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In the Spring Statement, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made further cuts to benefits (such as freezing the Universal Credit health element for new claimants). The Office for Budget Responsibility had said that the cuts announced before would not let her meet her budget rules. She now planned a £9.9 billion surplus by 2030, but would borrow more in the coming financial year. Civil service running costs would be cut by 15 per cent, with about 10,000 of its 547,735 staff to go. She concentrated on a £2.2 billion increase in defence spending and proposed that Britain should become a ‘defence industrial superpower’. The OBR reduced its forecast of growth this year from 2 to 1 per cent, increasing to 1.8 by 2029. The Chancellor told the House that the OBR had said households will be ‘on average’ £500 better off ‘under this government’. Annual inflation fell to 2.8 per cent from 3 per cent; the Chancellor said it would fall to 2 per cent by 2027. The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5 per cent. Its governor, Andrew Bailey, said: ‘There are strong headwinds.’
Heathrow Airport closed for a day because of a fire at an electricity substation in Hayes that supplies it, which also cut off 16,300 houses; 1,351 flights were directly affected. National Grid said that another substation had been available. The government approved the £9 billion 14-mile Lower Thames Crossing road tunnel between Tilbury and Gravesend. It was revealed that Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB double agent who defected to Britain in 1985, had died, aged 86. Morrisons said it was to shut 52 cafés and 17 small stores.
On the day that her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party, appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court charged with embezzlement, Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, said: ‘I don’t think there was ever a scrap of evidence that I had done anything wrong,’ in response to an announcement that she will face no action in the Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances. The Duke of Sussex resigned from the charity he founded, Sentebale, where the chairwoman, Dr Sophie Chandauka, accused the board of ‘misogynoir’.
Abroad
Secret plans for air strikes on the Houthis were disclosed to a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, when he was added to a group chat on the Signal app in which the Defence Secretary said to the Vice-President: ‘I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC’. Israel continued its air offensive against Hamas in Gaza and resumed its ground operations. Israeli air strikes on Khan Younis in Gaza killed Ismail Barhoum, the finance chief of Hamas, and Salah al-Bardawil, another high-ranking Hamas official. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, sacked Ronen Bar as head of Shin Bet, the country’s security service, over its failure to foresee the 7 October attack by Hamas. Russia and Ukraine separately agreed with the United States a naval ceasefire in the Black Sea after two days of peace talks in Saudi Arabia. Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, said of Sir Keir Starmer’s coalition of the willing: ‘I think it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic.’ In response to an offer by Mr Trump of asylum to Afrikaner refugees, 67,042 people expressed interest. China welcomed Mr Trump’s decision to cut public funding for Voice of America, saying it had ‘been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag’. Avian flu put up the price of eggs in America, prompting the government to plan imports from Turkey.
Despite a ban on gatherings, thousands protested in Turkey for seven nights against the jailing of the Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, the main political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; at least 1,400 were arrested. Mark Carney, the new Prime Minister of Canada, called a snap election for 28 April. Four dual-citizen Chinese-Canadians had been executed in China on drug-related charges earlier this year, Canada said. The Sudanese army said it had recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces after almost two years of fighting. Eddie Jordan, the Dublin-born founder of the Jordan Grand Prix team, died aged 76. George Foreman, the heavyweight boxer, died aged 76. In India, Hindu groups rioted, demanding removal of the tomb of the 17th-century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. CSH
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