19 m. ago Business news live: FTSE 100 flat as UK economy stalls after Asia stocks down overnight

Market reaction and business news ahead of the government’s spending review

Economics

24 m. ago Rachel Reeves refuses to rule out Autumn Budget tax rises as economy shrinks 0.3% in April

Latest GDP estimate worse than the 0.1% fall expected by economists

Economics

39 m. ago Government Spending Review 2025: Economy shrinks as NHS spending surges and struggling councils miss out

From a surprise economic slump and warnings of a “National Health State”, to council funding concerns, a 74 per cent house price surge, and rising Tesco sales - here are today’s top UK business stories.

Politics

44 m. ago Chadwick encouraged by female participation in motorsport before Le Mans debut

Briton to race in LMP2 class for French IDEC team‘In the next decade we’ll see a huge transition’Jamie Chadwick believes motor racing is undergoing a fundamental change in female participation, a transition the British driver has played a central role in. Chadwick is committed to taking it even further as she prepares to compete for the first time in the endurance classic, the Le Mans 24 Hours, this weekend.The 27-year-old has long been an advocate of promoting women in motorsport, including founding her own female karting championship, and is convinced the motor racing landscape is finally beginning to change. Continue reading...

Politics

71 m. ago Donald Trump booed by theatre as he takes seat for opening night of Les Misérables

Some cast members threatened to pull out of Wednesday night's gig at the John F Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts in Washington DC.

Politics

1 hour ago Love Forms by Claire Adam review – the power of a mother’s loss

Forty years on, a Trinidadian woman has never stopped looking for the daughter she gave up for adoption, in a quietly devastating novelClaire Adam’s 2019 novel Golden Child was her debut, but it felt like the work of a master. It was tender, ravishing, shattering – you believed every word of it. The book had an effortless narrative authority that most first-time novelists would kill for.Love Forms is every bit as alive and convincing, and returns us to Trinidad, with its potent fizz of colour, heat and political instability. But unlike the earlier book, it’s also set partly in south London – the writer’s own home turf – and has a mother, rather than a father, at its heart. Continue reading...

Politics

1 hour ago Deep Cover review – Bryce Dallas Howard leads improv actors into London’s underground

Howard, Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed star in an entertaining odd-trio crime caper with turns by Sean Bean and Paddy Considine Producer and screenwriter Colin Trevorrow has co-created this amiable, high-concept action comedy about three hapless improv actors dragooned into going into deep cover to bust a drug ring. It’s entertaining, though I think some of the cast understand comedy better and more instinctively than others. It’s set in London (though Trevorrow might originally have imagined it set in LA or New York) and the credit is shared with his longtime writing partner Derek Connolly, and also with Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, the funny British double act known as the Pin, who also amusingly appear as two squabbling coppers with a Mitchell and Webb energy. The director is the talented Tom Kingsley, who has a substantial TV career and with Will Sharpe got a Bafta nomination in 2012 for the dark comedy Black Pond.Bryce Dallas Howard plays Kat, an American actor whose caree...

Events

1 hour ago Harrowing last words dying people all hear but no one knew until now

Some people have reported hearing their time of death being announced by medical professionals before coming back to life - and there's a scientific reason behind it

Events

2 h. ago Acorn project funding uncertainty as 'final decision' still to be made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves

Concerns have emerged over how much funding the Chancellor will hand over for the Acorn project.

Politics

2 h. ago My unexpected Pride icon: Fast & Furious is my favourite camp classic

Any film where cast members talk about chosen family and Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson busts a cast off his broken arm by flexing his biceps has a place in the gay canonI am a 42-year-old lesbian who can’t drive. And, since I’m baring all, I will add that I loathe people who drive extremely fast in obnoxiously large cars. Which, unfortunately, seems to be every third person in the US. In short, I’d wager I’m probably not the target audience for the Fast & Furious films.I’m sure I don’t need to explain the blockbuster franchise to you: the first instalment came out in 2001 and the series has generated billions. But if you are somehow unfamiliar with them, the basic premise is that a ragtag team of misfits and street racers travel around the world, driving cars fast and furiously, beating up baddies. Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago Rachel Reeves seized her moment – whatever the future brings, Labour’s economic course is now set | Martin Kettle

The chancellor is no mere technocrat: her spending review revealed a visceral commitment to social and economic mobilityThe consensus has long been that the 2025 spending review would be a defining moment for Keir Starmer’s government. For once, the consensus proved spot-on. The government’s main priorities were set out on Wednesday in a blizzard of Commons announcements from Rachel Reeves, some economically substantive, others more for show. The upshot is that the shape of the British state, as Labour intends it, is now decided until the eve of the next election.There are further crossroads still to come, some of them major, as the years covered by the review unroll. Taxes are likely to rise, probably as soon as the autumn budget, to pay for Reeves’s big ticket boosts on Wednesday for defence, health and housing. Council tax could rise too, with possibly dramatic results. The review’s emphasis on capital spending means current spending could be squeezed again, perhaps heralding pay...

Economics

3 h. ago Rising unpaid debts in London fuels demand for professional debt collection

Rising unpaid debts in London fuels demand for professional debt collection  Richmond & Twickenham Times

Politics

3 h. ago No new money to help cut UK business’s energy costs in spending review

Talks on scheme failed to reach deal before Wednesday’s announcement

Economics

3 h. ago Confessions of a Parent Killer review – a grisly tale of the murderer who lived with her mum and dad’s corpses

This look at Virginia McCullough tells a deeply strange story. Unfortunately, it also leaves the viewer in suspense about her motive for so long it feels horrifically manipulativeWell, what do you think a 90-minute documentary entitled Confessions of a Parent Killer is going to be about? That’s right, well done! It’s the story of a murder by an (adult) child of her parents. Virginia – Ginny – McCullough killed her mother, Lois, and father, John, and confessed immediately to police when they raided her home in 2023 that she had done so four years previously. The twist was that she had been living with their bodies ever since. “She was weird at school,” says a childhood friend. “But not ‘kill your parents and hide the bodies’ weird.”You can probably tell from such unimpeachably phlegmatic commentary that this case occurred in England. Great Baddow, Essex, to be exact, and the film paints a portrait of quintessential small-town, almost-rural life in these sceptred isles that has gone u...

Events

8 h. ago House sales forecast to rise despite rising prices, experts say

A quarter of industry professionals believe more people will buy houses over the next 12 months

Economics

8 h. ago ‘Under strain’ English football must improve value for fans, report says

An annual review highlights ‘repeated reports of fan unrest at ticket price and accessibility’

Sport

8 h. ago Rate of women being hired into top jobs falls for third year running – LinkedIn

The professional networking site revealed women were hired into just more than a third of leadership positions in 2024, down 2.1% year on year.

Politics

8 h. ago Judge rules Trump administration can no longer detain Mahmoud Khalil on claims he’s a threat to foreign policy

But Columbia University graduate can be held for inaccurately filling out green card application, says judgeA federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can no longer detain Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on the basis of federal claims that he is a threat to US foreign policy.In his order on Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarz said that the ruling will go into effect at 9.30am on Friday, adding: “This is to allow the respondents to seek appellate review should they wish to.” Continue reading...

Events

9 h. ago Judge rules that Trump administration can no longer detain Mahmoud Khalil

Khalil can’t be held on claims that he’s a threat to foreign policy, but can be held for inaccurately filling out green card application, says judgeA federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can no longer detain Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on the basis of federal claims that he is a threat to US foreign policy.In his order on Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarz said that the ruling will go into effect at 9.30am on Friday, adding: “This is to allow the respondents to seek appellate review should they wish to.” Continue reading...

Politics

9 h. ago Flight 149: Hostage of War review – a tale so staggering you couldn’t write it

This excellent documentary tells the tale of a BA plane’s Kuwait stopover just as Saddam Hussein invaded. It’s a crucial tale of a four-month nightmare that is barely believableIf it were a work of fiction, the story of Flight 149 would probably be deemed too horrifying – or too unbelievable – for television. Indeed, as a documentary interspersed with dramatic reconstructions, at points it is almost unbearable to watch. But it is a crucial piece of work: a one-off film that goes deep into a bizarre and increasingly hideous ordeal to ask how and why it happened.On 2 August 1990, a British Airways plane carrying nearly 400 passengers and crew from London to Kuala Lumpur touched down for a scheduled stopover in Kuwait. Those on board knew nothing of the unfolding Iraqi invasion of the country and the brutality Saddam Hussein was inflicting on his neighbours (this would, of course, soon lead to the Gulf war). British Airways maintains that it, too, was unaware of what was taki...

Events