Am I going to be replaced by AI? February 12, 2026 With each passing day it seems another sector suffers an AI-induced wobble on the stock market. We saw the large data companies lose billions in value when a new legal-focused AI tool was launched; we saw the owners of consumer and personal finance platforms take a hit as AI agents upped their game; and yesterday [...]
Greggs deals help Gerald Ronson’s forecourt business post £100m profit February 11, 2026 The petrol forecourt empire owned by City veteran Gerald Ronson has turned a profit just shy of £100m after an expansion in the firm’s partnership with Greggs. GMR Capital, the parent company behind forecourt firm Rontec, posted pre-tax profit of £98.4m for the year to end September 2025, a jump of 6 per cent compared [...]
UK wealth managers endure share price plummet amid AI tool fears February 11, 2026 Shares in some of the UK’s largest wealth managers tumbled on Wednesday, as investors grew concerned about the potential competitive pressure from a new AI-led investment tool. Britain’s biggest wealth group, St James’s Place, suffered a 12.7 per cent drop, trading at 1,265 pence, after US-based wealth management platform Altruist launched a tool to help [...]
Starmer only cares about victims ‘to save his skin’, Badenoch blasts February 11, 2026 Sir Keir Starmer faced a brutal grilling at Prime Minister’s Questions on Monday where Kemi Badenoch accused the Prime Minister of only caring about victims of sexual abuse “to save his skin”. In a fiery exchange that was highly party-political but light on policy, the Labour leader said he had “accepted responsibility and apologised for [...]
Lib Dems would scrap Treasury for ‘Department for Growth’ February 11, 2026 The Liberal Democrats have laid out plans to scrap the Treasury department if elected in favour of a ‘Department for Growth’. Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader and Treasury spokeswoman, said on Wednesday took aim at failed government economic policy and said the Treasury “does too much”. “Fiscal policy, economic policy and controlling government spending. [...]
Will Alphabet’s century bond start a new trend? A brief history February 11, 2026 This week Google owner Alphabet raised £1bn in a highly unusual century bond, in a sign of the extreme lengths tech firms are willing to go to to meet the ballooning capital costs of investment in AI. The 100 year sterling note formed part of a $32bn debt raise for Alphabet, following similar moves from [...]
Heathrow warns on losing European crown without expansion February 11, 2026 Heathrow Airport has kicked off the new year with a shattering of its previous traffic record but has offered a stark warning it could lose its crown without progress on expansion. Some 6.5m passengers travelled through the airport in January, marking a 2.2 per cent increase on last year and making it the busiest January [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Heathrow traffic record; Homebuilders call for help February 11, 2026 Good morning and welcome back to the Morning Wire liveblog. Yesterday the FTSE 100 retreated on a slew of miserable corporate news. Leading the blue-chip index’s downturn was BP, which announced it would suspend its share buyback programme and increase cost-cutting goals as it looks to reverse its fortunes in the next financial year. The [...]
Starmer will fail to improve living standards – but it isn’t all his fault February 11, 2026 Between the mid 1960s and the mid 2000s, the living standards of the poorest half of households doubled. Increasing by 1.9 per cent a year, it took four decades to make this leap. To emulate that progress again, starting from today, would take 137 years. This is not a state of affairs that can be [...]
Buy now, pay later providers set for £3bn hit in ‘regulatory reset’ February 11, 2026 Providers of buy now, pay later services are set to feel the crunch as the UK’s financial watchdog tightens its regulatory focus on the fast-growing industry. Merchants and lenders are set to take a combined hit of as much as £3bn following the regulation overhaul by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), according to its own [...]