There were fresh calls for the Government to scale back its austerity measures today after figures confirmed the UK had returned to recession.

Ursula Dronke was a brilliant, vital, and impressive representative of a world that seems to be fast disappearing from our grasp: a scholarship girl who, from a luminous sense of their intrinsic value, dedicated her life to difficult works of the human imagination; she was still publishing in her 90th year.

Big business loved it, small business less so, but most agreed that while the economy could benefit long term, the current low to zero growth isn't going to enjoy a quick pick up from the Budget.

The Government today sparked a fierce debate over employment rights after calling for evidence on whether rules covering the dismissal of workers were too “complex” and should be changed.

Fears that the recovery in the manufacturing sector is starting to lose steam were fuelled today by lacklustre industrial growth figures.

Business leaders threw down the gauntlet to the Chancellor, George Osborne, last night with demands for an aggressively pro-business Budget to kick-start the economy's fragile recovery.

Facebook announced plans today to help thousands of small firms by offering free advertising to boost their chances of growing their business.

The Government today gave the go-ahead for the HS2 high-speed rail scheme, saying the £32.7 billion project would benefit the whole country.

Outlook Forget hugging hoodies, Britons should go out and cuddle a chief exec.

London Underground workers are to stage four strikes, including one on Boxing Day, in a row over bank holiday pay, it was announced today.

The state of the UK's high streets was laid bare today when a government-commissioned report described some town centres as "dead", with huge increases in the number of empty shops.

Adam Posen, the arch-dove of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, has issued his loudest call yet for the world's central banks to embark on another round of quantitative easing in order to prevent a return to global recession.

The feeble pace of economic recovery was confirmed yesterday in the latest Office for National Statistics data, which also showed Britain's industrial output fell in the second quarter of this year by more than feared.