News

Mike Ashley is to quit as a director of Frasers Group next month, stepping back from the UK retailer that he originally founded as Sports Direct four decades ago. Ashley set up Sports Direct in 1982, changing the name to Frasers after he bought the department store chain in 2018. Michael Murray, Ashley’s son-in-law, became

Dozens of Hong Kong citizens who gathered outside the city’s British consulate to watch the Queen’s funeral on Monday evening used the event to display rare public defiance against local authorities. More than 100 people were outside the building to watch the event on a live stream, despite the British consulate not holding any public

In life Elizabeth II inspired admiration in the world’s most powerful people with almost mysterious ease. In death, under a sunny London sky, she managed the feat one last time. Rarely has one place felt so filled with status and so empty of malice as Westminster Abbey did on Monday. That much was confirmed a

In December 1967, five young typists in an office in Surbiton decided to work an extra half an hour unpaid each day to help Britain’s struggling economy. Within days, their “I’m backing Britain” campaign snowballed. More workers joined in, badges were made and Bruce Forsyth recorded a single. An editorial in the Financial Times called

In 2013, the US investment bank Morgan Stanley dubbed Indonesia as one the “fragile five”, a group of emerging economies that it believed were especially vulnerable to a jump in interest rates in the US.  Almost a decade later, US interest rates are rising sharply, which is adding to the economic problems in the developing

Liz Truss will tell world leaders this week that Britain will match or exceed the £2.3bn it committed to Ukraine’s war effort against Russia in 2022 next year on her first overseas trip as UK prime minister. Truss, who met many leaders on the margins of Queen Elizabeth’s state funeral in London on Monday, will

The UK retail and hospitality industries have called on new chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to provide urgent financial support in his mini-Budget on Friday to offset the “cost of business” crisis unleashed by surging inflation. Britain’s retailers have warned inflation will add a further £800mn to business rates in the coming year because of the way the

Liz Truss has admitted that a UK-US trade deal, long seen as one of the biggest prizes of Brexit, is not on the horizon, as she arrived in New York on her first overseas trip as prime minister. Brexit supporters insisted that the 2016 Leave vote would open the way for a free trade agreement

One of the leading contenders to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister has said he will not stand in the forthcoming leadership contest, as other Conservative MPs prepare to launch their campaigns. Defence secretary Ben Wallace was the favourite among the Tory grassroots, with a net approval rating of +86 among party members according to

Rishi Sunak, who quit as Boris Johnson’s chancellor this week, launched his bid to lead the Conservative party on Friday with a pledge that he will avoid “comforting fairy tales”. His video to launch his campaign appeared a coded attack on what many MPs have seen as the prime minister’s Panglossian approach to policy. “Someone

Boris Johnson has announced his “painful” resignation but defied pressure to step down immediately as prime minister, insisting he would remain in office until a new Conservative party leader is chosen. In an address in front of No 10 Downing Street, after days of turmoil and mass resignations from his government, he accused his party

Boris Johnson’s turbulent three-year premiership was nearing its end on Wednesday night after he was urged to quit by a delegation of his closest cabinet allies. The UK prime minister was warned that unless he stepped down there would be further cabinet resignations, followed by an inevitable humiliating defeat by Tory MPs in a no-confidence

Boris Johnson’s premiership was teetering on the brink on Tuesday night, after chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid dramatically resigned from the cabinet. Downing Street was braced for more ministers quitting with many Tory MPs believing the dual resignation of two senior ministers could signal the beginning of the end for Johnson. Sunak

Protesters brought parts of the UK’s motorway network to a standstill on Monday in a demonstration over high fuel prices. Police warned drivers that a “slow-moving rolling roadblock” was causing delays on parts of the M4 motorway near the border between England and Wales and on the M5 near Bristol. There were also “significant delays”

Sir Keir Starmer will on Monday signal that Labour is willing to fight Boris Johnson over his Brexit legacy at the next election, setting out a five-point plan to tackle the economic pain caused by Britain’s EU exit. In a big tactical shift, Starmer will use a speech to denounce the “mess” created by the

Hackers with suspected links to China’s intelligence agencies were still advertising for new recruits to work on cyber espionage, even after the FBI indicted the perpetrators in an effort to disrupt their activities. Hainan Tengyuan, a Chinese technology company, was actively recruiting English language translators in March according to job adverts seen by the Financial

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, the pioneer of low-cost travel in Europe, has warned fares will rise for the next five years because flying has become “too cheap” to make profits as industry costs spiral. His warning comes as ticket prices have risen in Europe and the US this summer as passengers return and some airlines

The UK’s trade performance fell to its worst level since records began in the first quarter of 2022, heaping more pressure on sterling in international currency markets. Although the Office for National Statistics warned that the figures it published were “subject to higher levels of uncertainty than normal”, the new system it used to collect

The governor of the Bank of England warned on Wednesday that Britain’s economy is suffering more from the energy crisis than other countries with UK inflation likely to stay higher for longer. Speaking with other central bankers at a European Central Bank conference in Sintra, Portugal, Andrew Bailey said the BoE needed the option of

Turkey has dropped its opposition to Finland and Sweden becoming members of Nato, paving the way for the Nordic countries to join the alliance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The three countries have signed a joint memorandum after hours of talks on Tuesday brokered by Nato, ending a six-week veto by Ankara linked