Here is a tale of two defeats. After the 2019 general election, when Labour lost many seats in parts of England that were crudely labelled the “red wall”, strategists, politicians and pundits emphasised the need to listen, to learn and to rebuild trust with the voters they had lost. In 2024, the party lost several … Read more
Key events Q: Before the election, Labour politicians were asked over and over again about comments from groups like the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying there was a black hole in the public finances. But you refused to accept that. Reeves says the IFS said yesterday the situation was worse than they thought. Q: But … Read more
Gen Roly Walker, the head of the British army, has described it as the “axis of upheaval”. George Robertson, the new head of the UK’s defence review, has called the countries the “deadly quartet”. Either way, less than a month into a Labour government, an emerging geopolitical alignment is being highlighted as a threat. The … Read more
Rachel Reeves has cut winter fuel payments for 10 million wealthier pensioners as she sought to plug a £22bn black hole in the public finances she said was “covered up” by the Conservative government, while hinting at tax rises in her first autumn budget. The chancellor also shelved the long-delayed cap on what people would … Read more
“If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it,” Rachel Reeves said, many times, during her spending inheritance speech. It was like your mum explaining why you couldn’t have sweets on the way out of the supermarket. You’re bored of hearing it, kiddo? Then stop asking. ITV News’s Shehab Khan went to the heart of … Read more
Rachel Reeves has unveiled a series of spending cuts, with the prospect of tax rises to come in the autumn, after telling MPs about what she called £22bn in unfunded spending commitments for this financial year due to Conservative fiscal neglect. Here is what she and her Treasury have set out. How do the sums … Read more
The full list of Conservative leadership candidates has been published after Monday afternoon’s deadline passed. Six MPs will be running in the three-month-long contest to succeed Rishi Sunak. Four will be shortlisted by MPs in September and given the chance to make their pitch at the Conservative party conference and in the weeks leading up … Read more
Good morning. After three weeks as chancellor, Rachel Reeves will today present the most significant policy announcement of the new Labour government so far. Think of it as an inverse budget. Budgets are all about how the government intends to spend money. According to the extensive briefing about this statement, instead it will mostly focus … Read more
Key events UK borrowing costs fall, as 2-year bond yields hitting 14-month low British two-year bond yields have hit their lowest level since May 2023. They have having dropped as low as 3.864%, down 5 basis points on the day. Falling bond yields suggest there is more demand and appetite among investors to own UK … Read more
The UK science secretary has warned Britain is “desperately exposed” to cyber-threats and the upheaval of another pandemic, claiming that national resilience suffered “catastrophically” under the previous government. Deep public spending cuts under the austerity programme diminished the NHS and other local and national services, and hampered pandemic preparedness exercises, Peter Kyle told the Guardian, … Read more