Tax rises ‘inevitable’, thinktank warns, as Reeves set to warn markets of budget plans – business live

There’s obviously huge interest in Westminster, as well as in the financial markets, in Rachel Reeves’s speech – due to start at 8.10am GMT.My colleague Andrew Sparrow will be tracking events here.He writes:David Cameron is credited with popularising the term “pitch rolling” in Westminster, to describe the process whereby politicians prepare the public for difficult announcements by shaping the argument in advance. It is a metaphor with connotations of a gentle game of cricket, and pleasant summer afternoons

City watchdog ‘nakedly’ siding with lenders on car finance redress, MPs say

The City regulator has “nakedly taken the side of lenders” in its planned compensation scheme for car loan victims and has been “patently influenced” by concerns over profits, a group of cross-party MPs have claimed.The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fair Banking joined a growing chorus of critics concerned about the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) proposed redress scheme, which is meant to compensate borrowers who were overcharged as a result of commission arrangements between lenders and car dealers.The APPG’s latest report has accused the regulator of buying into “doom-mongering” by lenders who claim that a large compensation bill would risk spooking investors and causing lasting damage to the UK economy.That was at the expense of car loan victims who they said were due up to £15.6bn, rather than the £8

Apple Watch SE 3 review: the bargain smartwatch for iPhone

Apple’s entry level Watch SE has been updated with almost everything from its excellent mid-range Series 11 but costs about 40% less, making it the bargain of iPhone smartwatches.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The new Watch SE 3 costs from £219 (€269/$249/A$399), making it one of the cheapest brand-new fully fledged smartwatches available for the iPhone and undercutting the £369 Series 11 and the top-of-the-line £749 Apple Watch Ultra 3

Experts find flaws in hundreds of tests that check AI safety and effectiveness

Experts have found weaknesses, some serious, in hundreds of tests used to check the safety and effectiveness of new artificial intelligence models being released into the world.Computer scientists from the British government’s AI Security Institute, and experts at universities including Stanford, Berkeley and Oxford, examined more than 440 benchmarks that provide an important safety net.They found flaws that “undermine the validity of the resulting claims”, that “almost all … have weaknesses in at least one area”, and resulting scores might be “irrelevant or even misleading”.Many of the benchmarks are used to evaluate the latest AI models released by the big technology companies, said the study’s lead author, Andrew Bean, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute.In the absence of nationwide AI regulation in the UK and US, benchmarks are used to check if new AIs are safe, align to human interests and achieve their claimed capabilities in reasoning, maths and coding

Cocktails and checkmates: the young Britons giving chess a new lease of life

One of the liveliest spots on a Tuesday night in east London’s Brick Lane isn’t a restaurant or a streetwear brand pop-up, it’s a chess club – or chess club-nightclub hybrid, to be exact.Knight Club is the unlikely crossover between chess and London’s fervent nightlife scene. It was started by Yusuf Ntahilaja, 27, who began his first chess club in August 2023 at a smaller bar in Aldgate, not too far from the current location at Café 1001 on Brick Lane.“I wanted to make chess clubs for people who look like me and people my age,” he said. “Typically, chess is only put in spaces that are full of older people, which isn’t diverse enough

Melbourne Cup 2025: Jamie Melham follows in Michelle Payne’s footsteps with win aboard Half Yours

Jockey Jamie Melham became the second woman to win the Melbourne Cup after Half Yours saluted on a wet track under cloudy skies at Flemington, in front of around 80,000 spectators. The five-year-old gelding – the only Australian-bred horse in the race – finished two lengths ahead of Goodie Two Shoes, with Middle Earth third.Interviewed on the track immediately afterwards, Melham, who created history as the first female jockey to complete the Caulfield-Melbourne Cups double, said: “What just happened? Oh my god”.“This is what we do it for, this is why we get up out of bed every morning at 4am, work our asses off for the last 15 years I’ve been in this industry,” she told Channel Nine. “It’s tough, it’s not all glorious and perfect as everyone can see sometimes