Burnham’s victory in Makerfield ended a 5-year streak of ruling parties losing vote share in by-elections. Labour lost at least 14 pts in the other 4 this parliament. The last time a ruling party won a contested by-election was the Tories in Hartlepool in 2021, during Johnson's vaccine bounce

Ten years on from the Brexit referendum, Leave and Remain voters still have wildly different voting patterns. Reform UK has consolidated about half of the Leave bloc, while the Remain vote has fragmented across many parties. Read the full article: as.ft.com/r/fc065c3b-9...

This is good - ft. sensational Sankeys and sensible stuff from @robfordmancs.bsky.social and @keiranpedley.bsky.social

In charts: How Brexit still divides British voters

In the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham is trying to win over an area that voted heavily for Leave

ft.com

Good chart. www.ft.com/content/bc60... Iran war tests Donald Trump’s tolerance for ‘pain’ in oil market

includes cool viz from @jonathanvincent.bsky.social on past FX interventions by Japanese authorities www.ft.com/content/76fd...

"Those 18-year-olds – the first guinea pigs, the class who matriculated in 2012 – are now turning 31. And belatedly, the impact of the loans they were assured were a rock-solid investment in their futures is becoming apparent." Some thoughts on student loans www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Britain's youth are living in Nick Clegg's shadow

All except the richest graduates since 2012 face a bespoke additional tax. No wonder they're radicalised

newstatesman.com

How the AI boom compares to past technological bubbles, including the British Railway Mania of 1845 as.ft.com/r/0a844158-d...

New: 'Shark's fin' chart reveals the uneven impact of 'fiscal drag', the stealth tax beloved of recent chancellors. Plus use our interactive calculator to see how fresh freezes announced by Rachel Reeves at todays Budget could affect you on.ft.com/3KqOYUL

This is absolutely fascinating: you can put your postcode in and see relative levels of deprivation (and the opposite) where you live in detail. I live where I grew up, so I could spend days doing this as I know the town so well. www.ft.com/content/9a1c... Huge congrats to @amyborrett.ft.com et al.

Interactive: explore England’s new deprivation map

Data analysis reveals ‘cheek by jowl’ inequalities in first study of country’s disadvantaged areas since pandemic

ft.com

For this story, we used AI to read more than 13,000 documents to identify which MEPs declared a conflict of interest. While dozens have side jobs overlapping with their parliamentary duties, only eight declared a conflict of interest. With @jonathanvincent.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/0466...

Scores of MEPs hold side jobs in sectors where they steer EU laws

FT analysis identifies paid work that has not been declared as a potential conflict of interest

ft.com

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the most unfair tax of them all? An #FTEdit 🧵on the madness of council tax 👇

Great piece of data journalism on the widespread anomalies in council tax banding, by @jonathanvincent.bsky.social and Sam Fleming and involving our great engineering teams on both the front- and back-end of the project. #ddj Plus a nod to some classic #dataviz design by @theboysmithy.ft.com:

Council tax valuation bands in England are increasingly disconnected from house prices - new with Sam Fleming and Jonathan Vincent. You can even tap in your own details to see how unfair your council tax bill is on.ft.com/46JBbB9

In charts: drought risk as England faces driest year this century 📊 https://www.ft.com/content/8e69c305-8f22-4052-817d-5397f107d8c8

In charts: drought risk as England faces driest year this century

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

ft.com

Olaf Scholz mocked British railways over “broken tracks and bad trains”, claiming that "nothing works any more” in the UK. Turns out: Germany rail problems have become so bad that Deutsche Bahn long-distance service is less punctual than even the worst operator in Britain. www.ft.com/content/d3b6...

My article comparing British and German rail punctuality in the @financialtimes.com today with @olafstorbeck.ft.com While British trains perform poorly, the German network suffers even more from delays, especially on intercity lines. on.ft.com/4gKX4Sf

In a debate last week, Olaf Scholz argued that rail privatisation in Germany would “end as badly as in England, where nothing works any more”.  But how does Deutsche Bahn really compare to UK trains? @jonathanvincent.bsky.social crunched a few billion datapoints to check: on.ft.com/4hFuxyX

German trains are less punctual than Britain’s ‘broken’ railways

[FREE TO READ] Olaf Scholz mocked UK trains. FT analysis of 1.9bn data points shows they are more reliable than Germany’s network

on.ft.com