News

Huge Rachel Reeves warning as ‘new wave of stealth taxes’ incoming – £20bn hole

The Chancellor is thought to be facing a need to raise yet more cash without headline tax rises.

Rachel Reeves hikes tax in new energy bills move

The Government has reacted to rising energy costs

Electricity generators threatened with higher windfall taxes in bid to ensure stable prices

Move marks government’s most radical attempt to weaken impact of soaring wholesale gas prices on electricity costs Clean energy generation exceeded rise in global electricity demand in 2025 Electricity generators will face higher windfall taxes unless they sign up to long-term fixed-price contracts under government plans to protect bill payers from future gas market price shocks, as the Iran war pushes up energy prices. The Treasury will increase a windfall tax on excess profits made by electr

Cost of crime soars under Labour as 'no backbone' Keir Starmer slammed

Gangsters, career offenders, sex fiends, opportunistic thieves and violent robbers are costing taxpayers £90 million every day.

Labour’s ‘crab-wise’ approach to closer EU ties must address damage of Brexit | Heather Stewart

The damage to the economy dwarfs the upsides from the various non-EU trade deals the UK has struck since 2016 Rachel Reeves joined EU finance ministers for dinner in Washington last week, on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund spring meetings: the first time a chancellor had done so since Brexit. It was the latest symbolic step in Labour’s marked shift towards prioritising closer EU relations. Continue reading...

Rachel Reeves calls in UK bank bosses for crunch talks amid Iran war economic fallout

The International Monetary Fund warned the energy shock sparked by the war will hit the UK harder than any other major economy.

Jenrick: No10 Is Now Discussing Best Friend of World’s Most Notorious Paedo Instead of Cost of Living

Reform's Richard Tice 'happy to put things right' over reported £100,000 tax error

Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said he is "always happy to put things right" after reports he failed to pay nearly £100,000 in corporation tax.

Influential soft-left MP to 'unite Labour' in new intervention

Former transport secretary Louise Haigh will outline an economic agenda to help voters with the cost of living in one of her most significant interventions since being forced out of cabinet 18 months ago.

‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

Rachel Reeves joins global finance chiefs in highlighting how households and businesses are feeling the pain of higher energy prices The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest. In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the wo

Digested week: Hungary’s election result is rare good news in a depressing and surreal world | John Crace

Not least because JD Vance’s show of support for Viktor Orbán appears to have had opposite of desired effect So much of the news is depressing these days. The wars in Iran, Lebanon and Ukraine. The cost of living crisis. At times it feels as if the world has tipped into the surreal. Donald Trump posting photos of himself on his Truth Social account as the Risen Christ. A step too far even for Nigel Farage. And the US president picking a fight with the pope. Leo is a terrible man, apparently, for

Birmingham is awash with local election candidates – but will result be a ‘coalition of chaos’?

Some fear a fragmented field of hopefuls from Labour, the Conservatives, Greens, Reform and Independents could leave city ungovernable Paul Tilsley was 23 when he was first elected for the Liberal party in Birmingham’s 1968 council elections. At the time, the UK had an unpopular Labour government facing an economic crisis, tensions around immigration and US pressure to back military action abroad. Such a backdrop may seem familiar, but this May, the all-out local elections in Birmingham could no