Latest editorial
Ministers began reprivatising Lloyds yesterday, flogging off a £3.2 billion stake in the once failing bank.
Chancellor George Osborne hailed the sell-off as evidence that Britain was "turning the corner," but economists raised concerns that the banking sector was merely returning to the light-touch approach central to the severity of the financial crisis in the first place.
Investors snapped up the stock at 75p a share - just above the 73.6p average the Treasury paid in the £20.5bn bailout the bank at the height of the financial crisis.
Behind the cute names of Scotland’s road gritters lies a workforce underpaid and overlooked – a fitting reflection of a Budget that protected profits, bungled its rollout and offered hardly a glimmer of hope, writes MATT KERR
Exempting military expenditure from austerity while slashing welfare represents a fundamental misallocation of resources that guarantees continued decline, argues MICHAEL BURKE
The US president’s universal tariffs mirror the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Act that triggered retaliatory measures, collapsed international trade, fuelled political extremism — and led to world war, warns Dr DYLAN MURPHY