Shares in Fresnillo fell as much as 10 percent after the world's biggest silver producer raised 905 million pounds ($1.77 billion) in a London flotation that was priced at the bottom of the expected range.

Carphone Warehouse is to sell a 50 percent stake in its retail unit for 1.1 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) to consumer electronics retailer Best Buy and the two groups will launch a new company.

UK interest rates are expected to remain on hold at 5 percent when the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee announces its decision Thursday, as fear of inflation prevents aggressive cuts that could boost Britain’s weakening economy, analysts told CNBC.com.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was heading for a "mauling" in his first electoral test with his ruling Labour Party recording its worst performance in local polls in three decades, early results showed on Friday.

The scale of losses and the economic fallout from the credit crunch may not be as bad as feared and sub-prime write-offs could end up costing less than half market forecasts, the Bank of England said on Thursday.

The board of Britain's HBOS meets on Monday amid growing speculation the mortgage bank is set to announce plans for a rights issue of shares of up to 4 billion pounds ($7.9 billion) to shore up its capital base.

The collective wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people went up by nearly 15 percent last year, and more than half the country's 75 billionaires are foreign-born, according to a list published by the Sunday Times newspaper.

Britain's economy grew at its weakest rate in three years in the first quarter as the credit squeeze took its toll and energy output contracted, official figures showed on Friday.

The Bank of England's mortgage rescue plan has no upper limit on the amount banks can swap for government debt and it would depend on what they needed to meet their operational needs, BoE Governor King said on Monday.

The Bank of England moved to ease the effects of a credit crunch on the UK's banking system on Monday by offering to swap secure government bonds for riskier mortgage debt.

The Bank of England will unveil on Monday a plan to swap government bonds for commercial banks' mortgage debt in an effort to unblock the home loan market and ease the effects of the credit crunch on consumers.

Royal Bank of Scotland is set to announce a rights issue next week, an industry source said on Friday, in a move which analysts believe could raise over $20 billion and lead to similar action by other UK banks.

British surveyors reported the most widespread fall in house prices last month in the 30-year history of their RICS market survey, suggesting the property downturn is gathering pace.

AstraZeneca has settled U.S. patent litigation against India's Ranbaxy Laboratories over its top-selling drug, ulcer pill Nexium, securing future sales and sending its shares soaring.

Question: what is harder? Training for four months in the coldest, wettest and most downright most miserable part of the British winter and then turning up in mid-April to run over 26 miles OR raising money for your chosen charity and actually collecting the booty at the end of it all?