All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Britain is running out of workers. The UK population may be growing, but the share of that population that is economically active is falling. More than 9.2 million working-age adults are out of the labour market today, and the number is growing. This might be the biggest story in today’s Budget, and certainly one that
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the super-progressive congresswoman, was leaving the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn with her fiancé when she was confronted by pro-Palestinian activists. Their charge, essentially, was that the vociferously anti-Israel congresswoman wasn’t quite anti-Israel enough. In a video apparently posted by the activists, AOC can be seen telling them: ‘I need you to understand that
For this Super Tuesday discussion, Sarah Elliot – head of the Special Relationship Unit at the Legatum Institute joins Freddy Gray to chat about the predicted Trump-Biden victory; what Nikki Haley will do next and who could be Donald Trump’s vice president.
22 min listen
Jeremy Hunt said the government would cut National Insurance by 2 per cent, would abolish the non-dom tax status and would raise the threshold for child benefits in his Budget today. To discuss the new measures, Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and David Miles, from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The Chancellor will be anxiously preparing himself this evening for tomorrow’s papers, waiting to see how his Budget lands. He won’t need to wait quite as long to hear how his own party members have received it, however. And the verdict is already in from the Scottish Tories. It isn’t good. Jeremy Hunt’s decision to
Jeremy Hunt is the spotty, speccy geek who doesn’t wear specs and doesn’t have spots. But ‘geek’ is very much Hunt’s brand. He’s a gangly, uncool type who, for no reason whatever, is as tall as a basketball player. In his Budget he set out to promote Continuity Conservatism, and spoke as if this were
Whilst Jeremy Hunt’s cut to National Insurance may grab the headlines, the real story of today’s Budget was hidden in the official forecasts accompanying it. These forecasts point to a disaster for Britain’s labour force. The UK already had one of the worst post-lockdown workforce recoveries in the world, with a record 2.8 million people
Can the Tory party now credibly claim it is cutting taxes? That was the big mystery going into Jeremy Hunt’s pre-election Budget this afternoon, as so many of the policy measures had already been trailed. As expected, the Chancellor announced another 2p off employee National Insurance, following on from the 2p cut he announced in
Keir Starmer’s response to the Budget was delayed a little because the SNP forced a division on the immediate measures announced by the Chancellor. This was unusual, but if it gave the Labour leader a little more time to work out what he was going to say, it wasn’t clear he’d used it. He offered
This afternoon Jeremy Hunt delivered his second Budget as Chancellor. Much of his speech had been trailed over the previous days. The headline measure is a 2p cut in National Insurance, rather than the more expensive mooted cut to income tax. This will benefit 27 million workers from April: when combined with the previous cut
If Jeremy Hunt’s Budget was the final flourish before a May election, it’s going to be a very low-key campaign indeed. The Chancellor did announce his National Insurance cut as trailed overnight, and abolished the non-dom status – also trailed – which will raise £2.7 billion for tax cuts for working people. He increased the
Jeremy Hunt failed to raise many laughs with his Budget gags – but his quips went down particularly badly with Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner. After picking on Keir Starmer with a rather crude jibe at his weight, Hunt then turned the guns on Rayner, who has recently been reported to the taxman over allegations
Prime Minister’s Questions today was a weighty affair, with Keir Starmer focusing on the murder of Sarah Everard following the Angiolini Report into the failings of the police that allowed Wayne Couzens to continue in his role and to abduct his victim. The Labour leader asked how it could be the case that there was
Jeremy Hunt’s Budget was short on surprises. The Chancellor cut National Insurance for workers by another 2p in a bid to address the Tories’ poll slide ahead of the upcoming general election. Hunt also announced a shake-up to child benefit charges, said that ‘non-dom’ tax status would be scrapped and said that alcohol and fuel
The News Agents podcast has had a mixed reception in the UK but its presenters are having an even rougher ride in the US. Host Emily Maitlis ambushed Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on ‘Super Tuesday’ to get her reaction to Trump’s victory. Asking first about the Republican party’s message
The Princess of Wales has been photographed for the first time since she was hospitalised earlier this year. But while the picture, which shows Catherine in a car driven by her mother Carole Middleton, is splashed across the American celebrity website TMZ, it won’t be appearing in British newspapers. So why is the British press
Will a UAE-backed entity buy the Telegraph and The Spectator? Not if parliament gets its way. More than 100 MPs have signed a letter saying that this should not happen, demanding a veto on foreign states taking over British titles. Former Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, who organised the letter, told this morning’s Today programme: We believe that freedom of the press is
This week, a Syrian man named Omar Badreddin was sentenced to 18 years in prison, after being found guilty of five counts of rape and violent disorder. Badreddin, along with his brother and two other men, were part of a grooming gang that abused girls between the ages of 12 and 14. Newcastle Crown Court
It will put more money in people’s pockets. It will improve the incentives to work. And it will put down a marker that the party does still believe taxes can occasionally be cut. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is not the world’s finest speech-maker, but he will probably attempt a few rhetorical flourishes when he cuts
Long gone are the days when you had a job for life. But, for young folks especially, it seems we don’t just do one job in a week. The strivers are scrambling for second jobs. Though it is hard to ascertain exact numbers through official statistics, some surveys suggest more than two-thirds of British Gen Zs are
Anyone expecting Jeremy Hunt to unleash the animal spirits of wealth creators in his Budget today cannot have been paying much attention to the Treasury’s pre-briefing. Two per cent off National Insurance is likely to be as good as it gets, we are told. Perhaps a white rabbit will be pulled from a hat during
It’s Budget day today. With the tax burden predicted to amount to 37 per cent of national income by the next election, the 2019 to 2024 parliament is set to go down as the biggest tax-raising parliament in modern times. A rather impressive feat for a Tory party that likes to paint itself as one
This Budget is probably Jeremy Hunt’s last fiscal event before the election, and the Chancellor will want to at least set a fair wind for the Conservatives to head into polling day. That means giving voters a sense that sticking with the Tories is the safer option, offering them giveaways on tax and the sense
Super Tuesday is over and so is the primary season. Although some states have not voted yet and a few others have not finished counting, the parties’ nominees are now locked in. They were really locked in several weeks ago. Biden had no serious competition and Trump vanquished his two main rivals in the early
Britain and its government has a well deserved reputation for kow-towing to foreign investors. But even they (one hopes) would draw a line at allowing a Middle East state to set up shop in the Royal Hospital Chelsea. In France, however, Emmanuel Macron’s government is studying a request from Saudi Arabia to erect its Olympic
Watching the current scandal around Christian Horner play out, I didn’t feel any of the glee I usually do when tabloids dissect the private lives of well-known people. (To be fair, I had zero sympathy for myself when the Daily Mail did it to me, twice – if you dish it out, you’d better be able to
More than 100 MPs have tonight backed an amendment in the House of Lords which would give parliament a veto on foreign states owning UK media outlets. Robert Jenrick, the former Housing Secretary, has organised an open letter among colleagues, following the attempt by the UAE-owned RedBird IMI to take over the Telegraph and Spectator titles. Signatories include a string
Another day, another government figure in a spot of bother. Michelle Donelan, Science and Technology Secretary, has today had to retract false accusations she made about an academic and agreed to pay the damages and costs. It’s a rather embarrassing case of the science minister unable to get her facts right: sub-optimal to say the
We’ll know tomorrow afternoon what exactly Jeremy Hunt has included in his Budget, but reports this evening suggest we’re looking at another 2p cut to employee National Insurance: a move that is estimated to put £450 back in the pocket of the average worker, which Hunt will try to sell as a £900 tax cut,
13 min listen
Kate Andrews speaks to James Heale and Isabel Hardman as the speculation grows over what taxes Jeremy Hunt will cut in tomorrow’s budget. National Insurance is looking most likely – it’s a giveaway but does it go far enough?
The SNP seems determined not to stick to the day job of actually running the country. Scotland’s government this week launched a publication called ‘Building a New Scotland: an independent Scotland’s Place in the World’. It set out policies for something that doesn’t exist – an independent Scotland – in areas in which the devolved
Britain’s prisons brim with vulnerable people but perhaps the most vulnerable are children. At 30 September 2023, there were 301 children in prison in England and Wales alone. Wetherby Young Offender Institution in Yorkshire is home to 165 of them and a new report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons makes for troubling reading about
Mr and Mrs Sunak of Downing Street have given a joint interview to Grazia magazine in which they give answers to the most pressing questions facing the country. They don’t bother sweating the small stuff like the state of the economy, the upcoming Budget, or the election prospects of the beleaguered Tories, but instead share
What a week for TV broadcasters: it’s been non-stop breaking news about, um, themselves. After BBC Verify’s debacle yesterday, it’s TalkTV that is making headlines today. The television channel, launched to much fanfare in 2022, is moving entirely online from this summer. Staff were informed by email on Tuesday, just a month after the channel’s