Read more about UK considers up to 4-week delay to end lockdown due to Delta variant on Business Standard. Downing Street sources told the BBC that several options are being evaluated as the latest data is studied before UK PM makes a scheduled announcement regarding lockdown on Monday
Read more about Macron offers UK s Johnson Le reset if he keeps his Brexit word on Business Standard. Macron offers Johnson a reset in relations, says France and UK have common interests
Read more about UK s Prime Minister Johnson slammed for taking plane, not train on Business Standard. Johnson flew to the Group of Seven summit meeting in Cornwall
Read more about UK lawmakers seek to reverse government s contentious foreign aid cut on Business Standard. United Nations agencies and other international organisations say the reduction will hurt programs that help some of the world s poorest people.
Britain has seen its budget deficit rise during the coronavirus pandemic to its highest level since the year after the end of World War II, official figures showed Friday. The Office for National Statistics said public sector net borrowing the official gauge of the difference between the government s spending and taxes reached 303.1 billion pounds (USD 420 billion) in the financial year to end-March. This was equivalent to 14.5 per cent of the country s annual gross domestic product, the highest level since 1946, when the deficit hit 15.2 per cent of GDP. The causes of the spike are simple. While tax receipts have ebbed as a result of the deepest recession in more than 300 years, the government has splashed out billions of pounds trying to prop up the economy and jobs since the pandemic first struck more than a year ago.