Political news

• Nature not a blocker to housing growth, inquiry finds

  16-11-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environmentNature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods. Continue reading...
  
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• UK to curtail asylum seekers’ automatic right to accommodation

  15-11-2025 23:30
  Home secretary says Britain’s ‘generosity’ is ‘drawing illegal migrants’
  
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• UK government set to make support for asylum seekers ‘discretionary’

  15-11-2025 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Home secretary expected to change system to deny help to those who can work or who have assetsShabana Mahmood is expected to announce changes to Britain’s asylum system on Monday in an attempt to quell rising fears about immigration.The home secretary plans to amend laws that guarantee housing and financial support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. Continue reading...
  
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• Wes Streeting accused of ‘chaotic and incoherent approach’ to NHS reform

  15-11-2025 19:53 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: thinktank report finds health secretary has failed to improve productivity and the health service is unlikely to meet its targetsWes Streeting has been accused of taking a “chaotic and incoherent approach” to reforming the NHS, which makes it unlikely the government will hit its own targets, according to a damning report by the Institute for Government (IfG).The report praises elements of how the health secretary has managed the health service in his first year in office,
  
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• Have Reeves and Starmer missed the chance to ditch stealth taxes? | Phillip Inman

  15-11-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Retreat from plans to increase income tax means Labour is unlikely to make system fairer and more coherentFor decades now, whenever the British public has faced the prospect of tax rises, large sections of the electorate – so large they sway most politicians – have made it quite clear, let those increases be by stealth.It is a message every chancellor since Nigel Lawson has heeded, with just a few honourable exceptions in the intervening decades. Continue reading...
  
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• AI, Covid and taxes: what is behind steep rise in youth unemployment?

  15-11-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Last year’s employer NICs increase and a weak economy are adding to tricky conditions for young people‘It’s so demoralising’: UK graduates exasperated by high unemploymentYouth unemployment is at the highest level since the Covid pandemic, as younger people bear the brunt of a worsening slowdown in the UK jobs market.Excluding the peak recorded during the autumn of 2020, when the country was entering the second pandemic lockdown, the jobless rate for 16 to 24-year-olds &n
  
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• Nigel Farage is today’s Enoch Powell and his appeal down to slow economy, says minister

  15-11-2025 16:39 via theguardian.com
  Business secretary Peter Kyle says appeal of far-right parties like Reform due to ‘their dogma of disruption, division and despair’Nigel Farage is “today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell”, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, said at the Co-operative party conference.Kyle described Reform UK as “far right”, while stressing that boosting economic growth was needed to “build an economy and a politics that people can trust to deliver for t
  
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• ‘Death by a thousand cuts’: the people who could face deportation under Reform

  15-11-2025 16:11 via theguardian.com
  As party’s rise fuels fears over future visa rules, people share how the lives they have built are in jeopardyAs Reform UK soars in the polls, Britain’s migrant communities are facing an uncertain future.The party has announced a swathe of hardline immigration policies, including its plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain – the right to settle permanently in the UK after five years of residence. Continue reading...
  
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• What pension changes is Rachel Reeves considering in the budget?

  15-11-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  One possible alteration was thought to be tax-free cash drawdowns, but the chancellor may have turned to salary sacrifice schemesRumours about what Rachel Reeves may, or may not, do to pensions in the budget continue to swirl.One much-debated possible change – cutting the amount of tax-free cash that people can take from their pensions – is said by some to be off the table, but reports have emerged that the chancellor has “salary sacrifice” pension schemes in her sights.
  
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• Levy on international students’ tuition fees not in best interest of UK, says leader of top university

  15-11-2025 10:03 via theguardian.com
  Duncan Ivison, president of Manchester University, says government’s 6% surcharge plan will ‘hurt the sector’A levy on tuition fees paid by international students is “wrong”, will “hurt the sector” and is “not in the long-term interests” of the UK, according to the vice-chancellor of one of the country’s leading universities.Duncan Ivison, who took over as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester (UoM) last year, wa
  
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• The pension panic

  15-11-2025 06:00
  How Budget rumours are adding stress to a system that is already struggling
  
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• How salary sacrifice tax breaks greased the wheels of cargo bike businesses

  15-11-2025 06:00
  Retailers worry about the impact of expected cap on cycle to work scheme in Budget
  
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• Free reader Q&A: How will the Budget affect your finances?

  15-11-2025 06:00
  Put your Budget questions to the FT’s experts
  
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• UK to reduce settlement rights for many asylum seekers

  14-11-2025 23:14
  Home secretary’s proposal would limit permanent residence to those refugees who could prove they had been personally targeted
  
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• UK poised to reduce settlement rights for many asylum seekers

  14-11-2025 23:14
  Home secretary’s proposal would limit permanent residence to those refugees who could prove they had been personally targeted
  
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• UK politics as it happened — Gilts sell off on tax plan U-turn

  14-11-2025 21:09
  Dramatic reversal ahead of Budget comes after improved fiscal forecast
  
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• UK borrowing costs jump as investors lose faith in Reeves’ Budget

  14-11-2025 19:39
  Gilts sell off after government ditches plan to increase income tax rates
  
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• How did fiscal forecasts affect Reeves’ income tax U-turn?

  14-11-2025 19:35
  Politics played a part in decision to abandon manifesto-busting plan, government officials say
  
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• ‘Their credibility has been shot to pieces’: Labour MPs turn on Starmer and Reeves

  14-11-2025 19:33
  Income tax U-turn adds to mood of despair among party’s backbenchers
  
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• Why the NHS doctors’ strikes look set to continue

  14-11-2025 19:12 via theguardian.com
  The BMA and Wes Streeting are poles apart, with the union committed to full pay restoration and the health secretary adamant there is no money for thatAs resident doctors began a new round of industrial action on Friday, it felt very like the other 49 days of strikes since March 2023, with medics in scrubs on picket lines outside hospitals across England amid a battle for public sympathy.The British Medical Association claimed the stoppage was wholly justified while the health secretary, Wes Str
  
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• Labour has shredded its claim to competence

  14-11-2025 19:10
  A chaotic week has raised the risks around this month’s crucial Budget
  
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• Reeves’s tax U-turn: how Labour changed course on budget plans

  14-11-2025 19:02 via theguardian.com
  Chancellor spent weeks preparing the ground for breaking manifesto pledge but events this week appeared to change her mindThere were always two camps in the internal government debate over what to do at this month’s budget, one of the most consequential in recent history. One set of advisers believed that given the scale of the fiscal challenge facing the chancellor, she should do what no chancellor has done in 50 years and put up income taxes. The other worried that breaking a key manifes
  
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• Scrapping green subsidies is short-termist sabotage – and as usual the consumer will pay | Camilla Born

  14-11-2025 18:53 via theguardian.com
  Weaning ourselves off gas is the only way to reduce energy bills long term. Cutting support for this is exactly the ‘sticking-plaster politics’ Labour promised to endAfter years of painfully high energy bills, diminishing household budgets and stalled investment, this year’s budget, on 26 November, should be the moment when the government finally starts to confront why the UK’s energy system is so expensive. And yet, if recent briefings suggesting that Labour will dramati
  
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• ‘They all think Keir is done’: how push to protect Starmer’s job backfired spectacularly

  14-11-2025 18:44 via theguardian.com
  Botched briefing operation was proof to many that PM is leading an ineffectual No 10. How did it go so wrong?If there’s one thing the Labour party can agree on this week, it is that efforts by Keir Starmer’s allies to shore up his position backfired spectacularly.By briefing journalists that he would face down any challenge and accusing Wes Streeting of leading an advanced plot to overthrow him, figures around the prime minister managed only to expose the weakness of his position. Co
  
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• Martin Rowson on trouble at No 10 – cartoon

  14-11-2025 17:22 via theguardian.com
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• Reeves backs off from proposals to raise income tax rates in Budget

  14-11-2025 16:25 via bbc.com
  The chancellor had been widely expected to increase income tax rates, which would have broken a manifesto promise.
  
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• What taxes could go up in Budget if income tax rates are not rising?

  14-11-2025 16:22 via bbc.com
  Chancellor Rachel Reeves is considering both tax rises and spending cuts in the 26 November Budget.
  
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• 'Real concern' about political appointees on BBC board, Nandy says

  14-11-2025 16:15 via bbc.com
  The culture secretary also suggests appointing senior BBC leaders who have a "journalistic background".
  
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• The government’s latest reversal shows that Labour has no plan

  14-11-2025 16:06
  The long roar of speculation about the Budget has already damaged market confidence
  
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• Is Starmer’s leadership on the line?

  14-11-2025 16:01
  Rumours of political rebellion, plus resignations at the BBC
  
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• Who could be behind the phantom briefing and the tax rise that wasn’t? Inspector Starmer is on the case | Marina Hyde

  14-11-2025 15:45 via theguardian.com
  Chaos and ineptitude dog our poor PM. Perhaps the explanation lies (very) close to homeAt this rate the only businesses who will want to invest in Britain after the budget are heroin dealers. No 10 used to have a news grid, now it has an apology grid. Even so, why did Keir Starmer apologise for a sensationally self-destructive round of briefing against Wes Streeting if he didn’t do it? This is like me apologising for accidentally releasing sex offenders from prison. I suppose there is the
  
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• Peers suggest over 900 changes to assisted dying bill

  14-11-2025 15:45 via bbc.com
  Experts say the volume is a record, and backers of the bill fear opponents are using delaying tactics.
  
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• US group pulls out of deal to buy Daily Telegraph

  14-11-2025 15:43 via bbc.com
  US investment group RedBird Capital has abandoned its attempt to buy the UK newspaper.
  
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• Government borrowing costs jump after Reeves decides against income tax rise

  14-11-2025 15:21 via bbc.com
  The 10-year gilt yield rises sharply in reaction to reports that an expected Budget income tax rise will not happen.
  
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• Doctor strike inflicting pain and misery on patients, says health secretary

  14-11-2025 14:00 via bbc.com
  Health Secretary Wes Streeing says patients could be harmed by the 5-day strike.
  
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• Immigration not 'key issue' in Wales, says Plaid leader

  14-11-2025 13:52 via bbc.com
  Rhun ap Iorwerth says it does not relate to real problems facing voters in their day-to-day lives.
  
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• Crime commissioner warns PM as she quits Labour

  14-11-2025 13:02 via bbc.com
  Sarah Taylor says there is "no vision for the Labour Party that's being really explained".
  
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• Labour to begin talks on admin fees for linking to EU carbon scheme

  14-11-2025 12:27 via bbc.com
  The negotiations, set to begin next week, could hinge on the scale of UK contributions to EU coffers.
  
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• Reeves scraps Budget tax raid on partnerships

  14-11-2025 11:37
  Treasury modelling suggests adding national insurance to tax bills of lawyers and accountants could cost more than it raises
  
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• Starmer and Reeves drop proposal to increase income tax rates in the Budget

  14-11-2025 10:37
  U-turn on measures to raise revenue to fill fiscal hole sparks sell-off in gilt market
  
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• Starmer and Reeves drop proposal to increase income tax rates in Budget

  14-11-2025 10:37
  U-turn on measures to raise revenue to fill fiscal hole sparks sell-off in gilt market
  
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• Budget U-turn hammers UK competitiveness

  14-11-2025 10:30
  Risky to raise revenue via tweaks and novel taxes, especially through rushed changes
  
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• The tax-efficient wheels of British government

  14-11-2025 09:38
  You’ll never guess who’s been getting plenty of use out of the Cycle to Work scheme
  
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• Reeves’ plan to ditch income tax rise sparks gilts sell-off

  14-11-2025 09:35
  Dramatic U-turn ahead of Budget comes after improved fiscal forecast
  
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• Wes Streeting's gamble with the NHS is greater than any play for Downing Street | Gaby Hinsliff

  14-11-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  The health secretary has embarked on a high-stakes reorganisation. It could be a model for rebuilding public services – or a nail in his and Labour’s coffinEverybody has a horror story about NHS waiting lists. If it isn’t you, then it’s probably your neighbour, your friend, your elderly parent; trapped in an anxious, miserable limbo for months longer than they should have been, getting passed from pillar to post. The only thing we don’t all know about waiting lists,
  
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• UK government considers linking rail fare rises to lower rate of inflation

  14-11-2025 06:00
  Chancellor has been pushing cabinet ministers to find ways to reduce financial pressure on households ahead of Budget
  
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• Scotland to pay borrowing premium in £1.5bn bond market push

  14-11-2025 06:00
  Deputy first minister Kate Forbes says extra cost of ‘kilts’ issuance worth it to build credibility with investors
  
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• In charts: Is the NHS on the ‘road to recovery’?

  14-11-2025 06:00
  A strike by resident doctors in England could reverse a slight drop in the number of patients waiting for elective treatment
  
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• ‘He’s played a blinder’: How Wes Streeting won the week

  14-11-2025 06:00
  A Number 10 briefing that Starmer would face down any challenger backfired with health secretary emerging in stronger position
  
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• Councils warn of 'total collapse' in special needs system

  14-11-2025 01:58 via bbc.com
  The government is facing political pressure as it tries to reform the "broken" system of support for children with special educational needs.
  
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