Economy

England has slipped into its second consecutive summer of official drought. On 29 July 2026 the Environment Agency confirmed that seven of its 14 operational areas had crossed the threshold into drought status, covering roughly half of the country by land area. A day …

In Auchtertool, a Fife village of roughly 250 residents, a planning application has drawn more objections than the settlement has people several times over. By late July 2026, more than 1,200 formal objections had been lodged through Fife Council's portal against the proposed Cato …

Britain has never built its restaurants for heat. For most of the industry's history, the challenge was coaxing customers indoors on grey evenings, not keeping them cool when the mercury pushed past 35C. The summer of 2026 has upended that assumption. After three official …

Ten years after the vote that set Britain on a path out of the European Union, there is still no dramatic single number that captures what leaving has cost. There was no market crash to point to, no factory-gate closure that stands as a …

Britain's property market entered the height of summer with an unusually clear message for anyone hoping to buy: take your time, and negotiate. Fresh figures from Rightmove show the average price of newly listed homes fell by 1.0% in the four weeks to 11 …

Estate agents talk about a "spring bounce" — the annual surge in listings and offers that usually runs from Easter to midsummer. In 2026 that bounce has been more of a shuffle. After two years in which the cost of borrowing did most of …

In the first eleven months of 2025, China's goods trade surplus passed $1 trillion; by the time customs data for the full year landed on 14 January 2026, it stood at a record $1.2 trillion, roughly a fifth larger than 2024's $992bn. Exports grew …