Business

Michael Sayman said he had no intention of leaving Meta. He started working for the tech juggernaut as a youngster, transitioning from early consumer product facing work to executive leadership positions that influenced the way hundreds of millions of people communicate online. Michael said he took it day by day, not giving much thought for how his career would evolve and less about what the greatest use for his time was. Over the past year,...

UK inflation eased more sharply than expected in November, falling to a ten-month low and increasing the likelihood that the Bank of England will deliver a fourth interest rate cut of the year. Official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 3.2 per cent in the year to November, down from 3.6 per cent in October. The reading was below the Bank of England’s forecast of...

The UK is set to rejoin the Erasmus programme, restoring access for British students to the EU-funded study, training and volunteering scheme five years after the country ended its participation following Brexit. Ministers are expected to confirm the move this week, with UK students understood to be able to take part in Erasmus placements from January 2027. The government has declined to comment on the detail of ongoing talks with the European Union. The decision...

Rishi Sunak has defended the government’s Covid-era Bounce Back Loan (BBL) scheme against claims that it was plagued by excessive fraud, telling the Covid-19 Inquiry that the need to act quickly outweighed the risks. The former chancellor said he was fully aware of the scheme’s vulnerabilities when it was launched in May 2020, but insisted that delaying it to introduce additional checks would have put hundreds of thousands of small businesses at risk of collapse....

Britain’s largest chemical plant will remain open after Ineos secured more than £120 million in government support in a deal designed to safeguard around 500 jobs at its Grangemouth petrochemicals site. The rescue package will keep the Ineos Olefins & Polymers facility operating after the future of the strategically important site was thrown into doubt earlier this year. The government and Ineos will together invest around £150 million into the plant, which ministers have designated...

The European Commission has watered down its flagship plan to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, following intense lobbying from carmakers concerned about slowing demand for electric vehicles. Under existing rules, all new cars sold in the EU from 2035 were required to be “zero emission”. However, the Commission’s revised proposal would require only 90 per cent of new vehicles sold from that date to meet the zero-emissions standard, rather...

OpenAI has appointed George Osborne as managing director and head of its OpenAI for Countries initiative, tasking the former chancellor with leading the company’s global push to work with governments on national artificial intelligence strategies. Osborne, 54, who served as Conservative chancellor from 2010 to 2016, will take up the London-based role in January. He will oversee the international expansion of OpenAI’s “Stargate” initiative, which aims to support the development of AI infrastructure while promoting...

Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill has cleared its final parliamentary hurdle and is set to become law before Christmas, marking the most significant expansion of workers’ rights in a generation. The legislation passed its final stage in the House of Lords after Conservative peer Lord Sharpe, the shadow business and trade minister, withdrew a last-minute amendment during parliamentary “ping pong”. The move removed the final obstacle to the bill’s passage. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer...

A veteran nightclub operator has called on the government to introduce a Covid-style loan guarantee scheme to unlock investment in what he described as a “logjammed” hospitality sector struggling with poor access to finance and rising costs. Peter Marks, whose career spans more than four decades in bars, clubs and leisure, said the market for hospitality finance is effectively broken, preventing assets from changing hands and deterring new investment at a time when many operators...

If you hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies, you may be wondering where you can actually spend them—the answer: more places than ever. What began with niche online retailers has expanded to everyday purchases, from coffee to cars. Adoption has accelerated quickly. Monthly stablecoin transactions hit nearly $1.25 trillion in September 2025, and retail-driven crypto payments grew over 125% year over year, showing that crypto is increasingly being used for real-world spending, not just trading....