Resentment of a financial elite has been simmering for years. Now the biggest-ever leak moves the focus to politicians. Tackling tax avoidance is the only way to restore trustThousands of companies, millions of documents and terabytes of data. The sprawling trail of secrets nestled within stretches from Reykjavik to Kiev and on to Islamabad by way of Baghdad. It has taken journalists in 80 countries months to tease it all out from the record-breaking bulk of the Panama Papers. Each of these disparate stories matters in itself. But what has also broken out of the vaults of offshore legal specialists Mossack Fonseca is one over-riding sense. The sense that normal rules do not apply to the global elite. In a new gilded age, taxes would – once again – appear to be for the little people.That impression would be poisonous at any time, but it could be especially dangerous in the politics of this particular hour. The response to the financial crisis has been a constant: with a continual demand for regular citizens to make sacrifices in the name of austerity. But the understanding of what had gone wrong in the first place has steadily shifted. Initially, there was almost no understanding at all: baffling news reports about credit default swaps suggested only sorcery going wrong. Slowly but surely, however, the world has learned that the banks that busted the global economy were also consumed with old-fashioned skulduggery: rigging rates, ripping off customers, and laundering Mexican drug money. Courtesy of the Lux tax leaks on sweetheart corporate deals, and the HSBC files, documenting Swiss lockers stacked with bricks of cash, the world learned much more, too, about the tax-dodging lengths that private wealth will go to in order to keep public coffers empty. Continue reading...

Thatcherism didn’t just crush the unions, it crushed a story – as the report that says working-class white children go backwards at school provesThe report came couched in the usual language of inclusion, technocracy and “what works”. Disadvantaged children are doing so badly at school that only one in five hits an international benchmark designed by the authors.But the headline grabber in the paper from the liberal thinktank CentreForum concerns ethnicity: the serial losers after 28 years of marketisation, testing, a centralised curriculum and decentralised control of schools are poor white kids. Continue reading...

Losses could soar to $24tn and wreck the global economy in worst case scenario, first economic modelling estimate suggestsClimate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by $2.5tn (£1.7tn), according to the first estimate from economic modelling.In the worst case scenarios, often used by regulators to check the financial health of companies and economies, the losses could soar to $24tn, or 17% of the world’s assets, and wreck the global economy.Related: Massive carbon capture investment 'needed to slow global warming' Continue reading...

A current account deficit of £92bn is the biggest since records began in 1948Over the years Britain has racked up some monster balance of payments deficits. The UK went spectacularly into the red during the boom of 1973 and again when the economy overheated in 1988.But forget Tony Barber. Forget Nigel Lawson. No chancellor since modern records began in 1948 has presided over as big a shortfall on the nation’s current account as George Osborne in 2015.Related: Current account deficit hits record high as GDP revised higher Continue reading...

In the 19th century British steel production was the envy of the world and a key driver in the industrial revolution. Since then steelworks have been central to their communities. But with cheaper imports flooding the European market, the UK’s steel industry is now in crisis – and Tata’s decision to sell its British operation makes it an existential one

A return visit to the Building Bloqs initiative – in a suburb best known for stabbings and mini-riots – shows what social enterprises can do with proper supportJournalists are like pigeons: they all flock at once to the same feeding ground, then fly off together, leaving behind only their indelible crap. Venal bankers, Afghanistan, the northern powerhouse … stories are hot until they are most decidedly not, and, unlike Star Wars, the readers never get a sequel.I always hoped to revisit Building Bloqs – I just didn’t know if it would still be standing. When I wrote at the start of 2015 about the big orange shed plonked by a canal, it was with an anxious excitement. In Edmonton, a suburb of north London normally in the headlines for yet another stabbing or mini-riot, here was a bit of good news. In an industrial hub where the factories had long ago turned into warehouses and gigantic superstores offering low-wage jobs, here were people once again actually making something.Related: It’s not just the UK left behind by ‘booming’ London. It’s Londoners too | Aditya ChakraborttyIn London a house earns more in two days than the average worker in a week Continue reading...

More than two-thirds of employees say they are spending longer at work but only 10% say they are more productiveMost British workers are spending longer at their workplace for little or no gain in productivity, according to a landmark study being released this week.