has drawn up emergency Budget plans to scrap or scale back Britain’s “non-dom” tax rules, in the event that he needs to raise billions of pounds to fund mass-market pre-election tax cuts. The

Vladimir Putin’s forces have rehearsed using tactical nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict with a major world power, according to leaked Russian military files that include training scenarios for an invasion by China. The classified papers, seen by the Financial Times, describe a threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons that is lower than

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Germany’s deputy chancellor said there was “no chance” of sending ground troops to Ukraine and, in a rebuff to France, told Paris it should instead supply Kyiv with more weapons. Robert Habeck rejected French