Portrait of the week: Tulip Siddiq quits, Sturgeon splits from husband and Trump spared jail

Home

Tulip Siddiq resigned as economic secretary to the Treasury, although she was found not to have broken the ministerial code; she had, however, lived in a flat provided by allies of her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, the deposed prime minister of Bangladesh, apparently under the impression that the flat was a gift from her parents, despite having signed a Land Registry transfer form for it. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, flew to China and met He Lifeng, one of the four vice-premiers. In her absence the cost of government borrowing rose again, with the yield on 30-year gilts rising to 5.42 per cent, the highest for 27 years. Downing Street said she would remain in her role ‘for the whole of this parliament’. But people wondered. She told the Commons on her return that she would go ‘further and faster’ to improve economic growth. The annual rate of inflation fell from 2.6 to 2.5 per cent.  Labour attracted the support of 26 per cent, Reform 25 per cent and the Conservatives 22 per cent in a YouGov voting-intention poll. About 450,000 more young adults are still living in the family home than in 2006, when 13 per cent of people aged between 25 and 34 were living with their parents, compared with 18 per cent by 2024, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, joined calls for a ‘limited’ national inquiry into grooming gangs, saying that the local inquiry he had commissioned in Oldham did not have the same legal powers. Sir Keir Starmer announced an AI Opportunities Action Plan, which he said could boost growth and deliver services more efficiently. The government said it would implement 50 recommendations by its AI adviser Matt Clifford, including the building of a new supercomputer; one developed by Edinburgh University was cancelled by the government only in October.