Prince Andrew was quietly booted from his longtime Windsor home as the political pressure generated by the latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files tightened around Britain's monarchy. King Charles's younger brother left Royal Lodge in the dead of night, according to The Sun, leaving the sprawling Georgian mansion he's occupied for decades and was relocated to a cottage on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Don't let the Labour party say one more word about splitting the vote, in the forthcoming byelection or at any other time. With proportional representation, no one would ever need to worry about splitting the vote again. No one would need to choose the lesser evil to keep the greater evil out of office. We could vote for the parties we actually wanted. But the Labour government won't hear of it. It insists we retain the unfair, ridiculous first-past-the-post system, then blames us for the likely results. This is not because proportional representation is unpopular far from it. Last year's British Social Attitudes survey showed that 36% of people want to keep the electoral system as it is, while 60% want to change it. But as we are not allowed to vote on how we should vote, the decision is left in the hands of the corrupt old system's beneficiaries.
She told Sky News: "I think the Prime Minister has a lot of questions to answer, and not just him, but his chief of staff, and all the people in No 10 who pushed this appointment. "I think it is a national embarrassment. There are many people who should have been given that job, or who should have been interviewed for that job, and they didn't get a chance."
Every society recognises that words and images, in certain contexts, do harm and that incitement to commit crime can be a criminal act. There is a spectrum of tolerance and enforcement. Repression of free speech is a symptom of tyranny, but all governments regulate it to some degree. The threshold for intervention is lower when children are involved. That is why the idea of banning under-16s from social media, already operational in Australia, is catching on elsewhere.
The initial ZEBRA-zero emission bus regional areas-scheme, touted proudly by Prime Minister Johnson's Government, committed to 4,000 British-built buses by the end of the last Parliament. The scheme delivered just 2,270 buses, of which about 46% were built abroad. There was a material and harmful chasm between political rhetoric and delivery for UK manufacturers Euan Stainbank MP (Falkirk, Labour)
Private providers of child social care in England will be pushed out of the system if they are found to be profiteering, the children's minister has said. Josh MacAlister, who is in charge of overhauling the care system for children, also called for a fostering equivalent of the Homes for Ukraine scheme to provide homes for tens of thousands of children.
A ban on students using mobile phones during the school day has been backed by the House of Lords. A Tory amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill passed with 178 votes to 140, and comes just weeks after opposition peers supported legislation to ban under-16s in the UK from social media platforms. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has previously advised schools that they should be phone-free during school hours, but the guidance lacks legal force.
It's not an ideal situation. We want low tax, low spend and we were always committed to that. It's just that national pressures that the government is not solving [such as] Send [special educational needs and disabilities] home-school transport. The people understand that taxes do have to go up now. I am dead against increasing taxes and I will do as much as I can to lower that bill and that burden.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Similar perceptions of decline are now the norm across the nation. In postwar Britain, high streets became the thriving hubs of a more affluent society and a source of local identity and pride. But almost 13,000 shops closed in 2024 an attrition rate of around 37 a day, which particularly affected the north of England, the Midlands and deprived coastal areas.
My reforms changed the welfare system to make work pay and brought workless households to an all-time low. But because of the post-Covid collapse in vetting and rise of health-related welfare claims, millions of workers could take home more from welfare than wages after tax. This is an outrageous state of affairs. The system must stop writing off thousands every day and incentives to work need to be restored to end this ruinous waste of human potential.
"Creating a modern, fair and dynamic labour market is central to this Government's plan for growth," she said. "We want to make it easier for employers to find the people they need, while ensuring that work pays and feels secure. "Through clear guidance, we are giving businesses the practical support they need to understand these changes and get things right first time. By improving fairness and security at work, we boost productivity, strengthen retention and support businesses to succeed."
On this page, you can find minutes of all Board meetings for the last five years. We aim to publish the minutes of meetings as soon as we can after they have been formally approved.
The disagreement is focused on the estimated 5.8 million people who took out a student loan between September 2012 and July 2023. For many of these graduates, everything they hand over from their salary is dwarfed by the interest that is slapped on their debt every month. What prompted the latest row is Reeves's decision to freeze the salary threshold forrepayments for plan 2 student loans for three years which means many graduates will now have to pay even more.
An estimated one million people failing to file could net HMRC £100 million in automatic fees. There is an automatic £100 fine for late filing.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
.png?trim=0,0,0,0&width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800)
