All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
First, it was the Chagos Islands. Then it was David Lammy’s visit. Now many in Westminster are asking: when it comes to China, where does this government draw the line? In recent weeks it has been reported that Labour is both dropping plans to classify Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims as a ‘genocide’ and is
When Kim Jong-un does not get what he wants, he makes his displeasure known far and wide. Over the past few weeks, one would have thought that Kim would be reasonably content. In return for sending artillery shells, ballistic missiles, and most recently, troops to Russia, North Korea has been receiving food, cash, and most
For most Brits, there was little to celebrate in Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement – but that didn’t stop Treasury staff from toasting the Budget. Just hours after the Chancellor delivered her 80-minute speech to MPs on Wednesday, Treasury aides made the short hop across St James’s Park to Westminster’s Two Chairmen pub. From 4 p.m.
The first full day post-Budget has not been a happy one. While Labour’s spinners are hard at work trying to convince the nation – and themselves – that Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement was a success, real people across the country are reeling from Wednesday’s announcement. Mr S wrote yesterday about how leading figures in the
It wasn’t an aggrieved business leader, facing a sharply increased wage bill thanks to the Budget, that led the 8 a.m. news bulletin on Radio 4 this morning, but the reassuring verdict of the IMF. ‘We support the envisaged reduction in the deficit over the medium term, including by sustainably raising revenue,’ the body declared.
Rachel Reeves has spent the morning out on the media round trying to sell her first Budget to the public. The Chancellor woke to a critical reception from the media – with headlines including ‘Halloween Horror Show’, ‘Nightmare on Downing Street’ and ‘Return of tax and spend’. Meanwhile, she is facing a backlash from the
Casting his mind back to the election, Mr S recalls a heated debate about which party would raise taxes most. In the final televised debate before the national poll, Sir Keir Starmer was quick to accuse then-PM Rishi Sunak of ‘repeating a lie’ – that Labour were going to raise taxes by £2,000 per person.
The SNP’s Dear Leader has not had the smoothest 18 months since her resignation last year – what with the police probe into SNP finances, the exodus of members from her party and the nationalists’ staggering loss of support in the general election. But it’s not all bad news for Nicola Sturgeon. It has now
GB News has dealt with a number of Ofcom complaints in its time, but now things have become a little more serious. The media regulator has today announced that it plans to impose a whopping £100,000 fine on Gbeebies for ‘breaking due impartiality rules’ after it aired a pre-election interview with outgoing Tory leader and
Anyone who is serious about the condition of the armed forces and Britain’s defence policy will not look a gift horse in the mouth. Rachel Reeves’s announcement in yesterday’s Budget that the government will spend an additional £2.9 billion on defence next year is welcome and desperately needed. But while it’s headline-grabbing, in reality it
‘No plan for the economy’ is the charge being made against the government, as Conservatives take to the airwaves following the Budget. The problem is that, in this case, the charge is simply untrue. Labour do have a plan for the economy. It is called securonomics: a worldview set out in some detail by the
The United Nations this week criticised France for refusing to allow women and girls to wear a Muslim headscarf on the sports field. In a report published on Monday, a panel comprised of what the UN called ‘independent experts’ concluded that France’s measures banning women from wearing hijabs in sports were ‘discriminatory’. The experts said that
Budget day has been and gone and this morning Rachel Reeves was expected on the media morning round to discuss the fallout from her fiscal statement. Only it appears that the Chancellor seems to think she has better things to do than speak to the usual selection of broadcasters about her tax-raising Budget the morning
In the history of devolution, no Westminster government has ever given Scotland as large a block grant settlement as the one announced by Labour on Wednesday. In her fiscal statement, the chancellor declared that politicians north of the border will receive £1.5 billion this year and a record £3.4 billion next year via the Barnett
‘Fixing the Foundations’ is the phrase the Labour government wants in your head after the Budget. But the thin gruel for dealing with the challenge presented by our ill-health and disability benefits system suggests those words don’t count for much. Apart from the defence of the realm, there is nothing more foundational to society than
The Chinese Communist party (CCP) is spooked by Halloween. In Shanghai, police have rounded up people gathering in costumes that included a Donald Trump with bandaged right ear, Spiderman, Deadpool and Batman. A man dressed as Buddha was also shown being escorted away in videos posted on Chinese social media, but quickly deleted by online
Sabotage seems to be back with a bang – and if not with a bang, certainly with a lot of smoke. Incidents have come thick and fast since 2022 when someone – and it still is not clear who – sabotaged pipelines in the Baltic Sea to disable the flow of natural gas from Germany
Warring parties often strike deals. Exchanges of prisoners, ceasefires to deliver aid, covert talks between intelligence services – and eventually, hopefully, peace. But since Vladimir Putin ordered thousands of troops across the Russian border into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there have been no peace negotiations and no sign of meaningful compromise from either Moscow
No sombre music accompanied Rachel Reeves’s Budget, nor was there a reading from Corinthians. Yet, those details aside, one point is surely clear: Labour’s first Budget in 14 years was a requiem for entrepreneurial Britain. The four decades from the Thatcher reforms of the early 1980s, that turned the UK into one of the best
As the post-Budget scrutiny gets underway, there is one group of obvious losers from today’s statement: farmers. The rural community is up in arms about Rachel Reeves’ changes to tax relief on farmland. From April 2026 this will be capped at 50 per cent for assets over £1 million – which works out at around
It has been a good day for investors in the Alternative Investment Market (Aim), with the index of the top 100 Aim shares up 4.3 per cent. But that merely serves to undermine the damage that Rachel Reeves had done to the market by previously suggesting that she might remove the exemption whereby Aim shares
Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement has been and gone but the fallout from today’s Budget is still being assessed. One rather interesting element of the Chancellors’ speech this afternoon concerns the Labour government’s claim that the Conservatives left a £22bn blackhole in the economy after the party’s 14 years in government. Despite shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt
‘Judge us by whether, in five years’ time, you have more money in your pocket,’ Keir Starmer told the Mirror earlier this week. This comment came ahead of his speech in the West Midlands, which was designed to prepare the country (and markets) for the Budget. ‘Everyone can wake up on Thursday and understand that a new
Rachel Reeves sounded triumphant as she delivered Labour’s first Budget in 14 years. ‘Invest, invest, invest,’ the Chancellor said. She claimed hers was a Budget for growth and prosperity and, that most of all, it was a Budget to help working people. But the Office for Budget Responsibility – the body set up 14 years
The Tories lied! That was the thrust of Rachel Reeves’s first Budget today. She was very specific about the falsehoods. At the time of the spring financial forecast, she said, ‘they hid the reality of their public spending plans.’ Parliament and the public were the victims of ‘a cover up’ about pressures on our economy.
The government came into office promising to prioritise economic growth. Now, after their first Budget, I suppose we have some idea of what that means: more borrowing to fund public sector capital projects, and higher tax and regulatory burdens on business. This does not seem very likely to prove a successful recipe, and furthers the
At long last, the Conservative leadership race is about to come to an end. After four months of hustings, debates and backroom deals, voting ends tomorrow in the Tory membership round. Yet despite the ballot closing at 5 p.m. Thursday, the result will then not be announced until late Saturday morning. It has got some
Rishi Sunak’s final act in the Commons as leader of the opposition was one he clearly enjoyed. The outgoing Conservative leader had what is normally the unenviable task of responding to the Budget just minutes after it had been delivered, before the small print reveals the real story. Rachel Reeves had helped him quite a
Rachel Reeves didn’t want to surprise anyone with this Budget. She didn’t want to shock the markets, nor did she want any accusation that she had played fast and loose with the public finances. So by the time the Chancellor stood up in the Commons today, the bulk of her big decisions were already public