British Steel: No 10 won’t rule out future Chinese involvement in steel making April 14, 2025 No 10 has declined to rule out future Chinese involvement in steel making, amid a race to keep the British Steel furnaces alight in Scunthorpe. The UK government has now said it is “confident” it will beat a race against time to keep the site running after taking control of the plant from Chinese owners [...]
Government’s privacy dispute with Apple ‘really strange’, expert says April 14, 2025 The government’s position in its privacy and encryption row with Apple is “really strange” and “doesn’t make sense”, an expert has said. Earlier this year, it was reported that the government had issued a notice under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, asking Apple for the ability to access data from Apple users. This was said [...]
Cabinet Office to shed 2,100 jobs as government shrinks civil service April 10, 2025 The Cabinet Office will lose almost a third of its staff as Labour seeks to shrink the civil service, the government has announced. Around 1,200 jobs will go through redundancies and leavers not being replaced under plans unveiled to civil servants on Thursday, with another 900 transferred to other departments. The 2,100 job cuts represent [...]
UK-India trade deal reportedly 90 per cent agreed, businesses told April 10, 2025 The UK’s trade deal with India is reportedly 90 per cent agreed, businesses have been told, according to a report in the Guardian. Firms were informed on a call with trade negotiators this week that some remaining issues included cars, pharmaceutical drugs and the whisky trade, the newspaper reported, with India currently the largest overseas [...]
Starmer says UK government must ‘rise to the moment’ on tariffs April 10, 2025 The UK government needs to “rise to the moment”, Sir Keir Starmer said, adding that he would not “pretend” US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “good news”. Speaking this morning after Trump announced a 90-day pause in his sweeping global tariffs, while raising his tax rate on Chinese imports to 125 per cent, the Prime [...]
US tariffs: Reeves stresses ‘imperative’ to improve UK-EU trading relations April 9, 2025 Rachel Reeves has stressed it is “imperative” for the UK to improve its trading relationship with the European Union (EU), amid US President Donald Trump’s global trade tariff war. The Chancellor’s comments emerged in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) ahead of a crucial summit with EU leaders in London next month. Reeves told [...]
British Steel: ‘All options on table’ over nationalising Scunthorpe, Starmer says April 8, 2025 The UK is keeping “all options on the table” over the potential nationalisation of the Chinese-owned British Steel plant in Scunthorpe, Sir Keir Starmer has said. The Prime Minister insisted he understood the importance of the plant, which is Britain’s last remaining steelmaker, in a Q&A with the House of Commons Liaison Committee, after its [...]
Philip Green loses legal challenge over parliamentary privilege for court injunctions April 8, 2025 A legal challenge lodged by Sir Philip Green to curb parliamentary privilege to name individuals shielded by court injunctions has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Eight ECHR justices ruled on Tuesday that Article 8 – “Right to respect for private and family life” – had not been breached. The Strasbourg [...]
Net zero no longer a priority for SMEs April 8, 2025 The majority of small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) have sidelined net zero practices, according to a survey of around 500 business owners, in signs that net zero policies are increasingly falling out of fashion. President Donald Trump’s abandonment of Biden-era green policies has driven a global trend that is seeing firms and governments move away [...]
Trump tariffs: No10 resists calls for ‘buy British’ campaign April 8, 2025 No10 has resisted calls for a “buy British” campaign in light of US tariffs, after the Chancellor slapped down the idea and suggested it could be a barrier to trade. Rachel Reeves warned against the UK becoming “inward looking” as she faced calls in the Commons to encourage the public to buy more British goods [...]