More than 30 of the coalition's flagship schemes, including Universal Credit and the West Coast Main Line scheme, are at serious risk of failure, a government annual report has warned.

Britain's largest bank HSBC suffered an embarrassing shareholder revolt as more than 14pc of investors failed to back its directors' pay packages.

Households paid off �241m more mortgage debt than they borrowed in an effort to get on top of their debts. Before May last year, net lending had never been negative since the BBA started collecting the data in 1997.

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, tackled the political debate surrounding Britain's EU membership on Thursday night, telling a City of London audience that Europe needed �a more European UK�.

Ms Lagarde, French finance minister at that time, now appears unlikely to be brought to trial in the case, lifting a cloud that had gathered over her position as leader of one of the world's top international institutions.