Jim Pickard

👀 Labour MP Joani Reid said today that she was “not part of my husband’s business activities” after her spouse David Taylor was arrested on suspicion of spying for China

But her former company was loaned money (interest free and with no set repayment terms) by his companies

Wealthy Dubai residents race back to UAE to avoid tax bills Some risk spending too few days in the emirate and too many in the UK

Tax exiles stuck in London desperately trying to get *back* to Dubai to avoid becoming tax resident in the UK? Just great stuff. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Janan Ganesh. (a biweekly columnist and associate editor for the FT. He writes on international politics)

This is a magnificent piece of journalism.

good morning

this the FT not The Onion

Trump and Netanyahu arm Kurdish militia to take on Tehran regime Support for fighters along the Iraqi border raises alarm over civil strife in Iran and a widening war that could destabilise neighbouring states

This sounds like a totally great plan, but only if you suffered some sort of terrible head injury circa 2002 and just woke up. www.thetimes.com/article/7aee...

Jansen Ganesh is on fire in this column on the UK’s role in the Iran conflict

www.ft.com/content/eaee...

The influencers leaping to Dubai’s defence [FREE TO READ] As missiles streak across the region, unfazed residents insist they ‘know who protects us’

‘British expats, he claimed, were refusing to fill out evacuation forms provided by the British government “just in case it somehow turns into a tax form instead”.’

No notes.

as.ft.com/r/65cf2b43-6...

Dubai evacuation costs rise as high as $250,000 as more families flee Increasing number of expats and employees are deciding to leave the city as regional conflict escalates

Companies are paying tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to evacuate employees from Dubai, with the cost of private jets and hire vehicles soaring, according to insurance groups providing crisis-response protection.

www.ft.com/content/23e0...

Middle East conflict: Israel vows to kill next Iranian leader Spain’s prime minister brands war ‘disaster’ in defiant response to Donald Trump’s criticism

Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, said he was opposed to the Iranian regime but that the attack on the country was a breach of international law.

“We are opposed to this disaster . . . You cannot respond to illegality with more illegality.”

www.ft.com/content/9a9b...

Ask the public what services they want to cut, or what services they're happy to be rubbish, and you get a very different set of answers.

They'll say cut foreign aid, ofc, but that's all but gone already. What next?

I get the strong sense that the bulk of media are calling Starmer's position on Iran entirely wrongly right now. I simply don't believe that most people out there are either as hawkish as the Tories or as anti-everything as the Greens. Being conflicted in the middle seems about right to me.

If I was trying to elicit sympathy I probably wouldn't go for Russian UFC teams and crypto guys. But that's just me.

This is important. Reform keep taking positions that are only supported by the 25% of the electorate they already have and in doing so are negatively polarising everyone else against them.

apparently he believed he could be a moderating influence on the US in relation to the Middle East, I've no idea if that was the strategy

probably more accurate to say "this is not Tony Blair that we're dealing with"

Parliament

Telegraph censured for fabricated story of banker’s struggle to pay school fees Watchdog upholds complaint it breached code with article about impact of VAT on a family that did not exist The Telegraph has been reprimanded by a press standards watchdog after it published an entirely fabricated story about a wealthy banker complaining of the impact of school fee increases. Ian Fraser, a freelance journalist and author, complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) that the Telegraph had breached the editors’ code of practice in an article headlined: “We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays.” Continue reading...

Telegraph censured for fabricated story of banker’s struggle to pay school fees

Surely all the returning influencers will drive a record tax take.

the backdrop to Rachel Reeves's 12.30 spring statement is roiling financial markets

stock market down nearly 3%
gilt yields spiking
pound has fallen 0.8% against the dollar

The 10-year gilt yield has jumped 0.14 percentage points to 4.5 per cent, reversing a rally that had reduced some pressure on the UK public finances

www.ft.com/content/b750...

Just for reference

Laura Loomer and the far-right ultra-hawks cheering on Trump in Iran Maga figures drown out opponents of conflict with loud support for the president

fascinating split on the American right:

enthusiastic support for the war evinced by people including Levin and Loomer is not shared by the vast majority of Americans

One survey over the weekend found only 27% of all adults polled backed the president’s attack on Iran

www.ft.com/content/31ed...

Starmer is pandering to Muslim voters, blasts Trump as war of words escalates DONALD Trump has suggested Keir Starmer is pandering to Muslim voters by not backing his war against Iran — warning Britain is “not such a recognisable country” anymore. In an astonishing broadside…

narrator:

only 12% of UK people polled by YouGov thought the UK government should praise the air strikes

21% thought the UK government should condemn the strikes

much larger proportion don't have a strong view either way

www.thesun.co.uk/news/3838953...

Inside the plan to kill Ali Khamenei Israel spent years hacking Tehran’s traffic cameras and monitoring bodyguards ahead of the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader

incredible insights from my FT colleagues on how the Israeli/US operation was planned

"Nearly all the traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years, their images encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel"

www.ft.com/content/bf99...

good morning

it’s behind a paywall so that we can pay our reporters tbf

'Donald Trump showing up just what an indecisive loser Keir Starmer is on Iran' This is yet another headache our fence-sitting Prime Minister simply wants to go away.

I have a feeling that the British public are closer to the Starmer position on Iran than this gung-ho commentary suggests

www.express.co.uk/news/politic...

Post Nigel Farage @Nigel_Farage We don't need to take foreign policy advice from the American President. The last time we did that it was called the Iraq War. 6:29 PM Jun 7, 2015 338 replies 2.3K shares 2.7K likes https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/607600226774482945

Nigel Farage MP @Nigel_Farage The Prime Minister needs to change his mind on the use of our military bases and back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran! 10:34 AM Feb 28, 2026 4.7M Views 8.1K replies 5.4K shares 35K likes https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/2027693784310710744

Full Farage