Good morning,
The extraordinary life of Tony Pidgley was celebrated at a memorial service attended by the prime minister at St Paul’s Cathedral yesterday. Hundreds of the Berkeley founder’s friends, family, colleagues and peers gathered to remember a man who left an indelible mark on the built environment, rising from a childhood spent in care to founding and leading a £4bn company.
Meanwhile, temperatures soared to over 40°C, causing wildfires and transport chaos. Scientists have called the extreme heat a “wake up call” for the climate emergency.
And shares in Palace Capital rose by almost 5% yesterday after the company backtracked on a recent strategy overhaul and said it would focus on returning money to shareholders.
Kemi Badenoch has been eliminated from the race to become the next prime minister. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak, foreign secretary Liz Truss and trade minister Penny Mordaunt will face a final vote among MPs today, to see which two will face party members.
The Bank of England will consider a 0.5 percentage point rise in interest rates when it meets in August. Governor Andrew Bailey told the Mansion House dinner that it was “among the choices on the table”.
And the Vatican has made sweeping changes to the way it manages its vast wealth, after a mishandled investment in a Chelsea property lost millions and led to the prosecution of a cardinal. Investments run secretly by Vatican departments will be managed by a central authority and must be “of a productive nature, ruling out any designed to be speculative in nature”.
And finally, it seems pop star Robbie Williams is finally starting work on a “super basement”(£) that his neighbour, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, has spent the best part of a decade trying to block. But the 3,600 sq ft basement will be entirely dug by hand, after a judge agreed with Page that the vibrations created by mechanical diggers could damage his 1875 Grade I listed home. Not exactly rock and roll, is it?
