Rachel Reeves heavily hints at third Heathrow runway
As part of her upcoming speech on economic growth, Rachel Reeves is expected to announce approval for a third runway at Heathrow. Reeves refused to confirm this in her interviews this morning, telling Laura Kuenssberg, ‘You will see the plans [for Heathrow] when we set them out’. However, Reeves emphasised that the government had already ‘signed off expansion at London City airport and Stansted’, and claimed Labour were ‘getting on and delivering’. When asked by Kuenssberg whether she disagreed with Sadiq Khan’s comments on the negative impacts a third runway would have on the climate, Reeves more or less confirmed the imminent announcement, saying, ‘a third runway will mean that instead of circling London, flights can land’.
Reeves: ‘If you make Britain your home you should pay your taxes here’
Scrapping the non-domicile tax status was part of Labour’s manifesto, but at Davos this week, Rachel Reeves announced an amendment to their policy, increasing the generosity of the Temporary Repatriation Facility, which allows ‘non-doms’ to bring assets to the UK at a discounted tax rate. A report this week found that in 2024, millionaires left the UK at a rate 157 per cent higher than the previous year. Kuenssberg asked Reeves whether she had made a mistake with her non-domicile rules. Reeves said that the new softening of the rules did not change the government’s plans to abolish the non-dom tax status, and claimed that Labour were ‘tackling those things that are stopping investment coming’ to the country, like ‘ripping up the planning system’.
Kemi Badenoch blames a lack of ‘integration’ after British Southport killer is convicted
The Conservative leader spoke again this morning about a lack of ‘integration’ among some immigrant groups. On Sky News she told Trevor Phillips, ‘we have to make sure we have a dominant culture in the UK, our country is not a hotel’. When pressed to expand, Badenoch referenced ‘peasant farmers’ from Pakistan who were ‘predominant in the rape gangs’, and said they were ‘not like the people in Lahore’, or ‘a wealthy doctor who has come from a country… like France’. Over on the BBC, Badenoch claimed that were ‘a lot of people’ like Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana, who ‘despite being… born here, are not integrating into the rest of society. They hate their country.’ Laura Kuenssberg pointed out Rudakubana’s parents were part of their local church, and he himself had been part of a community drama club. She asked Badenoch what evidence she had to suggest the Southport murders had anything to do with integration. Badenoch said, ‘my evidence is my personal experience… we allow many groups to develop their own insular segregated isolationist ways’, and suggested that the government and local communities had to make more effort to ‘make people feel a part of the whole’.
Baroness Beeban Kidron: Victims don’t want ‘trolling’ of the government over child protection
On Kuenssberg’s panel, Baroness Beeban Kidron criticised Kemi Badenoch and Elon Musk, saying, ‘I’ve been in child protection for over a decade, and there’s two people who never showed up to help, one of them’s Kemi Badenoch, the other one’s Elon Musk’. Kidron claimed that Musk’s attack on the UK government over the grooming gangs scandal was not ‘victim-led’, and suggested that when talking about integration, there should be a focus on the dangers of social media. Axel Rudakubana had reportedly viewed content involving an al-Qaeda training manual before committing his murders. Kidron pointed out that the previous government had blocked a duty of care part of the Online Safety Act that would have held tech firms responsible for the content they host.
Sir Paul McCartney: ‘Protect the creative thinkers… or you’re not going to have them’
Lastly, Kuenssberg interviewed Paul McCartney, who has been speaking out against potential government plans to allow AI tech firms to scrape data from the works of artists and any content creators unless they specifically ‘opt out’. McCartney it was the government’s job to protect people, and that artists’ jobs were under threat if copyright was given away for free. On Kuenssberg’s panel, Baroness Kidron said that the creative industries provide £126 billion for the UK economy, and claimed that the £400 billion figure that the government has suggested could be added to the economy from AI was ‘incredibly made up’. Kidron said that if you look into the figures properly, that number is actually an estimate for the ‘global uplift’ from AI, not just the UK.
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