Excuse my cynicism, but after 25 years of the same housing policies, could Australian leaders try something else? | Greg Jericho

This week, the housing affordability crisis was solved when both the Labor and Liberal parties discovered that the key was to give people more money so they can bid a higher price for a home. Phew. Our long national nightmare is over.Cripes. What a joke

US stock markets fall further after Trump curbs chip sales to China; gold hits new record high – as it happened

Stocks on Wall Street have fallen after the opening bell, joining the global rout.The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 323 points, or 1.9%, to 16,499 while the Dow Jones fell by 190 points, or 0.5%, to 40,179 and the S&P 500 slid by 61 points to 5,335, a 1.1% decline

Tariffs more likely to bring UK price cuts than inflation, says WH Smith boss

Donald Trump’s tariff war is more likely to lead to price cuts than inflation for many retailers in the UK, according to the boss of WH Smith, as east Asian suppliers seek alternatives to the US.Many economists including those at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have suggested that increased barriers to trade could fuel inflationary pressures across the globe.But Carl Cowling, the chief executive of the retailer, said: “I don’t think there is any logic in why there would be inflation. You could argue it would be the other way around and stock will free up, and it is more likely to be that than inflationary for the UK.”He said the company had not seen any disruption to deliveries from overseas suppliers owing to the rapidly changing news on tariffs

China accuses UK politicians of ‘arrogance’ in British Steel row

China has accused UK politicians of “arrogance, ignorance and a twisted mindset” as it defended British Steel’s owner, Jingye, after a barrage of criticism over the narrowly averted shutdown of its blast furnaces.Beijing’s embassy to the UK accused unspecified British public figures of slandering China’s government and businesses, in comments published on Wednesday on its website.It followed criticism of the actions of Jingye, British Steel’s Chinese owner since 2020, by the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds. Reynolds accused Jingye of not acting in good faith after it threatened to shut down British Steel’s furnaces at Scunthorpe within days, with the loss of 2,700 jobs.The government stepped in on Saturday to avoid the shutdowns with emergency legislation to take control of British Steel

EY being investigated over Post Office auditing during Horizon scandal

EY, one of the “big four” accounting firms, is being investigated over how it audited the accounts of the Post Office as the postal branch network wrestled with the Horizon software scandal that resulted in hundreds of post office operators being wrongly convicted.The UK’s accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), said it had begun an investigation into whether the firm met its standards “with particular reference to matters related to the Horizon IT system”.The Horizon accounting software was developed by Fujitsu and was at the heart of the Post Office scandal, described as the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice, which has been the subject of a long-running inquiry that concluded its hearings in December.The FRC said: “So as not to interfere with the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, the opening of this investigation follows the conclusion of the public hearings. While the inquiry was extensive, it purposefully did not encompass the role or knowledge of external auditors in its scope

Good news on UK inflation may be short-lived amid trade war and rising household bills

Cooling inflation, resilient wage growth, and an economy outperforming expectations. After the turmoil since Donald Trump’s “liberation day”, there are some signs that Britain entered the crisis in reasonable shape.The trouble is, the good news is unlikely to last long. The bigger-than-expected decline in inflation to 2.6% in March will come as a welcome reprieve for hard-pressed households