11 h. ago Former Lebanese minister ordered released on $100,000 bail amid financial crime allegations

Officials say Lebanon's judicial authorities have ordered the release of a former economy minister on $100,000 bail after months of detention over alleged financial crimes

Politics

8 d. ago Tony Blair reportedly dropped from Trump’s Gaza ‘board of peace’ shortlist

Former UK leader loses out on key role in transitional authority after objections from Arab and Muslim nationsTony Blair will not occupy a key position on Donald Trump’s Gaza “peace council” after Arab and Muslim nations were reported to have objected to the involvement of the former UK prime minister.According to the Financial Times (FT), Blair has been quietly dropped from consideration for Trump’s “board of peace”, which Trump has said he would chair himself. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago ‘Panto season’ hits Executive amid row between ministers over budget

The Executive is expected to meet on Tuesday following budget tension between Education Minister Paul Givan and Finance Minister John O’Dowd.

Politics

1 week ago Teaching children finance more important than history or science, new report reveals

TEACHING children about financial education is more important than history or science, a major survey shows. A new global report from Santander finds that people rank financial education second only to maths in a list of the core school subjects. The study come after Ministers announced last month that financial literacy will be required in...

Society

2 w. ago Did Rachel Reeves lie to justify her £26billion Budget tax raid?

The Chancellor is facing calls to resign over misleading the public and Cabinet minister over the state of Britain’s finances

Economics

2 w. ago Did Rachel Reeves really lie to justify her £26billion Budget tax raid?

The Chancellor is facing calls to resign over misleading the public and Cabinet minister over the state of Britain’s finances

Economics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on the Send crisis: Bridget Phillipson must be tough with the Treasury so children aren’t penalised | Editorial

Tory special needs reforms upended council finances, but Labour’s plan to rebuild public provision won’t come cheap if it’s done properlyThe crisis over special educational needs and disabilities in England is not just a question of cash. Children and parents spend months and years battling for support to which the law entitles them, schools lack the funding to meet needs, and specialist provision is inadequate. An adversarial system shunts families towards tribunals that councils almost invariably lose.Tory reforms created obligations for local authorities but did not adequately fund them – allowing ministers to duck responsibility. The result has been financial chaos, with the overall overspend on special educational needs and disabilities (Send) predicted to reach £6.6bn by next March, and keep rising. Taking responsibility for funding away from councils and handing it to the Department for Education is the right move. But the most important questions about Send go beyond account...

Events

2 w. ago How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism | Yanis Varoufakis

Amazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs. But now some people are fighting backFor the past six years, every Black Friday – that made-up carnival of consumption – Amazon workers and their allies have mobilised across the world in coordinated strikes and protests. At first glance, these disputes look like the standard struggle between a giant capitalist employer and the people who keep it running. But Amazon is no ordinary corporation. It is the clearest expression of what I call technofeudalism: a new economic order in which platforms behave like lords owning the fiefs that have replaced markets.To appreciate Amazon’s extraordinary power, we must recall the system it is helping to bury. Capitalism relied on markets and profit. Firms invested in productive capital, hired workers, produced commodities and lived or died by profit and loss. But the emerging order is one in which the most powerful ca...

Politics

2 w. ago RUTH SUNDERLAND: This folly on pensions is straight from her mentor Gordon Brown's playbook

The art of taxation, according to Louis XIV's finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, is to pluck from the goose the maximum number of feathers while provoking the minimum of hissing.

Politics

2 w. ago Budget does not go far enough in public service investment – Stormont minister

Stormont Finance Minister John O’Dowd said Rachel Reeves’ spending plan ‘strengthened the need’ for fiscal devolution in Northern Ireland.

Politics

3 w. ago Alexis Tsipras says Yanis Varoufakis was ‘unsuitable’ as Greek finance minister during debt crisis

Then PM says his finance minister was ‘more celebrity than economist’ with an agenda to promote his booksYanis Varoufakis, the firebrand economist who rose to fame at the height of Greece’s debt drama, was not only egotistical but ultimately more interested in testing out his game theories on the nation than winning its battle to keep afloat.So writes the former prime minister Alexis Tsipras in his newly released memoir, Ithaki, as the once radical leftwing leader, sparing no punches, seeks, 10 years later, to put the record straight. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago RUTH SUNDERLAND: I fear Reeves will wreak irreversible harm on our pensions

The art of taxation, according to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister for Louis XIV, is to pluck from the goose the maximum number of feathers while provoking the minimum of hissing.

Politics

3 w. ago Defence Secretary facing embarrassment after failing to pay full council tax on his second home in Westminster

Mr Healey became the latest senior minister to face questions about his financial affairs after an 'administrative error' by Westminster Council left him underpaying by almost £1,500.

Society

4 w. ago EU confirms it wants UK to pay into its budget in exchange for closer ties

‘Politically realistic’ for UK to make financial contribution so it can access European single market, Irish minister saysThe UK must pay into the EU budget for future participation in the European single market, it has been confirmed, in what could become a major test for the post-Brexit reset.Ireland’s Europe minister, Thomas Byrne, said EU member states had decided the UK should make a financial contribution for closer ties: “Ireland wants to see Britain getting the benefit of closer engagement with the European Union. Continue reading...

Economics