One economist said there was ‘a total disconnect between macroeconomic indicators and the reality of income gains for most people’. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
This ‘ghost GDP’ shows how headline economic growth is increasingly disconnected from reality for most, says report
The wealth of Britain’s 157 billionaires is now equivalent to more than a fifth of the country’s entire GDP, according to analysis by the Equality Trust – a fivefold increase since 1990.
The charity describes the trend, based on data in this year’s Sunday Times rich list, as Britain’s “ghost GDP”: headline economic growth increasingly disconnected from everyday life.
“Every year politicians point to GDP growth as proof the economy is working. Ghost GDP shows us what that ambition has done to the rest of us because for most of us, it doesn’t feel like the economy is working at all,” said Priya Sahni-Nicholas, the co-executive director of the Equality Trust.
“Ghost GDP and the hollowed out economy it creates, tells you what the rest of us have lost as a direct result.”
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When the Sunday Times first published its rich list in 1989, 15 billionaires held a total of £27bn – about 4p in every pound of GDP at the time. Today, the Equality Trust calculates that 157 billionaires hold just under £670bn – more than 22p in every pound.
“Workers have endured the longest pay squeeze in living memory,” said Sahni-Nicholas. “But the richest 50 families now hold more wealth than the poorest 34 million of us combined.”
An Amazon Web Services datacentre in Oxfordshire. In early 2025, the UK government estimated UK datacentres used 2.5% of electricity. Photograph: Horst Friedrichs/Alamy
Industry body says energy consumption driven by AI up 15% globally in two years as it warns of societal backlash
Datacentres are consuming 6% of electricity in the UK and US, with the growing strain of AI on energy supplies prompting community resistance, according to research.
The proportion of electricity used by vast warehouses stacked with microchips to power AI and the internet has risen 15% worldwide in the past two years as annual global investment in datacentres approaches $1tn (£740bn) – nearly 1% of the global economy, according to the International Data Center Authority (IDCA).
The figures come amid energy shortages in the UK and datacentre developers reporting waits of several years for national grid connections. The IDCA said rising power usage globally was “sparking societal and political concerns” and called on tech companies to become more transparent about their plans for new datacentres to tackle “community frustration”.
The Guardian this week reported that developers working for Google significantly misstated how much carbon two proposed AI datacentres would contribute to the UK’s total emissions.
“Significant community and political pushback starts to occur in nations once their datacentre footprints have reached the 5% consumption level of national grids,” the IDCA research concludes.
Coffee prices are displayed at a supermarket in Alhambra, California on May 12, 2026. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
“The only thing Trump has made great again is inflation,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle.
Data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday showed continued upward pressure on prices, caused in large part by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures wholesale prices paid by businesses, posted a year-over-year gain of 6% in April, the largest yearly increase since December 2022.
Energy prices, which have surged since Trump launched an unprovoked war with Iran in late February, played a large role in raising wholesale costs, as the report finds “more than three-quarters of the broad-based increase in April can be traced to a 7.8% jump in prices for final demand energy.”
However, energy prices aren’t solely responsible for rising wholesale prices, as the so-called “core” PPI, which excludes the costs of food and energy, posted a yearly increase of 4.4% in April, the largest since February 2023.
PPI is seen as an important gauge of future inflation for consumers, as companies typically pass the costs they pay for inputs onto consumers in the form of price increases.
“What’s in the pipeline now is headed straight for your grocery bill and gas tank,” Groundwork Collaborative added. “The pain isn’t over. It’s just beginning.”
CNN economics reporter Elisabeth Buchwald similarly predicted more hurt for US consumers in the coming months, arguing in a Wednesday article that a 6% increase in PPI shows “the pain will not be short-lived.”
“Even if the United States were to reach a deal with Iran today, it would still take months for shipments of oil held up by the blockade of the crucial Strait of Hormuz to reach American soil,” Buchwald explained. “And even then, it would likely be months—or potentially years—before Americans see gas prices return to levels before the war.”
Wednesday’s PPI report came one day after the Consumer Price Index showed that consumer prices in April rose by 3.8%, the largest yearly increase since May 2023.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) reacted to the latest inflation data by ripping into the president’s policy decisions, including the Iran war and the global trade war he started shortly after returning to office last year.
“The only thing Trump has made great again is inflation,” Boyle, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, wrote in a social media post. “His disastrous policies—from his tariff taxes to his war in Iran—are making life even more expensive. We shouldn’t be surprised the guy who managed to bankrupt a casino isn’t an economic mastermind.”
Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) linked the increased prices to Trump’s desire to have Congress spend $1 billion of taxpayer money on his proposed White House ballroom.
“Oregonians need real relief from these high costs at the store and the pump,” wrote Dexter. “We must stop the war in Iran and refuse to pay for presidential vanity projects. Oregon families want peace. They need a break, not a ballroom.”
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View image in fullscreen Farage with his partner, Laure Ferrari, in Westminster on Wednesday. He received the £5m gift shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 election. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images
Watchdog to examine whether Reform UK leader should have declared sum he received before entering parliament
Nigel Farage is facing a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog over a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
The Reform UK leader received the money weeks before announcing he would stand as a candidate in the 2024 general election.
Farage has said the gift, first revealed by the Guardian, was intended to cover his personal security costs and therefore did not need to be declared. However, other parties argue that the money from the Thailand-based businessman falls within rules requiring MPs to declare any potentially relevant gifts or donations received in the 12 months before entering parliament.
Daniel Greenbergh, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, is understood to have begun an investigation under rule 5 of the code of conduct obliging MPs to “fulfil conscientiously” requirements relating to their registration of interests.
It states that new MPs must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election. This must be done within one month of their election, and they must register any change in those registrable interests within 28 days.
If the investigation finds Farage committed a particularly serious breach of parliamentary declaration rules, he could be suspended from the Commons. A suspension of 10 days or more could trigger a recall petition, potentially forcing him to fight again for his Clacton seat.
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Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio speak in Washington, DC on January 7, 2026. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
The Trump administration has conducted more than two dozen surveillance and reconnaissance flights off Cuba’s coast since early February, according to CNN.
US surveillance and reconnaissance flights off the coast of Cuba have surged in recent months as President Donald Trump has issued increasingly belligerent threats to seize the island nation by force.
CNN reported Sunday that the US Navy and Air Force have conducted more than two dozen surveillance flights—mostly of them near Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the country’s largest cities—since early February, after the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president. The outlet noted that “similar patterns, in which ramped-up rhetoric by the Trump administration coincided with an uptick in publicly visible surveillance flights, occurred in the lead-up to US military operations in both Venezuela and Iran.”
“The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance—prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area—and for their timing,” CNN reported.
CNN published its story days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubioannounced new sanctions targeting a conglomerate operated by Cuba’s military and a natural resources firm, intensifying the United States’ decades-long economic war against the island nation.
“Our people already know the cruelty behind the actions of the US government and the viciousness with which it is capable of attacking us,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in response to the sanctions. “They understand, just as the rest of the world does, that this is a unilateral aggression against a nation and a population whose sole ambition is to live in peace, masters of their own destiny and free from the pernicious interference of US imperialism.”
In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, US Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) wrote that the Trump administration’s “blockade of fuel to Cuba, on top of the longest embargo in modern US history, defies the norms of international law that provide for state sovereignty, nonintervention in domestic affairs and the right of nations to trade freely.”
“It amounts to an economic assault on the basic infrastructure of Cuba, designed to inflict collective punishment on the civilian population by manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in which healthcare, running water, agriculture and transportation are no longer available,” wrote Jayapal and Jackson, who visited Cuba in April and witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of US economic warfare.
“During our visit, we spoke with a wide range of Cuban citizens—political dissidents, religious leaders, entrepreneurs, and members of civil society organizations and humanitarian aid groups,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote. “We also met with the families of Cuba’s political prisoners. Everywhere, there was agreement: America’s blockade must end, and a US invasion must not take place.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened a military assault on Cuba in the months since his administration illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president.
“Cuba is next, by the way,” Trump declared at a Saudi-backed investment summit in Miami in late March. “Pretend I didn’t say that, please.”
Citing unnamed US officials, The Associated Press reported last week that the Trump administration “is not looking at imminent military action against Havana” as the two sides continued to negotiate a diplomatic agreement.
AP added that the administration officials cautioned “that Trump could change his mind at any time and that military options are still on the table.”
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