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Liz Truss, the frontrunner to be the next UK prime minister, has the City of London’s top regulators in her sights with an immediate review of their roles and responsibilities if she wins, according to campaign insiders. The foreign secretary, who is 32 points ahead of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak in the latest survey

The UK’s rate of inflation jumped to 10.1 per cent in July, the first time it has registered a double-digit annual increase in more than four decades. Consumer price inflation, driven by higher food prices, rose from 9.4 per cent in June to its highest level since February 1982. The double-digit rate exceeded economists’ expectations

Real levels of UK wages fell at the fastest rate for at least 20 years in the second quarter of this year, but the labour market remains too tight for the Bank of England to feel comfortable about inflationary pressures. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that in the three months to June

China has cut a crucial lending rate in an effort to shore up growth as the world’s second-biggest economy is buffeted by repeated lockdowns and a worsening property downturn. The People’s Bank of China on Monday reduced the medium-term lending rate, through which it provides one-year loans to the banking system, by 10 basis points

Saudi Aramco has broken its quarterly profit record set in May, as soaring energy prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine deliver windfalls to oil producers. But the state-controlled company’s chief executive warned that spare capacity remained limited as demand was increasing, with pandemic restrictions expected to ease in China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer.

The winner of the Conservative party leadership contest will face huge additional costs of servicing the nation’s debt and paying social security benefits as a result of rising inflation and interest rates, according to Financial Times calculations. The estimates, which are an update to the Bank of England’s previous official inflation forecast in March, show

US attorney-general Merrick Garland said the justice department had moved to unseal the search warrant and the list of items retrieved by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, breaking days of silence on the extraordinary operation. In a statement from the headquarters of the Department of Justice in Washington on Thursday, Garland

Britain’s electricity generators will face pressure from ministers to invest their “extraordinary profits” in new green energy projects, rather than paying out the windfall to shareholders. Some have made huge profits from surging electricity prices that have risen in line with the soaring cost of gas, even if the power they produce comes from renewables

Liz Truss is facing an early fight with the Bank of England if she becomes the next UK prime minister after signalling she will give ministers powers to override City regulators seen to be holding back post-Brexit reforms. The foreign secretary has vowed to press ahead with a law allowing ministers to “call in” regulatory

Boris Johnson has rejected calls to draw up an emergency response to the cost of living crisis during his final weeks as prime minister, with Downing Street insisting big fiscal decisions must be taken by his successor. The CBI employers federation on Monday joined calls by Gordon Brown, former Labour prime minister, for Johnson to

China has extended military drills around Taiwan, stoking fears of a drawn-out period of heightened tension that is piling pressure on the US to respond. Beijing’s largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan had been expected to wind down after navigation warnings for seven areas around the country expired early on Monday. But the People’s Liberation Army

Western capitals are increasingly alarmed about the deepening economic co-operation between Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin, warning of the mounting risk that the Nato member state could be hit by punitive retaliation if it helps Russia avoid sanctions. Six western officials told the Financial Times that they were concerned about the pledge

Liz Truss, the Tory leadership frontrunner, has rejected “handouts” as the best way to help households through the worst income squeeze in 60 years, promising instead tax cuts and radical economic reform. Truss, in an interview with the Financial Times, defied the “abacus economics” of the Treasury, insisting she would press ahead with tax cuts

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has rejected claims from Conservative MPs that the UK’s central bank acted too slowly to tackle surging inflation and defended its operational independence and mandate. Asked on Friday about whether he would remain in post no matter what changes were implemented by the successor to outgoing prime minister Boris

SoftBank has raised as much as $22bn in cash from deals that would sharply reduce its stake in Alibaba over the coming years, as the Japanese investor responds to a market downturn that has ravaged its technology portfolio. The group, led by billionaire founder Masayoshi Son, has this year carried out the sale of about

Just after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan, she published an article arguing that her controversial visit was critical to demonstrating American support for the country as it faces mounting pressure from China. “In the face of the Chinese Communist party’s accelerating aggression, our congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as an unequivocal

European equities slipped in morning trade on Wednesday after hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve clouded market hopes that the US central bank would ease the pace of rate rises to counter an economic slowdown. The Stoxx 600 slipped 0.1 per cent in morning trading, with London’s FTSE 100 up 0.2 per cent and Germany’s

Nancy Pelosi pledged an “ironclad” US commitment to Taiwan during a historic visit to the country on Wednesday that has infuriated China and raised warnings that military manoeuvres Beijing announced in retaliation would amount to a blockade of the island. The comments from the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, made during a meeting

Molson Coors’ chief executive said cost inflation is now his biggest concern after the US brewer experienced a further jump in prices for inputs like barley, aluminium and freight. That upward trend was taking some of the shine off consumer demand that otherwise appeared resilient despite broader concerns over rising interest rates, inflation and a

In the spring of 1992, Japan’s senior intelligence officials made a fairly standard decision to deny entry to Reverend Moon Sun-myung, the late founder of South Korea’s Unification Church, on the grounds that he had previously served in US prison for tax evasion. Shortly afterwards, though, the religious leader sailed through security checks to enter