On any given day, about a quarter of the gas that will be used to power the UK flows silently through a single 3ft-wide pipeline on Teesside. The terminal of the Central Area Transmission System can receive about 40 per cent of the natural gas produced in the North Sea, which is then treated and…
Traders have increased their bets on the US Federal Reserve carrying out another bumper interest rate cut in November, in turn boosting wider hopes that there will not be a recession in the world’s largest economy. Investors think there is a 53 per cent chance that the Fed will repeat its half-a-percentage-point cut to borrowing…
BlackRock is teaming up with Microsoft to launch a fund that aims to invest up to $100 billion in data centres and energy infrastructure needed to support the artificial intelligence boom. The partnership will initially seek to attract $30 billion of private equity capital from investors, asset owners and corporates. They expect the fund to…
The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by half a percentage point and signalled further reductions in an attempt to prevent a slowdown in the world’s largest economy. The federal open market committee’s decision to lower the cost of borrowing to a range of 4.75 to 5 per cent was the first reduction for more…
The rumour mill is in full swing as we edge closer to budget day on October 30. A capital gains tax rise looks more or less certain, while changes to inheritance tax also look likely. Anything to plug that £22 billion fiscal black hole. Speculation is, however, eerily quiet on the subject of less revenue-raising…
Eighty days ago, I walked out of 11 Downing Street for the first time as chancellor of the exchequer vowing to lead the most pro-growth Treasury in our country’s history. I did so because of a profound belief that the answers to the challenges our country faces lie in delivering a step-change in our economy….
An Englishman, a Northern Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a student bar. They are all on the same course, living in the same student halls and from the same economic background. In this gag, it is the Englishman who is the butt of the joke. He gets a £4,767 loan to help with his…
It is a little-known fact that Paula Vennells suffers from claustrophobia. When I interviewed her for this paper’s Business section a decade ago, she told me it first came on during a trip with the Girl Guides to Speedwell Cavern, a flooded 18th-century lead mine in the Peak District. “Ugh,” she thought. “I can’t do…
Wearing Avantis’s virtual-reality headsets during lessons, pupils can go back in time to a First World War trench or travel into deepest space. Yet overseeing the Gloucester-based company’s biggest and fastest-growing market in the US still requires real-world sales teams visiting schools and talking to teachers across states. Two elements are essential for a British…