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As a boy growing up in Southampton, Rishi Sunak helped his mother do the books in her pharmacy. That formative experience, coupled with his deep-rooted belief in a small state and his polished TV performances, should make him a dream candidate for the Conservatives. But the former chancellor is currently trailing Liz Truss among the

UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has indicated that Britain’s next prime minister will need to rule on Tata Group’s request for £1.5bn in government subsidies to safeguard the future of its Port Talbot steelworks. Kwarteng’s allies say the minister wants to help steelmakers including Tata, owner of the UK’s largest steelworks, to decarbonise the sector,

It’s such a well-known face, to anyone who grew up watching cultural television in Britain, and such a well-known voice to anyone who listens to BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. And it’s a daunting prospect, to interview a man who has spent his working life over several decades interviewing many of the greatest cultural

Data released on Friday showed that high UK inflation is hitting retail sales, business activity and consumer confidence, strengthening predictions of an economic recession this year. The volume of retail sales in Great Britain fell for the second consecutive month in June as high inflation pushed consumers to tighten their belts. A closely watched survey

Eurozone business activity has gone into reverse for the first time since February 2021 after companies were hit by falling orders and rising prices, fuelling economists’ expectations of a recession this year. Fears that the 19-country single currency zone is heading for a sharp downturn were reinforced by S&P Global’s flash eurozone composite purchasing managers’

Mykhailo Poperechnyuk was driving towards the town of Nikopol, in southern Ukraine, earlier this month when he saw a barrage of Russian rockets streaking across the night sky. The missiles were fired from what may be the most impregnable Russian positions along the entire front line: those around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant just 5km

Andrey Liscovich was at home in downtown San Francisco when he saw a tweet from the American politician Marco Rubio: “The #Russian invasion of #Ukraine is now underway.” He felt sick. The 37-year-old Ukrainian had spent most of the previous decade working far from his native country, including as chief executive officer of Uber Works,

The Howard family has been entwined with British power since before the days of Elizabeth I, so it was little surprise that Lord Greville Howard’s London townhouse was the base for the campaign to install Liz Truss as prime minister. But something was not right at Howard’s Georgian home on Lord North Street, near the

Since January 6 2021, Liz Cheney has been focused on a single goal: making sure Donald Trump never again occupies the Oval Office. On Thursday she came a step closer to achieving that ambition as she wrapped up the last in a series of live hearings investigating last year’s attack on the US Congress, and

Donald Trump ignored repeated pleas from his family and closest advisers to bring a stop to the January 6 riots and instead spent hours watching the violence unfold on Fox News, a congressional committee has heard. In the final session of a summer of hearings, the panel investigating the insurrection used a primetime broadcast on

China’s middle-class consumers are fanning a new craze as they adapt to tougher economic times: a rush to buy soon-to-expire food and drink at deep discounts. According to public records, 119 businesses specialising in items approaching their expiry dates have been registered within the past 12 months, compared with 92 over the previous decade. Such

EDF is trying to alter a key subsidy contract to avoid missing out on billions of pounds in guaranteed revenue after the Covid-19 pandemic caused further delays to Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station under construction in the UK in almost 30 years. The French utility is in negotiations with the British

Mattel is stocking up in anticipation of higher demand for Jurassic World action figures and Hot Wheels cars this holiday season, citing a 20 per cent increase in second-quarter revenues as evidence that inflation has not deterred parents from spending on toys. The California-based company behind Barbie dolls and Thomas & Friends trains reported its

The owner of the UK’s largest steelworks, Tata Group, has threatened to shut down operations if the government does not agree in the next year to provide £1.5bn of subsidies to help it reduce carbon emissions. Tata Steel UK runs the Port Talbot plant and employs nearly 8,000 people across all its operations. As one

Christine Lagarde proclaimed a “rather historical moment” on Thursday after the European Central Bank’s rate-setters unanimously agreed to create a bond-buying tool the ECB president hopes will stop higher interest rates from sparking a new eurozone debt meltdown. By giving itself the power to buy unlimited amounts of the bonds of any country that it

The European Central Bank has raised interest rates by half a percentage point — its first increase for more than a decade — while pledging to prevent rising borrowing costs from sparking a eurozone debt crisis amid political turmoil in Italy. The central bank increased interest rates by twice as much as it said it

Everyone in the UK, it seems, is angry about their pay. Rail strikes are set to escalate over the summer. Bus drivers, refuse collectors and baggage handlers have staged walkouts across the country; more than 100,000 postal workers at the Royal Mail Group have voted to follow suit. In the public sector, unions representing teachers

Italian stocks and bonds sold off on Thursday after Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned and the European Central Bank sharply raised interest rates in its effort to tame blistering inflation. The yield on Italy’s 10-year government bond jumped 0.24 percentage points to 3.6 per cent as Draghi’s national unity coalition unravelled and the ECB lifted

Britain needs new economic rules of thumb. The old norms and assumptions are not remotely adequate for a world with severe shocks to the supply of gas and other commodities, high inflation and extremely low rates of underlying productivity growth. In the past, the shortcuts most economists have used to describe a complex and dynamic

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has resigned, ending a national unity government formed to tackle unpopular reforms and spelling trouble for Europe at a time of acute economic challenges. In a statement, President Sergio Mattarella’s office on Thursday said that Draghi would remain in charge of current affairs. Mattarella is now expected to dissolve parliament