There are basically no neutral papers in the UK. The Independent sort of tries, and the FT/Economist tend to be accurate with the facts but reflexively probusiness/neoliberal.
The Economist is increasingly pro-BIG-business, pro-establishment, rather than fair/free-market (as it used to be).
Good to know that I'm not the only one who's noticed this. It used to be my favorite paper, but I'm disappointed with the direction it's taken lately.
There's no requirement to or expectation that they will be. Papers are not required to present any kind of balance, as long as what they say is broadly true (external pluralism), for a given value of true. The broadcast media (the free-to-air ones) are required to be demonstrably internally pluralistic, to show a variety of sources and viewpoints within their output - and that applies across BBC, ITV, Ch4 and Channel 5, but not Sky News; goes back to when Radio came on stream in the 1930s.
Yes. Americans keep expecting "neutrality", which is hard to define and impossible to achieve.
The FT is not that neoliberal, it is fairly generally liberal, and generally more left wing than most of its readership by quite a margin, although it is quite varied.