Britain’s brain drain has become the latest battleground in Westminster politics, after shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith used a conference speech to beg young people not to abandon the country, promising tax cuts and housing reforms to keep them here.

Speaking to Conservative Party members on Monday, Griffith made an emotional appeal that doubled as a political pitch, arguing that his party, not Labour, offers young Britons the clearest path to a stable, prosperous life at home. The newly appointed shadow chancellor said reversing the exodus of young workers was now central to Tory economic strategy, framing it as a crisis every bit as urgent as the debates around asylum and migration that have dominated headlines in recent months.

“Many Labour MPs spend their time talking about safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to come here,” Griffith told the room. “Well, what about safe and legal routes for our own young people to get a job, buy a home, have a good life? Does that not count?”

The scale of Britain’s brain drain

The numbers behind Griffith’s appeal are striking. According to the Office for National Statistics, roughly 246,000 British nationals left the country in 2025, with nearly half of those departures made up of people aged between 16 and 34. That figure has given fresh ammunition to critics who argue the UK is failing to retain the young talent it needs to drive future growth, and it has turned the brain drain into a politically charged phrase that both major parties are now scrambling to address.

Griffith’s message was blunt and personal. “So, if you are thinking of leaving, whether you are young or old, don’t,” he said. “Many of the things we hold dear are threatened as never before, but none have yet been lost. Stay, stay and help us win.” The line was as much a rallying cry to party loyalists as it was a direct message to disillusioned young voters weighing up a move abroad.

Tax cuts and housing pledges as the fix

To back up the rhetoric, Griffith pointed to a string of policies the Conservatives have rolled out over the past year that he says are designed to ease the financial pressure driving the brain drain. Chief among them is a pledge to scrap stamp duty on primary residences, a move the party claims could save homebuyers tens of thousands of pounds and make getting on the property ladder realistic for younger buyers locked out of the market.

The party has also proposed reforming student loans to stop debt “spiralling,” and Griffith used his speech to confirm the Tories would scrap Labour’s so-called mansion tax, a levy on properties worth more than £2 million. Taken together, the measures are meant to paint a picture of a party actively fighting to keep young people’s economic prospects alive in Britain rather than abroad.

Griffith went further, setting out a personal ambition that he said would guide his approach if he becomes chancellor. “Like Nigel Lawson, it is my ambition to scrap at least one tax every budget,” he said, invoking the late Thatcher-era chancellor as a model for aggressive tax reform. He described tax cuts as his “North Star,” a signal that reducing the overall tax burden will remain the centrepiece of Tory economic messaging heading into the next election.

Pensions row overshadows the pitch

The appeal to younger voters comes as the Conservatives face scrutiny over their commitment to the state pension triple lock, which guarantees the pension rises each year by whichever is highest of wage growth, inflation, or 2.5%. Labour’s Andy Burnham said last week his party would campaign on reforming the uprating mechanism, a move Griffith seized on, telling the BBC on Monday morning that young people themselves oppose scrapping the triple lock because it protects their own parents and grandparents.

Not everyone agrees the issue is resonating as loudly as the headlines suggest. One senior government source said the intense media scrutiny of the Tories’ pensions stance was not necessarily shared by the wider public, suggesting the triple lock row may be more of an inside-Westminster story than a doorstep issue. Still, the timing is notable: by tying the pensions debate to his brain drain message, Griffith is attempting to position the Conservatives as the party for both ends of the age spectrum, pensioners and young workers alike.

Whether the strategy can actually reverse the brain drain remains to be seen. Tax pledges and housing reforms take time to bear fruit, and Griffith’s speech offered promises rather than enacted policy. But with net departures running into the hundreds of thousands and young people disproportionately represented among those leaving, the political pressure to show tangible progress on the brain drain is unlikely to ease any time soon.

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Chick-fil-A is proving that a family business can still outgrow nearly every rival in the restaurant industry without ever ringing a bell on Wall Street. The Atlanta-based chicken chain pulled in $10.3 billion in revenue last year, a 14% jump, and net income of $1.05 billion, according to franchise disclosures reviewed by CNBC. That performance, paired with $23.92 billion in systemwide sales across roughly 3,000 locations, makes it the third-largest restaurant chain in the country by sales, trailing only McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Yet CEO Andrew Cathy, who took over from his father Dan nearly five years ago, insists the company has no interest in chasing the kind of windfall an initial public offering could bring. “We’re able to plan for the quarter century, and we don’t have to plan for the quarter,” Cathy told CNBC, describing the company’s growth strategy as “calculated” and “conservative” even as it pushes into new international markets.

Why staying a family business still works

Chick-fil-A was founded by Cathy’s grandfather, S. Truett Cathy, and has remained privately held and family-controlled ever since. That structure means the company doesn’t report quarterly earnings to shareholders or face pressure to hit short-term growth targets — a freedom Cathy says lets leadership focus on decades-long plans rather than fiscal quarters.

The timing of that philosophy looks especially shrewd given how public restaurant stocks have performed this year. Shares of Jersey Mike’s have dropped nearly 28% since its July IPO, and Dunkin’ parent Inspire Brands is reportedly holding off on going public until the sector’s fortunes improve. For a family business like Chick-fil-A, staying out of public markets has become less a sentimental choice and more a practical advantage.

It also hasn’t slowed expansion. The chain opened 179 new restaurants last year and has launched operations in Canada, the United Kingdom and Singapore in recent years, part of a $1 billion international growth plan. Its venture arm has also rolled out Daybright, a beverage-focused concept aimed at capturing a different kind of customer than the flagship chicken sandwich shops.

Navigating industry headwinds

The broader restaurant industry has had a rough stretch. Elevated costs and increasingly selective consumers have hurt traffic at McDonald’s, Popeyes, KFC and other major chains. Cathy acknowledged the pressure but said Chick-fil-A’s locations haven’t seen the same slump. “This has been a good year,” he said. “Our operators have done such a good job executing on the fundamentals and adding the hospitality to it.”

That focus on hospitality is central to how Cathy frames the balance between legacy and growth. He compared running the business to driving a race car: “There’s a reason that the windshield’s bigger than the rearview mirror. It’s important for the rear view to be grounded on where you are, and there are things that we think about our purpose, our mission, that won’t change, but everything else we have to be able to evolve and change.”

Some traditions are untouchable — Chick-fil-A’s restaurants will continue closing on Sundays, a policy in place since the company’s founding. Others, like the specifics of in-store hospitality, are expected to shift as customer habits evolve, particularly around how people order and receive food. Cathy said the chain is taking a “human plus” approach to new technology, exploring tools like artificial intelligence and even drone delivery without abandoning the personal service that has defined its brand.

As competitors chase public listings or restructure under private equity ownership, Chick-fil-A’s choice to remain a family business stands out as increasingly rare among chains of its size. For Cathy, that rarity is the point — a bet that long-term thinking, not quarterly results, is what keeps the chain growing while so many rivals stumble.

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Energy bills are once again at the centre of a political storm, with the industry’s own trade body warning the government that delaying support for struggling households could trigger a deeper and more expensive crisis than the one Britain endured just a few years ago.

Energy UK, which represents suppliers, says ministers need to act immediately rather than wait for conditions to worsen further. The warning comes after domestic gas prices rose on Thursday and new forecasts pointed to a steep increase in energy bills from January, just as colder weather pushes up demand.

Figures reported by the BBC this week suggest a 16% rise in domestic energy prices is likely in the new year for roughly 20 million households on variable tariffs governed by regulator Ofgem’s price cap. That cap, which limits the maximum price suppliers can charge per unit of gas and electricity, already rose by 4% at the start of October — adding about £60 a year, or £5 a month, to a typical household’s costs and pushing the average annual bill for dual-fuel customers paying by direct debit to £1,723.

Energy bills could near £2,000 by January

The outlook for the new year is considerably bleaker. Consultancy Cornwall Insight forecasts that the same typical annual bill could rise to £1,999 in January, a jump that would mark the sharpest seasonal increase in four years and pile further strain on household budgets already stretched by the broader cost of living.

Energy UK acknowledges the government has taken some steps to ease the burden, including a cut to VAT on electricity bills that took effect on Thursday and the earlier removal or shifting of certain levies into general taxation. But the trade body argues those gains have already been swallowed up by soaring wholesale costs, which suppliers must pay before passing charges on to customers.

Much of that wholesale pressure, the organisation says, stems from international instability — particularly conflict in the Middle East and disruption to shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz — echoing the dynamics that sent bills spiralling after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“We cannot afford to wait,” says industry chief

Dhara Vyas, chief executive of Energy UK, said the lessons of the last crisis must not be ignored. “We cannot afford to wait for the same scale of crisis before acting again,” she said, pointing to mounting customer debt as evidence that households are already struggling before the worst of the winter price rises take hold.

Vyas said the growing debt burden now adds an average of £67 a year to every household’s bill, regardless of whether they are behind on payments themselves. “Last-minute emergency interventions run the risk of being badly targeted and costing us all more,” she warned, urging the government to move before prices jump again in January rather than scrambling to respond afterwards.

Her comments followed a stark warning from Simone Rossi, chief executive of EDF Energy, who said on Thursday that the UK was “walking into a second energy crisis.” Adam Scorer, head of the fuel poverty charity National Energy, echoed the concern, telling BBC Breakfast that rising debt levels reflect not simply more people falling behind on payments, but poorer households sinking deeper into financial difficulty with no clear way out.

“Until you do something about that, there’s no way forward, there’s no breathing space, there’s no future for households who can’t see their way beyond debt,” Scorer said.

What suppliers want the government to do

Energy UK has set out a series of measures it wants ministers to consider as part of an urgent response. These include targeted financial support that goes beyond the existing £150 Warm Home Discount offered to people on benefits, eventually paving the way for a discounted social tariff for the most vulnerable customers.

The trade body is also calling for a debt relief scheme aimed at households that have fallen furthest behind, alongside a broader strategy to stop debt accumulating among new tenants and homeowners in the first place. It further wants more levies stripped from electricity bills and shifted onto general taxation, part of a long-term push toward electrification that supporters argue would make switching away from gas more financially attractive.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, speaking after the warnings emerged, said he would not describe Rossi’s “second crisis” comments as an overstatement, acknowledging that the cost of home energy — along with petrol and diesel prices — remained “very difficult indeed” for many families. He said the government was “looking at any measure that can give people breathing space, that can take the pressure off.”

With forecasts pointing to energy bills climbing toward £2,000 a year for typical households by January, pressure is mounting on Westminster to decide quickly whether it will intervene now or risk repeating the costly, reactive scramble that characterised the last major energy crisis.

Costa Coffee says it has delivered a year of “strong progress,” rebounding to profitability just months after its parent company, Coca-Cola, quietly abandoned efforts to sell the chain to a private equity buyer.

The UK’s second-largest coffee chain grew revenue by five per cent to £1.3bn last year and swung back into operating profit, according to accounts filed by the company. The turnaround marks a notable reversal of fortune for a brand that just a year ago was being shopped around to buyout firms as Coca-Cola looked to cut its losses on a business it bought for £3.9bn in 2018.

Costa Coffee Returns to Profit After Rocky 2024

Costa posted an operating profit of £20m in 2025, a sharp turnaround from the £13.5m loss recorded the previous year. The company attributed that earlier slump to “soft footfall and growth of value-led competitors” — a polite way of describing the squeeze cheaper rivals have put on traditional coffee shop chains across British high streets.

Still, not every metric moved in the right direction. Costa’s statutory profit actually fell by seven per cent to £62m, a reminder that headline recovery narratives rarely tell the whole story. The gap between operating performance and bottom-line profit suggests one-off costs or accounting adjustments took some shine off an otherwise upbeat set of results.

Chief executive Philippe Schaillee credited the company’s investment programme — a mix of store refurbishments and product innovation — for driving the improvement. “These results demonstrate the strength of the Costa brand and the dedication of our hard-working teams, who serve great coffee with heart every day, and reinforce our focus on building sustainable long-term growth,” he said.

A Sale That Never Happened

The backdrop to this recovery is Coca-Cola’s abandoned attempt to offload Costa. The beverage giant had been seeking roughly £2bn for the chain, with names including Asda owner TDR Capital, Gail’s backer Bain Capital, and private equity firm Apollo reportedly circling as potential buyers. But in January, Coca-Cola scrapped the sale process after bids came in below its expectations.

That decision leaves Costa Coffee back under the Coca-Cola umbrella for now, with the drinks giant presumably watching closely to see whether this year’s improved numbers represent a genuine turnaround or a temporary bounce. Either way, the failed sale has given Costa breathing room to pursue its own recovery plan rather than operating under the uncertainty of a looming ownership change.

Losing Ground to Greggs and Cheaper Rivals

Despite the improved financials, Costa’s position atop the UK coffee market has slipped. Earlier this month, bakery chain Greggs overtook Costa to become the country’s largest branded coffee destination by outlet count, with 2,737 sites compared with Costa’s 2,707. For a brand that has long positioned itself as Britain’s coffee shop of choice, ceding that crown to a bakery chain best known for sausage rolls is a symbolic blow.

The competitive pressure runs in both directions. Budget-focused operators have chipped away at Costa’s customer base from below, while upmarket entrants like Blank Street have begun appearing on UK high streets, targeting younger, trend-conscious coffee drinkers from above. Costa also has the dubious distinction of having the highest proportion of sites within a five-minute drive of another coffee brand — 73 per cent as of December 2025 — underscoring just how saturated and fiercely contested the UK coffee market has become.

In response, Costa appears to be prioritising quality over sheer scale. The chain opened just 79 new UK stores in 2025 and plans to open only 40 to 50 new sites over the coming year — a notably cautious expansion pace for a brand that once blanketed town centres with new openings.

Betting on Refurbishments and New Flavours

Instead of chasing growth through new store openings, Costa has poured resources into revamping existing locations. The company has refurbished 1,063 stores across the UK and Ireland since 2023, including 305 last year alone, and plans to refresh roughly 210 more sites in 2026.

Product innovation has also played a role in the recovery. Costa pointed to its Matcha and Ube drinks as key drivers of customer growth, with iced beverages proving especially popular during last year’s summer heatwaves. “Costa is deliberate with innovations, ensuring that innovations have staying power that Costa can scale really well,” the company said. “That’s the advantage of Costa’s scale: when we see something customers genuinely want, we can make it accessible to millions of people.”

The chain still serves more than four million cups of coffee daily and counts six million active members in its loyalty scheme — scale that gives Costa Coffee a cushion even as its market lead narrows. Whether that scale is enough to fend off cut-price challengers and premium newcomers alike will determine if this year’s progress marks a lasting recovery or merely a pause before the next downturn.