In 2025 there were 197 restaurants with a Michelin Star; 55 of them consider their cuisine to be ‘Modern British’.508 Sweet foods are common within British cuisine, and there is a long list of British desserts. British cuisine has absorbed the cultural influence of those who have settled in Britain, producing hybrid dishes, such as chicken tikka masala.511 The British have embraced world cuisine and regularly eat recipes or fast food from other European countries, the Caribbean and Asia. Between 1961 and 1990, temperatures in England averaged nine degrees Celsius, and from 2013 to 2022, average temperatures in the country had increased to 10.3 degrees Celsius. Due to its relatively southern location, England continues to rank as the warmest country in the UK. A line running from the mouth of the River Exe, in the southwest, to that of the Tees, in the northeast, is a crude expression of this division. The course of the 700-foot (213-metre) contour, or of the boundary separating the older rocks of the north and west from the younger southeastern strata, provides a more accurate indication of the extent of the highlands.
The United Kingdom comprises four geographic and historical parts—England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom contains most of the area and population of the British Isles—the geographic term for the group of islands that includes Great Britain, Ireland, and many smaller islands. Together England, Wales, and Scotland constitute Great Britain, the larger of the two principal islands, while Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland constitute the second largest island, Ireland. England, occupying most of southern Great Britain, includes the Isles of Scilly off the southwest coast and the Isle of Wight off the southern coast.
This diversity stems largely from the nature and disposition of the underlying rocks, which are westward extensions of European structures, with the shallow waters of the Strait of Dover and the North Sea concealing former land links. Britain’s public finances, like those of other nations, have been squeezed in recent years by the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The United Kingdom bears the extra burden of Brexit, which has knocked billions off the economy since the country left the European Union in 2020. Unfortunately for Reeves, the UK economy, the world’s sixth-largest, isn’t doing as well as she hoped, with many critics blaming her decision last year to slap taxes on business. Though there were signs the economy was improving in the first half of the year, when it was the fastest-growing among the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, it has faltered again. The Met Office has issued a yellow “be aware” warning for western and northern Scotland.
No changes to Scottish income tax plan, Robison says
As of the most recent month, prices were rising fastest in the non gamstop casinos education sector, at 7.5percent, with prices increasing at the slowest rate in the clothing and footwear sector. Apart from the land border with the Irish republic, the United Kingdom is surrounded by sea. To the south of England and between the United Kingdom and France is the English Channel.
- England’s highest mountain is Scafell Pike, at 978 metres (3,209 ft) in the Lake District; its largest island is the Isle of Wight.
- England accounts for 53 per cent of the UK, covering 50,350 square miles (130,395 km2).153 Most of the country consists of lowland terrain,154 with upland and mountainous terrain northwest of the Tees–Exe line which roughly divides the UK into lowland and upland areas.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought an end to the era of cheap gas flowing to European markets from Russia.
- Legend says it was built by a giant who wanted a shortcut between Northern Ireland and Scotland, but really it was formed when the lava from a volcano cooled and formed these columns.
But speculation is swirling about a potential challenge to Starmer’s leadership from within his party, and analysts say a misfiring budget could add to the sense of crisis within the government. Then, the entire fiscal forecast from the independent watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), including details of the budget’s main measures, was published online half an hour before Reeves’ statement. Reeves also abolished a much-hated cap on benefits paid out to families with more than two children. She also announced measures to ease the financial pressure on households, by freezing rail fares and cutting levies on household energy bills. But the chaos that has engulfed the government during weeks of mixed messaging and political infighting continued up to the final moment.
Meanwhile, Reeves has a bunch of spending commitments aimed at easing the cost of living as inflation remains stubbornly high, including making up for a series of about-faces on planned welfare cuts. Overall, the budget was strikingly similar to Reeves’ first budget a little more than a year ago, even though she insisted at the time that it would be the one and only big tax-raising budget in this parliamentary term, due to run to 2029. UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) is responsible for making millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit or stay in the country, with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally. England, Wales and Scotland each have their own national symbols, including their national flags. Northern Ireland also has symbols, many of which are shared with the Republic of Ireland. Although the Retail Price Index is a commonly utilized inflation indicator, the UK also uses a newer method of calculating inflation, the Consumer Price Index.
The CPI, along with the CPIH (Consumer Price Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs) are usually preferred by the UK government, but the RPI is still used in certain instances. Increases in rail fares for example, are calculated using the RPI, while increases in pension payments are calculated using CPI, when this is used as the uprating factor. The use of one inflation measure over the other can therefore have a significant impact on people’s lives in the UK.
Land
The highest average temperature recorded in 2024 until November was in August, at 16.8 degrees Celsius. Since 2015, the highest average daily temperature in the UK was registered in July 2018, at 18.7 degrees Celsius. The summer of 2018 was the joint hottest since institutions began recording temperatures in 1910. One noticeable anomaly during this period was in December 2015, when the average daily temperature reached 9.5 degrees Celsius. This month also experienced the highest monthly rainfall in the UK since before 2014, with England, Wales, and Scotland suffering widespread flooding.
Between 2021 and 2023, inflation surged in the UK, reaching a 41-year-high of 11.1 percent in October 2022. Although inflation fell to more usual levels by 2024, prices in the UK had already increased by over 20 percent relative to the start of the crisis. The two main drivers of price increases during this time were food and energy inflation, two of the main spending areas of UK households. Although food and energy prices came down quite sharply in 2023, underlying core inflation, which measures prices rises without food and energy, remained slightly above the headline inflation rate throughout 2024, suggesting some aspects of inflation had become embedded in the UK economy. The UK’s high inflation, and cost of living crisis in 2022 had its origins in the COVID-19 pandemic.