MPs accuse South East Water leaders of incompetence over repeated outages

MPs have accused the leadership of South East Water of incompetence over repeated water outages for tens of thousands of customers in a damning report, and expressed no confidence in their ability to reform the company.After publication of the report, SEW announced the resignation of its independent non-executive chair, Chris Train, saying new leadership was needed to “oversee a critical period of positive, transformative change”.MPs from across the political spectrum said David Hinton, SEW’s chief executive, and the board of directors operated a culture of unaccountability at the company, which provides drinking water for 2.3 million customers in Berkshire, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.SEW describes its leadership in official communications as having a “family feel”, but the environment, food and rural affairs committee of MPs said they were better described as “an unaccountable clique”

Claire’s expected to return to UK high streets with about 50 stores from June

The jewellery and accessories chain Claire’s is expected to return to UK high streets with about 50 stores to be reopened from June onwards by the operator of its shops in France, Austria, Portugal and Spain.Julien Jarjoura, the French entrepreneur behind jewellery company Une Ligne, which sells online and via museum stores including the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles, said he had the blessing of the US owner of the Claire’s brand, Ames Watson, to open stores in the UK and was signing new leases with UK landlords.The plans emerged just days after the chain closed its final UK stores with the loss of more than 1,000 jobs and ending three decades on British high streets.“I feel so sad when I see such a nice business going down,” Jarjoura told the Guardian. “The brand was basically dead and we’re bringing it back to life

Iran war may cause food shortages in Africa, world’s largest fertiliser firm says

The Iran war could have “dramatic consequences”, causing food shortages and price rises in some of Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable communities, the head of the world’s largest fertiliser company has said.Svein Tore Holsether, the chief executive of Yara International, said world leaders needed to guard against soaring prices and shortages of fertiliser causing a de facto global auction that would leave the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, scrambling for supplies they could ill afford.“The most important thing we can do now is raise the alarm on what we are seeing right now – that there is a risk of a global auction on fertiliser that means it becomes unaffordable for those most vulnerable,” he said.“Africa is actually quite well positioned to be a major food producer, not only for self-sufficiency, but even for exports to the rest of the world, but the reality is that they are massive food importers.“But we need to be aware in this part of the world of the potential consequences that if we get to a global auction on food, there will not be a famine in Europe – but we need to be aware of who we are taking the food away from

If you’re not Thames, the water looks lovely for investors | Nils Pratley

Thames Water, with occasional cameos by ugly little siblings Southern Water and South East Water, grabs most of the attention in the sector for obvious reasons. So it’s easy to overlook what’s happening further north. Short answer: the new era of higher bills and higher spending on water infrastructure will feel splendid if you’re United Utilities, licence-holder in north-west England, or Severn Trent, operating in the Midlands.The former’s share price surged 11% on Thursday, the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen at a utility where success is meant to be defined in terms of dull predictability. And it’s definitely unusual to see a one-day valuation jump of that size when the company is issuing £800m-worth of new shares

Bank of England warns ‘higher inflation unavoidable’ after holding interest rates

The Bank of England has left interest rates unchanged at 3.75% but said the UK may need to brace for increases later this year, as “higher inflation is unavoidable” as a result of the war in the Middle East.The Bank’s rate-setting monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to leave borrowing costs on hold, but said that if energy costs stayed persistently high it might have to take a more “forceful” response to keep inflation under control.The nine-member MPC was split 8-1 in its decision to keep borrowing costs on hold for the third consecutive meeting.Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, said: “Where we go from here will depend on the size and duration of the shock to energy prices” as the conflict in the Middle East evolves

The chips are down: pizza, fried chicken and doughnut shares plunge on ASX as living costs bite budgets

Once a symbol of cheap eating, fast food is transforming into a luxury many can no longer afford due to resurgent living costs.This shift is reflected on the ASX, where major pizza, fried chicken and doughnut outlets are seeing significant price drops, raising the question: are consumers so downbeat that they are even giving up on fast food?Shares in Domino’s Pizza, KFC operator Collins Foods and multi-brand food franchise owner Retail Food Group have all suffered double-digit falls over the past two months, coinciding with surging oil prices tied to the US-Israel war on Iran.The Guzman y Gomez share price is also down, even as the broader ASX has proven robust.Lochlan Halloway, an equity market strategist at Morningstar, says the stocks are under pressure because concerns over consumer spending are coinciding with fast-rising operational costs.“Fast food is a discretionary purchase, something that’s probably fairly easy to cut if your budget’s pinched, and so they might be a casualty of consumers just trading out of the category entirely,” Halloway said

Bank of England leaves interest rates on hold with committee split 8-1; ECB also keeps rates steady – as it happened

The Bank of England has left interest rates unchanged at 3.75%.The central bank’s rate-setting monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to leave borrowing costs on hold at noon, after its latest meeting.The vote by the nine-member committee to keep rates on hold was split eight to one. The Bank’s chief economist Huw Pill voted for a rate hike to 4%

Could the UAE’s shock exit from Opec cause an oil price war?

The conflict in the Middle East has claimed Opec as the latest casualty of war. The United Arab Emirates’ shock exit from the oil cartel on Tuesday after 60 years is expected to weaken the alliance, which under the leadership of Saudi Arabia has helped to soothe volatility in the global oil market for decades.Global oil prices reached the highest level in four years on Thursday, rising above $126 a barrel. But as the region grapples with the continuing conflict, a fresh war may be brewing in the international oil markets, which could lead to greater market volatility for years to come.For now, the UAE’s intention to ignore Opec production quotas and pump as much crude as it wants is notional, owing to Iran’s blockade on the strait of Hormuz

Oil price tops $126 a barrel after Trump warns Iran blockade could last ‘months’

The global oil price hit $126 a barrel on Thursday, its highest level since 2022, after Donald Trump said the US blockade of Iranian ports could last for months and peace talks remained stalled.After surging more than 13% in 24 hours, the price of Brent crude futures reached its highest price since the war began on 28 February. Not since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has Brent topped $120, with the price then peaking at $139.Oil markets have been spooked this week as Trump appeared willing to maintain the US navy’s blockade of Iranian ports, with Iran responding by keeping the strait of Hormuz all but shut to other oil tankers.Market observers believe that traders are beginning to look beyond the early optimism that a diplomatic resolution could restore Gulf oil flows through the vital trade route, and towards “the reality of the supply situation”

US economic growth rebounds 2% as consumer spending slows amid Iran war

US gross domestic product (GDP) accelerated to an annual rate of 2% in the first three months of 2026, though consumer spending is slowing as the war with Iran continues to impact energy prices.The last GDP reading for the fourth quarter of 2025 showed that US economic growth slowed to an annual pace of 0.5%, largely due to a contraction in government spending after massive layoffs of federal workers last year. The federal government is down 355,000 workers, or 11.8% of the workforce, since October 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Eurozone inflation soars to 3% as Iran war drives up energy prices

Inflation across the eurozone soared to 3% this month as the Iran war drove up energy prices and growth stumbled.Consumer prices rose by 3% in the year to April across the single currency bloc, data from the statistics body Eurostat showed on Thursday morning, up from 2.6% in March and 1.9% in February.That took inflation further above the 2% target set by the European Central Bank, which left interest rates across the eurozone on hold on Thursday afternoon

Why Bank kept interest rates on hold despite message for UK to brace itself for Trumpflation

The message to the UK’s crisis-weary households from the Bank of England is: brace yourself for Trumpflation – and the higher interest rates it may yet take to rein it in.Reading the Bank’s quarterly monetary policy report, it is not difficult to understand the fury Rachel Reeves expressed while in Washington this month at the “folly” of the US president’s war on Iran – its economic consequences will hit the UK hard.As a result of the conflict and the resulting rise in oil and gas prices, the Bank reckons average mortgage repayments are to rise by £80 a month; food price inflation could hit 4.6% by the autumn; and utility bills will jump in July and remain high into the winter.Overall inflation is now expected to peak above 3

How to turn old pitta into spiced chips – recipe | Waste not

Three years ago, I helped my friend, the chef Sam Webb, set up Babette, a street food stall at Newquay Boathouse. Webb and his team make everything from scratch and, wherever possible, using only local Cornish produce, from their hot honey (sourced from the Rescued Bee) to pitta with freshly milled flour from Cornish Golden Grains; he also grows his own produce with fellow restaurateur Matt Comley at Gannel Valley Gardens.As you might expect, saving food waste is at the top of Webb’s agenda, which is how he came to create waste-saving pitta chips to serve with hummus. It’s a recipe I couldn’t resist, not least because they take minutes to cook. What makes Webb’s pitta chips unique is their wonderful seasoning of sumac, za’atar and sea salt just before serving

Why sweet, chewy dates go perfectly with chocolate – and the best ones to try

I first cemented the allure of the “chew” aged 14, working illegally as a chambermaid (I lied about my age) and finding a guest’s Gummy Bears laid open – a breach I heavily exploited. Recently this chew need has been sated by dates and their use in chocolate as a healthy caramel. Dates do have nutritional benefits over mere sugar: fibre, minerals, antioxidants and make a great pre-workout boost.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link

The perfect birthday cake: tips for the best blow-out

What’s the best birthday cake?Katie, by email“My mum once made a cake with mini rolls made to look like cats with googly eyes and strawberry lace tails,” says Nicola Lamb, author of Sift and the Kitchen Projects newsletter. And that’s the whole point of a birthday cake, right? It should align with the recipient’s favourite thing: “That could even be a lasagne,” Lamb says. “I’m not at all prescriptive about what you stick a candle into.”Of course, some cakes are a safer choice than others. Take the Victoria sponge: “I don’t think anyone is going to have a problem with a plush vanilla sponge, jam and cream job,” Lamb says

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for green chilli eggs with coriander and coconut | Quick and easy

This might look like a shakshuka, but with lemongrass, ginger and lime, you couldn’t really get away with calling it one – particularly because the noodles make this an easy, flavour-packed one-pan dinner. The crunch of the peanuts is particularly good against the lime-spiked coconut milk – a perfect transitional “is it spring yet?” dinner.Prep 15 min Cook 15 min Serves 21½ tbsp neutral oil 2 garlic cloves, peeled and grated½ stick lemongrass, finely chopped½-1 green chilli, finely chopped (remove the pith and seeds first if you want less heat)5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely gratedJuice and zest of 1 lime 2 large echalion shallots (or small onions), peeled and finely sliced1 tsp freshly ground coriander seeds 1 tsp flaky sea salt 320g baby spinach400ml tin coconut milk, whisked smooth150g packet straight-to-wok medium noodles2 eggsTo serve 15g coriander, roughly chopped 50g salted peanuts, finely chopped½ green chilli, finely sliced (remove the pith and seeds first if you want less heat)Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan on a medium heat, then add the garlic, lemongrass, chilli, ginger, lime zest and shallots. Stir-fry for four to five minutes, until the shallots are soft and the mixture is aromatic and starting to brown lightly, then turn down the heat and add the ground coriander and salt. Stir-fry for 30 seconds, add the spinach and cook for two minutes, until it is just wilting

A pasta bake and a sumac salad: Sami Tamimi’s prep-ahead sharing recipes

My ideal way of entertaining is completely fuss-free, with everything prepared ahead of time so I can enjoy being with my guests rather than worrying about cooking. I like to put big, generous dishes in the middle of the table, such as this one-tray chicken, pasta and chickpea bake, alongside a fresh salad, so everyone can serve themselves and share a simple, delicious meal.This is a comforting and flavourful dish that brings together tender chicken, hearty chickpeas and perfectly cooked pasta in a rich, pungent sauce. It’s a simple yet satisfying meal that’s ideal for busy weeknights or casual family meals. Everything cooks together in the oven, and the flavours blend beautifully while keeping prep and washing-up to a minimum

The truth about cooking oils: 14 essential facts for healthier, cheaper meals

From avocado to hemp, extra virgin olive and rapeseed, the shops are packed with various oils. But what is worth spending money on? And are any of them actually better for you? The world of cooking oils is confusing. I keep spotting new ones on supermarket shelves, trumpeting their health claims. Cold-pressed avocado oil, extra virgin macadamia oil, organic coconut oil, premium hemp seed oil … Even familiar oils are mired in controversy. Is it OK to cook with olive oil? Should you avoid seed oils? Meanwhile, prices keep rising – earlier this month, Walter Zanre, the CEO of Filippo Berio UK, said supermarkets were “taking the mickey” out of customers over olive oil pricing

The surprising boom in blouge wine: ‘It’s for 5pm, in the sun’

Twenty years ago, a winery could do well selling one white and two reds, says Konrad Pixner, a northern Italian winemaker who set up his vineyard, Domaine de L’Accent, in Languedoc, France, in 2019. But today, importers and bars always ask: “Do you have something new?” So up in the hills, surrounded by deep gorges and limestone plateaus, Pixner is constantly experimenting.After a good harvest in 2023, Pixner walked into the shed he shares with other winemakers at 4am to find that his biggest vat of white wine, pressed from carignan blanc grapes, had overflowed during fermentation. He had run out of space, so he quickly “pumped the white juice into the tank where whole bunches of carignan noir were,” he says, and left them to ferment for 10 days together. In contrast to rosé, made from red grapes left for a short time with their skins on before being pressed, he created “blouge” – a light, fresh wine blended from white and red grapes that’s best served chilled

How to make the perfect custard creams – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

Prue Leith reckons the custard cream is “arguably Britain’s most iconic biscuit” – and, certainly, we’ve been dunking this fern-patterned treat in our tea for well over a century, with early advertisements for this “delicious biscuit” placing it, perhaps aspirationally, in the “fancy” category. By 1920, Bermondsey baking behemoth Peek Frean could confidently declare the custard cream “far and away the most popular of all the cream sandwich biscuits”, a status only slightly dented by the time I was at school about seven decades later, when it sat just below its contemporary, the chocolate bourbon, in the playtime snack ratings.Despite my love of both custard and cookies, however, I’ve always found this particular custard-flavoured product a bit sugary and dull. As historian Lizzie Collingham explains in her magisterial book, The Biscuit: The History of a Very British Indulgence, it combines two early industrial foodstuffs, namely custard powder and machine-made biscuits, and though they may have been created in a factory, I think they’re much better made at home.Let’s be honest, the biscuit isn’t really the point of the packet variety – as children, we’d prise them open to scrape out the sugary filling, like bears sucking honey from a split log – but when you bake them yourself, it can be

Impala, London W1: ‘Shamelessly, brilliantly too much’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

Impala is like no restaurant I’ve ever been to, yet it somehow has echoes of almost all of themLate last month, Impala drove into Soho already flaming hot in the hype stakes: this was a sizzling booking to brag about even before executive chef and co-founder Meedu Saad had turned on the stoves. Impala, after all, is a Super 8 restaurant, the group that has, among others, Tomos Parry’s Brat in Shoreditch, which has been constantly, unfalteringly brilliant since 2018. It also runs Parry’s second baby, Mountain, which is likewise wonderful; sometimes weird, yes, but always wonderful. Long before that, back in 2016, they opened Kiln, the famed live-fire Thai counter hangout that cheffy boys in beanies have tried and failed to emulate all over Britain, while Super 8’s beginnings were with the boundary-pushing and much-loved Smoking Goat. That is nothing less than a litany of solid-gold bangers, and now they’ve unleashed Impala by Saad, the former head chef at Kiln

Ifrah F Ahmed’s debut cookbook is a love letter to Somali cuisine, history and people

On a video call from Brooklyn, between stops on her book tour, Ifrah F Ahmed is drinking ginger-root tea. The smell transports her to her childhood kitchen, where her mother often baked aromatic cardamom cake.“That’s a core childhood memory for me,” she said.For Ahmed, food isn’t just about sustenance. It is memory, inheritance and, perhaps most importantly, a record: “Somali history on a plate,” as she puts it

Lure of being a social media chef means youngsters forgoing classic training, Michelin star cook warns

Scroll through your timeline of choice and it won’t be long until you land on a video posted by a social media chef trying to send their recipes viral.Such is the popularity of cooking videos that everyone from Michelin star masters to self-taught beginners like Brooklyn Beckham are setting up tripods on their kitchen counters to capture the perfect cut, cuisson or crust on their culinary creations.But the lure of social media could, according to some industry figures,be causing young cooks forgo the formal training of a catering college.Will Murray, who worked at the double Michelin-starred restaurant Dinner by Heston before opening his own critically acclaimed venue, Fallow, said social media cooking videos sometimes stretch the boundaries of what is possible.“Social media has helped people get into cooking

Disco hit: Penne alla vodka, popular in New York 80s clubs, is now a menu staple

Despite most traditional Italians considering it sacrilegious, penne alla vodka is quickly becoming one of the most in-demand Italian dishes.Previously popular in suburban Italo-American restaurants during the 80s, the dish is now enjoying a widespread resurgence that is being driven by several factors including nostalgia and social media.Featuring a tomato and cream base with a splash of vodka, the silky smooth sauce sits somewhere between coral and carrot on the colour wheel. The Guardian’s Rome-based food writer Rachel Roddy describes it as “luxurious and a bit racy”.Dara Klein, a chef and founder of Tiella Trattoria in London, says the dish “hits lots of comforting notes”, comparing it to a slightly more grownup take on the Italian childhood favourite pasta al pomodoro which is “eaten from day dot”