Former HSBC boss Stephen Green is to step down from a financial services industry body amid claims the bank enabled tax dodging while he was in charge.

George Osborne’s battle to bring down the UK's annual deficit was given a small boost today as figures showed underlying Government borrowing for July fell by half.

George Osborne today warned against driving away the wealthy after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called for a temporary tax on the rich.

The political row in Britain over the fixing of inter-bank lending rates deepened at the weekend via the publication of confidential advice from UBS to the previous Labour government on how to reduce the key Libor rate at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

A £963,000 bonus for the boss of a UK taxpayer-funded bank has been attacked as “out of touch” by Labour, as a British government minister claimed he had a public “duty” to refuse it.

PRESSURE is building on British prime minister David Cameron to find new initiatives to revive the economy in the wake of riots across England this month as the harshest austerity programme in living memory starts to bite.

Voting opens in Labour’s shadow cabinet elections today, with 49 MPs battling for a place in Ed Miliband’s top team.

Tony Blair is expected to announce he is standing down as Labour leader today after a decade in Downing Street, paving the way for Gordon Brown to succeed him as British Prime Minister.