Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Wednesday

30 Oct 2024

Steerpike

Watch: OBR denies review legitimises Labour’s £22bn claim

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 and outgoing Tory leader Rishi Sunak vehemently denying this is accurate, Reeves insisted to the House today that she will publish a ‘line by line’ analysis of her claim. On the topic of publications, the OBR has been no great ally to Starmer’s army. It released a review of its own today on the contents

Kate Andrews

Living standards take a hit in Labour’s Budget

‘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 future is being built, a better future,’ he said in his address. The message was clear: tough decisions now would lead to a brighter – and more prosperous – future in the UK. In simple terms, the tax hike is set to redirect cash from workers’ wages to the Treasury instead Has that promise been

John O’Neill and Michael Simmons

Eight graphs that expose the truth about Labour’s Budget

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 ago by George Osborne to judge fiscal events – doesn’t seem to agree. Its report, published immediately after the Chancellor delivered her Budget, makes for grim reading. The stand-out chart in the OBR’s report shows the effect the increase in employer National Insurance contributions will have on Britain’s labour force. Reeves gets much of her

Lloyd Evans

Rachel Reeves sounded bored by her own Budget

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 cunning Tories even duped the Office for Budget Responsibility by failing to provide ‘all the information’. But hang on. The OBR is staffed by the brainiest economists in the country, if not the world. Is possible that this synod of geniuses were duped by a few Tory wonks armed with dodgy spreadsheets? Reeves appears

Tom Clougherty

Labour has no idea how to break Britain’s spiral of decline

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 impression that this government is likely to fall into the same trap that ensnared its immediate predecessors: managing Britain’s relative economic decline, with no clear idea of how to break out of it. The biggest single item in the Budget is the £25 billion increase in employer National Insurance contributions. There are a few things

Steerpike

What’s the real reason behind the Tory leadership delay?

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 in the party asking: why the delay? As one MP put it to Mr S: It means we’re going to announce our new leader in an empty conference room on a weekend. No one’s going to be there! The official line is that a two day gap was required so votes can be counted on

Katy Balls

Labour’s low growth Budget

15 min listen

Rachel Reeves has announced that taxes will rise by £40 billion in Labour’s first Budget for 14 years. The headlines include: an increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions from April to 15 per cent, raising £25 billion; that the freeze on income tax and National Insurance thresholds will not be extended past 2028; that the lower rate of capital gains tax will be raised from 10 per cent to 18 per cent, and the higher rate from 20 per cent to 24 per cent; that fuel duty will remain frozen for the next two years; and the introduction of VAT on private school fees from January. The Chancellor didn’t want

Isabel Hardman

Rishi Sunak enjoyed his last Commons hurrah

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 bit with this, though, by announcing or hinting at a lot of what was to come over the past week or so. Sunak could also dodge the demands of Labour ministers to offer an alternative plan, as he’s off in just a few days and will be replaced by a new leader who will at

Kate Andrews

Labour’s Budget will crush growth

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 knowledge, with just the details to come. Still, that won’t make today’s fiscal event any less memorable – or painful. This Budget ushers in a new era: one where the tax burden sits at its highest level since the war, where tax hikes push more people out of the labour market, and where growth forecasts

Steerpike

Labour’s pint promise is small beer

There were few silver linings in today’s Budget announcement – but one measure the Labour lot are rather keen to harp on about is the cut to draught duty by 1.7 per cent. What exactly does this work out at? Er, a rather measly one penny off the cost of a pint. How very generous… While the announcement received one the most enthusiastic cheers in the chamber, it seems that industry experts are not quite as thrilled about the move. Rachel Reeves was rather fast to glaze over the fact that the Labour government will raise alcohol duty rates on products like spirits and wines in line with the retail

Isabel Hardman

Rachel Reeves’s ‘stability Budget’ contained few surprises

All the political framing of the past three months has been around Rachel Reeves’ first Budget. Black holes have been ‘discovered’, public services have been found to be in a worse state than expected, and Liz Truss has been exhumed at every opportunity (or at least, when she hasn’t been inserting herself into the political narrative). Today’s speech from Rachel Reeves contained quite a few attempts to deal with the failures of that framing, too. She repeatedly insisted that she was keeping the promises in Labour’s election manifesto, after weeks of confusion about what ‘working people’ are. She also repeated her party conference phrase that her optimism for Britain ‘burns

Isabel Hardman

Rishi Sunak says farewell to Keir Starmer

When Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister, he and Keir Starmer had some of the most repetitive and uninformative sessions at Prime Minister’s Questions. Today was his final stint as leader of the opposition in this forum, and the session was charming. It covered the coast-to-coast route, which travels through his Richmond constituency, the importance of cricket in schools, AI and tolerance. Even the question covering the thorniest topic, Northern Ireland, was polite: Sunak merely pointed out that it was a special part of the UK which required great care, and asked Starmer not to neglect it. The Prime Minister agreed. Starmer paid tribute to Sunak’s service, hard work and decency,

Duncan Gardham

Why has Southport not been declared a terror attack?

Axel Rudakubana, the alleged Southport killer, has been accused of possessing a terrorist document, yet the police still insist there is no evidence of a terrorist motive. How can both be the case? The document Rudakubana is accused of downloading is a version of the 180-page ‘al-Qaeda training manual’. It is also known as the ‘Manchester manual’ after it was found for the first time by police on a computer in a flat in Cheetham Hill, Manchester in May 2000, more than a year before 9/11. How can both be the case? Scotland Yard arrested a man called Abu Anas al-Libi, who rented the flat, as part of an investigation

Coffee House

As it happened: Rachel Reeves raises taxes by £40 billion in Labour’s first Budget

Taxes will rise by £40 billion following Labour’s first Budget for 14 years. The Chancellor announced: • An increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions from April to 15 per cent, raising £25 billion • That the freeze on income tax and National Insurance thresholds will not be extended past 2028 • That the lower rate of capital gains tax will be raisedfrom 10 per cent to 18 per cent, and the higher rate from 20 per cent to 24 per cent • That fuel duty will remain frozen for the next two years • The introduction of VAT on private school fees from January

Andrew Watts

Who do US psychics predict will win the election?

A week away from the American election, and the polls cannot tell us who will be president. But can they ever? A poll is, as the pundits always remind us, a snapshot of public opinion, not a prediction. Nate Silver himself said that anyone dissecting an individual poll is ‘just doing astrology’. So what predictions are actual astrologers making about the election? She looks relieved when she draws the High Priestess: a trump card, but possibly not a Trump card Under the electoral college system, nationwide data is not as important as predictions for the swing states, so I look for astrologers in the seven states which will decide the election.

Daniel McCarthy

Vibes don’t matter. Donald Trump is still the underdog

Hillary Clinton has a simple but bitter lesson to teach Donald Trump’s supporters in 2024: the best way to lose an election is to assume you’ve already won it a week before it happens. The MAGA movement – aiming to Make America Great Again, namely by Making Trump President Again – has never been more confident. Opinion polls have Trump faring much better against Kamala Harris than he ever did against Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020. Indeed, the polling averages actually place Trump ahead, which wasn’t the case at this point in either of his earlier elections. And since the polls underestimated his share of vote the

Euan McColm

The gross hypocrisy of the SNP

If there’s one thing the SNP truly excels at, it’s maintaining double standards. The extraordinary case of the Scottish government and the missing legal advice makes clear just how hypocritical the SNP is when it comes to conduct in public life. Scottish nationalists are swift to condemn opponents at the slightest whiff of impropriety but, as this matter demonstrates, when it comes to their own morality, they’re more easy-going. Back in 2021, then first minister Nicola Sturgeon was cleared of breaching the Scottish parliament’s ministerial code over her involvement in the case of complaints made by female civil servants against her predecessor, the late Alex Salmond. Inevitably, opposition parties demanded

Steerpike

Reeves snubs Thatcher Chancellor pic for ‘Red Ellen’

To the subject of office decor, with Rachel Reeves now in the spotlight for matters other than her Budget. It now transpires that the Chancellor has made some rather controversial alterations to her workspace’s wall art — in replacing a portrait of Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor with a founder of the, er, British Communist party. Good heavens. The swapping out of Nigel Lawson’s portrait for one of Ellen Wilkinson was revealed after the Treasury published a picture of Reeves in her No. 11 study ahead of Budget day. While it had been reported that the Chancellor had removed Lord Lawson’s portrait over the summer, there had been no confirmation over what

Ian Williams

Why billionaires are fleeing China

‘To get rich is glorious’ is perhaps the most over-used slogan attributed to Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader who reformed China and opened its economy up to the world. There is no evidence that he actually said it, but regardless it seemed to capture the mood of that era. In the China of Xi Jinping, to get rich is decidedly dangerous, which may account for why the number of super-rich (or at least those admitting to it) is in sharp decline, with many now clambering for the exit to protect their wealth and their liberty. According to a rich list compiled by Hurun, a research group, the number of dollar

Katy Balls

Three tests for Reeves’s first Budget

It’s Budget day in Westminster. The question being asked by Labour MPs: can Rachel Reeves pull it off? This lunchtime, the Chancellor will stand at the despatch box and pitch Labour’s first Budget for 14 years as necessary tough choices to ‘fix the foundations’ while also ensuring ‘working people don’t face higher taxes in their payslips’ (see Mr Steerpike for who Labour’s working people definition misses out). Reeves will use a report by the Office for Budget Responsibility to argue that the Tories left such a bad economic inheritance she had to take action. The Tories will try to argue in turn that Labour planned a tax raid (to the