FTSE 100 Live: WPP sinks; LSEG, Rolls-Royce bumper buybacks February 26, 2026 Good morning and welcome back to the Morning Wire liveblog. After a few days of tariff-induced risk aversion, the FTSE 100 was back on blistering form on Wednesday, finishing the day’s trading session with a new record. London’s blue-chip index soared over one per cent to seal yet another record close at 10,806.41p. This was [...]
Courtrooms in the cloud: How Opus 2 quietly changed the game February 26, 2026 AI is making its mark on the legal profession, an industry renowned for its cautious approach to change. Yet, behind the scenes, innovative technologies have been quietly transforming courtrooms for years. If you ever sat behind the row of barristers and the lawyers that instructed them in a courtroom at the High Court, you may [...]
Made to be broken? Reeves urged to keep fiscal rules February 26, 2026 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to keep her fiscal rules amid growing calls for tweaks to be made to factor in long-term investments and demands for higher defence spending. Richard Hughes, the most recent chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), called on Reeves to see out her fiscal rules through parliament. Appearing [...]
Why Rachel Reeves’ low-key Spring Statement still matters February 26, 2026 This is the Spring Statement that Chancellor Rachel Reeves has long been waiting for in opposition: a moment of sheer insignificance. In May 2023, six months after the mini-budget debacle, Reeves offered a speech in opposition to Washington DC’s top independent think tank, the Peterson Institute, exalting her core economics philosophy of ‘securonomics’. She summarised [...]
It’s a sad story from brewery to pub February 26, 2026 It was a balmy 17 degrees in the Square Mile yesterday, drawing crowds out for a lunchtime pint in the sun. But in other parts of the country the hospitality sector is still in the grip of winter. Bad news came thick and fast from my native Cornwall yesterday, starting with confirmation that Sharp’s Brewery [...]
Emirates boss on Arsenal stadium, leaving F1 and NBA Europe February 26, 2026 Matt Hardy talks sponsorship and strategy with the executive vice president of corporate communications, marketing and brand at global airline Emirates. At the end of the Premier League season 11 teams will be forced to change their front-of-shirt sponsor and, for some sides, the brand on their strip is synonymous with a particular era of [...]
Buy more small caps, says Panmure Liberum. But which ones? February 26, 2026 Now is the time to get back into British small caps, according to the boffins at Panmure Liberum. Headline valuations, on a P/E ratio basis, don’t seem much different in the small caps compared to their big-cap counterparts. But Panmure says that when you adjust for differences in sector composition, you get an average discount [...]
Service sector profits continue long decline February 26, 2026 Profitability in the UK’s service sector declined for the seventeenth consecutive rolling quarter, according to new data, with businesses reporting few signs of improvement on the horizon. The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) latest survey on the service sector showed that rising costs put businesses’ bottom line under pressure. A weighted balance of -28 per [...]
Gucci sparks backlash with AI-generated ads ahead of fashion week February 25, 2026 Gucci has come under fire after using AI to create images promoting its upcoming show at Milan fashion week, raising concerns that the luxury house is cutting corners ahead of a runway debut. The Italian brand posted a series of glossy visuals on social media this week, some labelled ‘created with AI’, to tease creative [...]
Sheffield Wednesday: New buyers sought after £40m takeover collapses February 25, 2026 Sheffield Wednesday fans have called for a new buyer to be found urgently after the consortium behind a proposed £40m takeover of the fallen English football giants pulled out. A group led by James Bord, a co-owner of Scottish club Dunfermline, was named preferred bidder in December but announced today that they were withdrawing their [...]