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Whatever happened to the Wagner Group, Evgeny Prigozhin’s shadowy army of prisoners and mercenaries? In the wake of Wagner’s abortive mutiny in June 2023 – and of Prigozhin’s own not-so-mysterious death two months later in a plane crash near Moscow – most of the Russia-based units of the group were rolled into the Kremlin’s official armed forces. In Africa, however, where Wagner built an empire not only of guns-for-hire but also of murky mining and oil concessions, Prigozhin’s former henchmen continue their bloody and lucrative business. And according to a new report by the US-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) part of that business relied on the unwitting assistance of international banks

It wasn’t long ago that a Conservative government was congratulating itself for achieving the lowest unemployment figures in half a century. This won’t wash any more, since the wider picture has become clear: while official unemployment figures remain low, figures for ‘economic inactivity’ have seen a sharp rise. We have 9.4 million of working age who are economically inactive – a number that has increased by one million since before the pandemic. It is just that only a small proportion of them show up in the unemployment figures. Many of the remainder – 2.8 million – are on long-term sickness benefits, a number that has risen by 700,000 since the

It is not hard to imagine what will be in Rachel Reeves’ ‘industrial strategy’. There will be lots of ‘green industries’, along with plenty of ‘cutting-edge technologies’, all designed to nurture ‘national champions’ in the ‘sectors of the future’. And presumably Lord Alli, the Labour donor who has been footing the bill for Keir Starmer’s wardrobe, will be put in charge of overseeing all the details. Alongside the tax rises in the Budget planned for next month, the Chancellor’s promise of a full-blown industrial strategy is a troubling prospect. ‘Around the time of the Budget we will publish a green paper on a new industrial strategy focused on driving and

Smart meters were meant to make our lives easier. They were designed to help us reduce energy consumption and cut bills. Over the last five years, the government has been pushing energy firms to install these meters as quickly as possible. Millions of homes have been fitted with one. The flashing screen monitoring how much power is being used has become a ubiquitous feature in households across Britain. We’re constantly nudged to switch off a couple of lights, or skip a load in the washing machine, as we see what this energy use is costing us. But there’s a big problem with smart meters: millions of them don’t work properly.

With the Huw Edwards court case complete – and the disgraced BBC News presenter given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after he admitted charges of making indecent images of children – attention has returned to the fact that he could still receive a £300,000-a-year BBC pension. Many are horrified by this. There have been demands that some way should be found to withhold payment from Edwards. I disagree. Imagine if we did decide that those convicted of crimes such as Edwards’ have no property rights A pension is part of the remuneration we receive for work done. It isn’t some extra perk or discretionary bonus handed to

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5 per cent. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest meeting, which saw members vote 8-1 to maintain the base rate.  Was it a mistake not to cut rates? The latest economic data appears to have persuaded the MPC to lean into their (now) hawkish tendencies and keep rates steady. The headline inflation rate is almost on target but the rise in core inflation in August (which excludes more volatile prices like food and energy) and in services inflation – as well as mixed signals from the labour market – gave the Bank good reasons to wait until later in the Autumn

Inflation was 2.2 per cent in the 12 months to August, unchanged from the month before, today’s update from the Office for National Statistics reveals. This is ever so slightly above the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent, but it’s in the ballpark of where it’s supposed to be. And while the Bank expects inflation to rise slightly by the end of the year – to just under 3 per cent – it is due to fall again in 2025 and remain around target for the years to come. These figures are good news for Labour, but they raise question marks over how long the government can continue the

The Chancellor was so shocked when she received the briefings from Treasury officials that she had no choice but to scrap her election commitments. It was so serious that it was about to crash the markets. It had to be fixed so urgently that the winter fuel allowance had to be cut, and we will need huge tax rises in a ‘Horror Budget’ next month. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have made the ‘black hole’ in the public finances central to their government agenda. But hold on. In the kind of twist that would puzzle even the most distinguished astro-physicist, when you look closely

There was no economic growth in July, according to the Office for National Statistics. The latest GDP figures show that a boost in services output – 0.1 per cent – was offset by a tumble in production and construction output – 0.8 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively – leading to no overall growth in the month of the election.  It’s surprisingly bad news, as markets had expected a modest 0.2 per cent increase in July. Instead, Britain had two consecutive months of no growth.  There is also growing concern that the improvement in services output in July won’t necessarily carry into the latter half of the summer. The

For those of us who grew up singing songs about Irish nationhood, today is a depressing day. As youths we crooned about how Ireland, ‘long a province’, will one day be ‘a nation once again’. We stood in stiff attention to the Irish national anthem with its promise that Ireland will never again ‘shelter the despot or the slave’. Now we switch on the news and what do we see? A foreign court bossing Ireland around. Ireland must now go after Apple and demand billions of euros from it Today, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Ireland granted Apple ‘unlawful aid’ and must now badger Apple for £11

You won’t find me mounting the barricades in defence of the winter fuel payment, though I’ll miss the pleasant surprise when it landed in my bank account sometime before Christmas. I do, though, have a bit of a bone to pick with those well-heeled and often still lucratively-employed pensioners who dusted off their metaphorical loud-hailers (in the form of letters to newspapers and social media posts) every autumn to protest that they didn’t need it, that it was a waste of taxpayers’ money, and that they a) gave it to charity, b) spent it on Christmas presents or c) ordered another case of good wine.  Ending the single occupier discount

The leaders of the European Union can give themselves a pat on the back. They have, on the face of it, delivered on a promise made following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to end the export of European goods, machinery and parts critical to Russia’s war effort. Yet things are not quite as straightforward as they seem. Exports from the bloc to Russia in June plummeted to a mere €2.4 billion (£2 billion) – a third of the €7.5 billion (£6.3 billion) shipped during the last peacetime June of 2021 before the war, according to data from the EU’s statistical body Eurostat. The figure for June this year is the lowest

The last two and a half years have seen a dramatic revival in trade union militancy, with working days lost through strikes reaching their highest level for more than thirty years. The arrival of a Labour government has already seen markedly more generous settlements than the Conservatives offered – and the new administration has committed to legislation intended to boost union power. It’s a situation that is unlikely to end well – for businesses and for workers. If the government is not careful, we could end up with a situation like that of France Keir Starmer has vowed to repeal the Conservatives’ 2016 Trade Union Act (which imposed voting hurdles