UK politics

UK politics

Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme this was "the single biggest reason why [economic] growth has flatlined". In response, Alexander said there was always speculation in the run-up to Budgets but the chancellor had been clear about her priorities. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is widely expected to increase taxes in her Budget on Wednesday to help fill a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans.

Steve I'm for skilled immigration, I don't want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can't get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can't do things better spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology.

Some have argued keeping the national debt down protects the financial interests of younger people. That's because if the country's debt went up drastically, it is younger people who would have to foot the bill to pay for the interest on it. And it would be taken directly from their payslips through higher taxes. Generation Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012, have been hit in the pocket over the past 15 years by benefit cuts and dramatic increases in university tuition fees.

DPD, which reported pre-tax profits of nearly 200m last year and raised the pay of its highest-paid director by 90,000 to 1.5m including bonuses, told self-employed drivers it was unilaterally cutting their delivery rates. The drivers said the move would cost them about 6,000 each per year or up to 8,000 for those who take on extra deliveries at Christmas.

For the past few decades, Alex Karp has stayed largely under the radar, but a new biography, reveals him to be a complex, thoughtful, often contradictory personality, with a background that explains many of his insecurities. Steve Rose profiled the fitness-obsessed billionaire tech leader whose business is at the heart of many governments, including the US, where its AI-powered data-analysis technology is fuelling the deportations being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Pentagon's unmanned drone programme, police departments' (allegedly racist) profiling of potential criminals and much more besides.

The 21st century has so far seen two simultaneous electoral developments in western Europe: the decline of social-democratic parties and the rise of far-right parties. This has created the powerful narrative that social democrats are losing votes to the far right, in particular because of their (alleged) pro-immigration positions. And although research shows that their voters mainly moved to centre-right and green parties, social-democratic parties have been chasing this mythical left behind voter ever since.

He needs to explain the comments, or alleged comments that were made, and he needs to do that as soon as possible. He hasn't got a good track record in relation to this because Sarah Pochin, his MP, made some clearly racist comments and Nigel Farage has done absolutely nothing about it. He added: The man is spineless. If that had been someone in my party, I'd have dealt with it straight away.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its first stage in the Lords in September, but will only become law if MPs and peers can agree the final wording before the current session of Parliament ends in the spring. The bill, which was passed by MPs in an historic vote in June, must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before becoming law.

Andreas Adamides, CEO of Helm, said, "Our members feel betrayed, ignored, and genuinely let down by a government that promised growth but has delivered nothing but uncertainty and indifference. "These aren't faceless corporates-they're founders who've risked everything to build businesses, create jobs, and drive the economy forward. "They wanted to believe Labour understood them. Instead, they've read endless speculation about punishing tax rises and listened

"all four governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat or the urgency of response it demanded in the early part of 2020." Ministers were in part relying on "misleading assurances" that the UK was prepared, she said. Government scientists underestimated how quickly the virus was spreading and in the early days were advising restrictions should not be introduced until the spread of the virus was nearer its peak to help build up herd immunity, Lady Hallett added.