UK car sales jump in April as two millionth EV registered; Rachel Reeves ‘clashed with Scott Bessent’ over Iran war criticism – business live
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• HSBC profits fall amid $400m fraud-related charge and Iran war

• Australia hikes interest rates to 4.35% in blow to mortgage holders

Those credit losses have “overshadowed” HSBC’s results in the last quarter, reports Will Howlett, financials analyst at Quilter Cheviot:

HSBC’s quarter was dominated by a sharp and unexpected jump in credit losses, which took the shine off otherwise solid trading and pushed profits just below expectations. A $400m fraud-related loss in the UK drove a marked rise in bad loan charges and has put fresh focus on the risks sitting within more complex lending, even as the rest of the loan book remains stable.

Profits were broadly flat on last year, as higher income was absorbed by rising costs and credit charges. Revenues grew 4%, slightly ahead of expectations, helped mainly by fees rather than interest income. Wealth management continued to perform well, though growth has slowed from last year’s pace.

“HSBC’s results always bring more of an international flavour than its UK peers. Unfortunately that means the Hormuz crisis looms large in the results, casting a shadow over an otherwise solid set of numbers.

The theme is grimly familiar to investors; were it not for the crisis, earnings outlooks would be much rosier. The warnings around the economic impact will only continue to grow the longer the situation remains unresolved.”

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Vodafone to take full control of UK mobile operator in £4.3bn deal
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison agrees to sell 49% stake as it attempts to reshape its portfolio

• Business live – latest updates

Vodafone is to take full control of the UK’s biggest mobile operator in a £4.3bn buyout deal with the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison.

The billionaire Li Ka-shing’s business said it had agreed to sell its 49% stake in VodafoneThree – a network with more than 27 million subscribers – to its partner Vodafone.

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HSBC profits fall amid $400m fraud-related charge and Iran war
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

London-headquartered bank’s shares slide as it sets aside an extra $300m to cover effects of Middle East conflict

• Business live – latest updates

HSBC has taken a $1.3bn (£961m) hit to profits, fuelled by the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran and fraud in the troubled private credit sector.

The London-headquartered bank said profits fell 4% in the first three months of the year, dropping $100m to $9.4bn, compared with the same period in 2025. Revenue increased 6% to $18.6bn.

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‘There is a good deal of fear’: what would a Labour leadership challenge mean for bond markets?
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

Rayner and Burnham are trying to gain markets’ confidence amid concerns they could loosen fiscal rules if they replace Starmer

Who calls the shots on the bin collections in Sunderland, potholes in Hackney, or schools in Cardiff is not normally of interest to City traders in the multitrillion-pound sovereign bond market.

But for those dealing in UK government debt, Thursday’s local and devolved government elections are significantly more important than usual, amid speculation that a dire showing for Keir Starmer’s Labour party could topple him as prime minister.

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Google DeepMind workers in UK vote to unionize amid deal with US military
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

Exclusive: Worker pointed to Iran war and Pentagon’s Anthropic feud as indications the department is ‘not a responsible partner’

Workers developing Google’s artificial intelligence products in the UK have voted to unionize, in part out of concerns about a deal between the company and the US military that was announced last week.

In a letter slated to go to management on Tuesday and shared exclusively with the Guardian, workers at Google DeepMind, the company’s AI research laboratory, requested recognition of the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives of the lab’s UK-based staff.

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AI platforms reference Nigel Farage more than other leaders when prompted on UK politics, study shows
Posted on Monday May 04, 2026

Reform UK is ‘doing something right when it comes to visibility’ on multiple AI systems, say researchers

AI platforms are more likely to reference Nigel Farage than any other UK leader when prompted about British politics, according to an AI search analytics firm.

“We are confident in saying that Reform are showing up significantly more than you would expect,” said Malte Landwehr, an expert at Peec AI, the firm that did the research. “So they’re doing something right when it comes to LLM [large language model] visibility.”

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RFU backs Steve Borthwick to lead England for 2027 World Cup after Six Nations review
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

• England suffered four defeats in dismal Six Nations

• Bill Sweeney says improvement not ‘one simple answer’

Steve Borthwick and his coaching staff are to remain in charge of England’s men’s team despite the squad’s worst Five or Six Nations for 50 years. The Rugby Football Union has opted to back Borthwick and his lieutenants through to next year’s Rugby World Cup in Australia having completed what it described as “a detailed and robust review” of England’s latest campaign.

Despite having lost four Five or Six Nations games in the same season for the first time since 1976, the RFU has chosen to keep faith with the Borthwick regime in the belief that things can only get better. The union has decided that sacking the head coach is not the optimal solution, having previously dispensed with Eddie Jones’s services nine months prior to the 2023 World Cup.

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David Squires on … an unexpected cameo amid all the Premier League drama
Posted on Tuesday May 05, 2026

Our cartoonist on a weekend of genuine excitement at the top and bottom of the English top-flight table

• Buy a cartoon here | His favourites from 2025

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

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