When Rishi Sunak confirmed he was scrapping the huge infrastructure project of the West Midlands to Manchester leg of HS2 high-speed rail, he said the project had come from a “false consensus” that links between big cities were “all that matters”.

The immediate pressing question is whether the UK is capable of delivering projects at this scale, at all.

More than 200 former Wilko workers have been offered jobs by Poundland as it reopens some of the collapsed retailer’s stores.

Last month, Poundland said it would buy up to 71 Wilko stores from administrator PwC and relaunch them under its own brand.

The UK’s economy has grown faster since the start of the Covid pandemic than initially thought, new figures show.

Revised data indicates that the UK has seen faster growth than France or Germany since the end of 2019.