Almost £24.4bn of government money went to private equity-run firms in year to April 2025, Guardian analysis shows

• ‘Treating children like cattle’: what happens when private equity takes over a UK care home?

• Nurseries, vets and shops: the sectors where private equity plays a big role

• Good for business – or profit at any cost? The controversial side of private equity – a visual explainer

One pound in every £11 of UK government spending on contractors went to private equity-controlled companies last year, research shows, including key services such as transport, waste management and healthcare.

Politicians and economists have raised concerns over the “financial fragility and sharp cost cutting” created by private equity-backed firms, which often have high levels of debt, and the “conflicting interests” in running public services for maximum profit.

With a new prime minister incoming, Labour faces a fundamental question about its economic vision

As Keir Starmer stands down as prime minister and attention turns toward Andy Burnham, the current moment should not be reduced to a story of personalities. The question that matters is strategy, and the Labour party has three years left to get this right.

When Labour won its landslide in July 2024, it did so on the promise of a new kind of governance: five national missions to tackle the UK’s deepest structural challenges, from clean energy to child poverty, inspired by my book, Mission Economy. That was the right answer to a real question: what is the economy for, and why should it matter to people’s daily lives? Mission-oriented government is not just a political slogan, but a proven approach to solving society’s biggest challenges, generating good jobs and resilient growth in the process.

Mariana Mazzucato is professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, where she is founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is the author of The Common Good: a new compass

Experts say students from poorer backgrounds increasingly having to limit their options because of money worries

Most days, Mariam spends hours simply waiting.

The 19-year-old University College London student often finishes her lectures by mid-morning but has careers events or society meetings in the evening. The three-hour round trip to her family home means travelling back and forth makes little sense, so she waits on campus instead. More often than not, by the time the event starts, she is too exhausted to stay long.

Economist Prof Mariana Mazzucato says governments must ‘get back their mojo’ and believe they can change the world

Good governments have a vision. They know what they want to achieve, can articulate why, and work out in public how to get there. They don’t just spout slogans about economic growth – because growth is meaningless unless we know what it is for. They understand that there is no trade-off between solving social problems and boosting the economy, and aim to do both, while avoiding rigid fiscal rules that defeat their own purpose by strangling public investment.

If this sounds like a critique of what went wrong with Keir Starmer’s government, it is also a lot more. Mariana Mazzucato, a professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, is a world-renowned economist, adviser to governments, chair of international commissions, prolific author, and PhD supervisor to at least one poet. She was the thinker who inspired Starmer to fashion his political project around five key “missions”, now largely forgotten in the mire of scandals, U-turns and infighting that beset his premiership.

About 1,600 workers signed petition against tool that tracked staff keystrokes, mouse clicks and computer screen content

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has paused a program that tracked employees’ computer activity amid data privacy concerns and a staff backlash.

The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp had introduced a tool that tracked staff keystrokes, mouse clicks and content displayed on computer screens in order to collect data for training its AI models.

Top 10% generate climate and biodiversity damage bill that exceeds economies of most countries, say researchers

The environmental damage bill racked up by the highest-consuming 10% of the world’s population has reached up to $5.7tn a year – larger than the economy of every country except the US and China, a study has found.

Mega-consumers in this group are concentrated in the global north, accounting for more than half the population of the US and 40-45% of people in the EU.

Exclusive: Ministers consider national threshold in England that could in effect bar thousands from studying

University students would face minimum grade requirements to qualify for student loans in England under proposals that could in effect bar thousands of young people from higher education.

Under one proposal being discussed by ministers, a pass in GCSE English would become the national threshold for students to access government-backed tuition and maintenance loans through the Student Loans Company.

Stacy Roberts says she took $83,000 worth of vacations for $4,300. Here’s how

Stacy Roberts likes to tell her 321,000 followers that her family is rich – in credit card points, that is. Last year alone, she, her husband and their three kids traveled to Spain, Denmark, Austria, Italy, California, Utah and Hawaii all for around $4,300, she says.

How does she do it? Roberts says she opens a new credit card each month, allowing her to accumulate around 1m points a year.

An adviser on the estate documents that matter more than a will

A finance podcaster on how she plans to make her daughter a millionaire

A former union organizer on how to negotiate your debts down