Financial news

• The Guardian view on Labour’s fiscal stance: it’s time to lay new foundations | Editorial

  11-11-2025 19:30
  No chancellor has raised income tax since 1975, but voters may accept it if everyone contributes, the richest most of all, and the money pays for fairer, better servicesDenis Healey, a Labour chancellor, advised that when in a hole, one should stop digging. The failure to observe this iron law of politics is behind the sense of constant crisis engulfing Rachel Reeves. The current chancellor’s problem is one of her own making. She designed her fiscal rules with so little wriggle r
  
  Read more

• UK to reconsider decision to deny Waspi women pension payouts

  11-11-2025 18:58
  Millions born in 1950s lost out because of government failings over changes to state retirement age, campaigners sayMillions of “Waspi women” have been given fresh hope that they might receive compensation after the UK government announced it would revisit a decision to deny them payouts.As many as 3.6 million women born in the 1950s are said to have lost out because of government failings in the way changes to the state pension age were made, prompting the Waspi (Women Against State
  
  Read more

• Tell us: have you moved to another country for your partner?

  11-11-2025 16:58
  We’d like to hear about how the move affected your relationshipAfter Annalisa Barbieri’s recent advice column “I moved abroad to live with my wife, but I’ve come to hate her country”, we are looking to hear from people who relocated to another country for their partner but have found the move difficult, or would even prefer to be elsewhere.How has the move affected your relationship? What have you struggled with? Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• I’m an American relying on food stamps. This country has turned us into lab rats

  11-11-2025 15:39
  I’m one of 41 million people who need Snap to make ends meet. For weeks, the administration has turned our survival into a game: will they eat, or won’t they?It is 10 November, and my refrigerator is almost empty.I am, in fact, hungry as I write this. It is not that I do not have food at all; it is that I do not have the inclination to eat a can of tuna for breakfast, nor do I have the time to cook the winter squash my neighbor gave me. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Keir Starmer may be too busy to master the latest dance craze – but he needs to be on TikTok | Carys Afoko

  11-11-2025 14:55
  Yes, there’s a country to run, but the social media platform has 30 million users in the UK. Can the PM afford to abandon them all to Nigel Farage?Marks & Spencer recently announced that it would start selling some of its beauty range through TikTok. It’s a no-brainer for the retailer: a beauty product is sold every second on TikTok Shop, and 25% of Britons say they will use it to buy their Christmas goodies. If you haven’t bought something that way, picture a cross between
  
  Read more

• ‘We were effectively props’: young stars of game development feel let down by the ‘gaming Oscars’

  11-11-2025 13:30
  Announced in 2020 by the Game Awards as an inclusive programme for the industry’s next generation, the Future Class initiative has now been discontinued. Inductees describe clashes with organisers and a lack of support from the beginningVideo games have long struggled with diversification and inclusivity, so it was no surprise when the Game Awards host and producer Geoff Keighley announced the Future Class programme in 2020. Its purpose was to highlight a cohort of individuals working in v
  
  Read more

• ‘I can see a world where Spotify doesn’t exist’: will a new generation of music streaming companies succeed?

  11-11-2025 12:20
  Nimble, open-minded outfits such as Nina Protocol, Cantilever and Subvert are looking to bring more money to artists, and a richer experience for listenersThe noise around Spotify this year has been louder than ever, from Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine – a biting indictment of the company and its alleged practices, described as “error-riddled theories” by Spotify itself – to a slew of indie artists leaving the platform due to political and ethical reasons. There was
  
  Read more

• The perplexing rise of protein shakes: how a ‘meaty sludge’ became a billion-dollar industry

  11-11-2025 11:00
  In 1865, the first ever protein-based product consisted of ‘melted-down beef hides and carcasses’. Now, there are countless shakes on the market – including one by a Michelin-starred chef. Why is everyone drinking them?I always thought my first foray into Michelin-starred culinary territory would involve sitting in a fancy restaurant feasting on some perfectly seared scallops or a magnificent rack of lamb doused in a rich jus. Instead, I’m in a fitness studio – with
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• France is at war with Shein. We should copy its tactics to defeat fast fashion | Nicole Lipman

  11-11-2025 10:00
  The dirt-cheap clothing company has opened its first permanent store in Paris – and politicians and workers have united against it Paris is the fashion capital of the world – a paradise of couture and craftsmanship stretching back centuries. The city’s very name connotes luxury and glamour. But last Wednesday, 5 November, a sprawling Shein outlet opened on the sixth floor of the BHV Marais, the historic department store directly across from Paris’s city hall. It’s t
  
  Read more

• My wife died but Virgin Media seems unable to transfer account to my name

  11-11-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Transferring names and moving to a cheaper deal should not require the bereaved to repeatedly explain a deathMy wife died suddenly 18 weeks ago. I contacted Virgin Media to get our phone and broadband account transferred from her name to mine. Its website said I could make changes to the package at the same time so I asked to be moved to a deal at half the cost.I was told I would have to cancel the existing contract and wait 14 days before signing up to a new deal. This would leave me with no in
  
  Read more

• Nexperia row shows how China is weaponising EU relationship - and winning

  11-11-2025 07:00
  Experts say Brussels must stand up against Beijing using supplies of vital chips and minerals as ‘sword of Damocles’ As interventions go it was pretty audacious. The Dutch government decision at the end of September to take over Nexperia, a Chinese-owned chip factory, almost brought the entire European car industry to a halt.Tensions between Europe and China de-escalated over the weekend as Beijing confirmed it would ease restrictions on automotive chip supplies to the EU, prompting
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!