UK politics

UK politics

Nathan Law, a former Hong Kong politician who arrived in the UK in 2020 and has a bounty on his head, said that the government should reflect on its moral obligations when enacting its increase of the standard qualifying period for permanent residence to a decade. He said the proposed change in asylum laws was creating fresh anxiety and uncertainty for Hongkongers forced to flee their homes.

would be determined by what the system looks like, and that can only really be measured after the consultation has been closed and analyzed.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has cast doubt on claims Rachel Reeves dropped plans to raise income tax in this week's budget because of rosier forecasts, pointing out she knew about these well before the change of heart. In a move likely to exacerbate tensions with the Treasury, the OBR chair, Richard Hughes, has taken what he acknowledged was the unusual step of writing to the Treasury select committee to explain how its forecast evolved, given the circumstances in this case.

Within the organisation of Merlin, his main role was transformation and making sure that the customer experience was high on his list. I see the customers as the residents of Derbyshire,

The UK's decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation has been likened to authoritarian crackdowns in Russia by a UN expert. The UN special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Professor Ben Saul, said the UK government's ban on the direct action protest group is an unnecessary and disproportionate restriction on fundamental human rights. In evidence submitted to the High Court, he warned that the move sets a precedent for further crackdown on other protest movements in the UK, such as climate activists.

After Wednesday's Budget, the chancellor Rachel Reeves is keen to point out that she hasn't raised taxes for working people, but if you look at the figures, we're all gradually paying more tax due to the government's clever use of fiscal drag. It all began back in 2021 when the Conservative Party froze the thresholds at which you start paying basic-rate and higher-rate income tax.

But the scandal did not begin with a single programme or a single misjudgement. Close to the centre of this crisis is Robbie Gibb, a man who has spent more than a decade shaping the BBC's political coverage, zig-zagging between the BBC and the Conservative government while advancing his own partisan project that has distorted the corporation's journalism on Brexit, Trump and, eventually, Gaza.

Another stealthy freeze in the tax system is the £35,000 cut-off for entitlement to Winter Fuel Payments. This was not increased in the Budget and it seems highly like that it will remain frozen for the foreseeable future. This means that pensioners currently on incomes under £35,000 could lose their Winter Fuel Payments if inflation increases to their pensions gradually take them over the cut-off.

Anyone solely receiving the new flat-rate state pension - for those who reached state pension age after April 2016 - will get 12,547.60 next year. That is just below the income tax threshold of 12,570.

UK energy bill payers will hand over 2bn a year in subsidies to EDF, the French company building two nuclear power stations, according to government figures. EDF, owned by the French government, will be entitled to 1bn in annual payments as soon as Hinkley Point C, in Somerset, comes on to the grid in 2030. The sum is due under the contracts-for-difference system that guarantees low-carbon energy companies a fixed price for the electricity they generate.

Yesterday the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered a Labour budget. People have been asking for Labour's purpose and values to be more clearly expressed. Through the choices made a shift to a fairer tax system, targeting wealth to pay for tackling child poverty, good public services and the cost of living we have clearly set out what we stand for. That's why Labour MPs cheered in the Commons, and it's why we are up for the fights to come.

The documents weren't published on our webpage itself. It appears there was a link that someone was able to access an external person. We need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened. We're going to do a full investigation. There'll be a full report to parliament. We're going to do that work quickly so people can have assurance in our systems and that can be restored.

The government is to ditch its flagship policy from the workers' rights bill, removing the right to protection from unfair dismissal from the first day of employment and replacing it with a six-month threshold. The move comes after the business secretary, Peter Kyle, told businesses at the CBI conference this week that he would listen to concerns about the effects of the law change on hiring.

"I have repeatedly said that I want my government to drive down child poverty. That is a political mission. It is a personal mission," the PM told me. He was talking about the policy announced in the Budget to scrap the two child benefit cap, introduced under the Conservatives in 2017, meaning parents can only claim universal credit or tax credits for their first two children. It will end next April.