FTSE 100 Live: Bank shares surge; Gold surpasses $4,000 October 8, 2025 Good morning from the City PM live blog team. Arguably no sector has had as sensitive share movement in recent months as the banking industry. In August, following the motor finance ruling, City banks added £7bn in market value after a major boost from the Supreme Court. But less than a month later after the [...]
Reeves urged to increase alcohol taxes to tackle workplace drinking October 8, 2025 Pubs and restaurants up and down the country could be forced to serve up higher booze prices as Rachel Reeves has been urged to add fresh alcohol levies to her menu of tax rises at next month’s Budget. The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank with close ties to the government, has [...]
Conference season has made one thing clear: Labour has already failed October 8, 2025 Polling in the aftermath of Labour conference tells a brutal story of a party that has already failed, writes Brandon Lewis.
Reeves must reject this finger-wagging, fun-sapping, tax-loving nonsense October 8, 2025 The Chancellor may have felt in need of a stiff drink after absorbing the latest productivity figures handed to her by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and who could blame her? The OBR is widely expected to have significantly downgraded its productivity forecasts while at the same time conceding that it’s been overestimating productivity growth [...]
Badenoch preferred as Prime Minister over Starmer October 8, 2025 Kemi Badenoch has been handed a boost ahead of her make-or-break Tory conference speech today as fresh polling has shown the Tory leader is preferred as Prime Minister over Keir Starmer. The latest City PM/Freshwater Strategy survey has shown that Badenoch leads Starmer by two percentage points as the country’s preferred Prime Minister, a marginal [...]
FCA orders lenders to pay £11bn in motor finance compensation October 7, 2025 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that it expects lenders to make 14.2 million payouts to individuals affected by unfair motor finance agreements, totalling around £11bn in compensation. The FCA estimates people would receive around £700 per agreement, on average. It has also been calculated that around 85 per cent of eligible consumers would [...]
Mel Stride: I would raise income tax in Rachel Reeves’ position October 7, 2025 Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has said he would raise income taxes if he were in Rachel Reeves’ position, facing a £30bn black hole in the public finances. Speaking at a fringe event at the Tory party conference in Manchester, Stride said raising income taxes was the “cleanest” tax hike option available. His comments will likely [...]
Labour’s tobacco bill risks empowering black market, warns shadow minister October 7, 2025 The Labour government’s proposed Tobacco and Vapes Bill could hand a significant boost to criminal gangs and fuel the growing black market in illicit goods across the UK, the shadow policing minister has warned. Matt Vickers MP has told City PM that the legislation, aimed at curbing smoking and youth vaping, fails to address the [...]
Jenrick pledges to sack judges accused of pro-migration activism October 7, 2025 Robert Jenrick announced a sweeping crackdown on what he describes as “pro-migration bias” in the judiciary, vowing to remove so-called “activist” judges. Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, claims to have identified more than 30 judges, both full-time and part-time, who previously volunteered for or provided free legal services to open-border organisations. He told the crowd [...]
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos issues ‘urgent warning’ amid job cuts October 7, 2025 Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos is to cut 20 per cent of the workforce at its Acetyls plant at Hull, it has been confirmed. In total, 60 jobs are set to be lost in what the group said was a “direct result of sky-high energy costs and anti-competitive trade practices”. Confirming the news, Ineos blamed “dirt-cheap [...]
