The news just goes on getting worse… and worse. Britain could be stripped of its prized AAA credit rating as a result of the Government’s latest bank bail-out, potentially jeopardising any economic recovery, according to rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

The UK has an odds-on chance of suffering an even deeper recession than first feared, the Bank of England’s deputy Governor, Charles Bean, has warned.

These ongoing interest rate cuts are obviously achieving nothing, so why persist with them? People who are in debt and feel insecure about spending their money are not suddenly going to rush to the shops to buy things that are not essential, and certainly not with borrowed money, at any interest rate. In fact, anyone sensible person enjoying an interest rate cut will continue with the same repayments...

Canary Wharf is facing the threat of rapidly emptying office blocks as big corporate tenants review their property needs after the wave of bank mergers triggered by the financial crisis. Nearly 2m sq ft of office space in the Docklands financial centre – or more than 10 per cent of the district – is in danger of being deserted as demand for new space falls across London. Read article...

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee slashed its key rate by an unprecedented 1.5 percentage points to 3%, the lowest since 1955, emphasising its growing concern over a contracting economy. The ECB cut rates by half a point to 3.25%. But after allowing for inflation, interest rates are already negative and that is before tax. How much lower does anyone imagine they need to go to...

The latest £50 billion bail out of the British banks may be unavoidable. But to judge by the stock market reactions and the comments made on press and radio, few seem convinced, even after several days. There seems to be no real understanding of what is going on and what the effect of any particular policy will be. We make no claims either in this regard, but making credit more readily available...

Gordon Brown will propose a £12bn fund to help small businesses survive the credit crunch at a meeting of fellow European leaders today on how to tackle the problems currently crippling the financial markets. Speaking at Downing Street before his departure for Paris, Brown said: “We are seeing, in addition to the national action we are taking, that these global problems about oil, about the...

The dissection of the economic crises gathers pace with a flood of articles on the web sites of the press. It is, apparently, all caused by greedy traders in the City and Wall Street. The ones with red braces. Nice idea to blame these unlovely people and easy to do but…

Should the banks be subject to more regulation to prevent the problems of the past year? Financial Times journalists Martin Wolf and John Kay have opposing views. Listen to this debate between the two, chaired by the FT’s editor, Lionel Barber.

The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has decided to leave the interest rate at 5%, unchanged for the past five months. Is this the right figure? Some say it is too high and will make the forthcoming recession worse. Others say it is too high and will aggravate inflation. Both views are correct.