UK politics

UK politics

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Energy consultancy Cornwall Insight predicts that the Ofgem price cap will drop 7 per cent to £1,641 a year for a typical dual-fuel household when it is reset on 1 April. The forecast reduction is slightly smaller than Cornwall Insight's previous estimate of an 8 per cent, or £138, cut, reflecting a recent uptick in wholesale energy prices. Ofgem is due to confirm the official cap level by 25 February for the period running to 30 June.

The UK government has not said when the money will be made available or over what period. It had already announced 445m for rail projects in Wales at last June's spending review, and has now explained that money will go towards building each of the seven stations. Initial work on five of the south east stations will begin later this year, with construction on two of them beginning in 2029. While no timescales have been announced, it is expected that Magor and Undy will be the first station to be completed.

Almost everybody, including Keir Starmer, can see that the Peter Mandelson affair provoked a genuine political crisis. The media were right to make it headline news. But it also shows the febrile atmosphere in which politicians and the media conspire to turn every incident into an issue of confidence in leadership, and we are becoming a country where it is impossible to focus on the long term.

I can now say what I like about the Secretary of State, I've never met him or spoken to him but I know him to be a two-faced bully who doesn't care about Norfolk, who doesn't care about local government, who doesn't even care about his own Labour councillors.

The latest files released by the US Department of Justice appear to show the former prince forwarded sensitive government documents and commercial information to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing. MPs are taking the allegations "acutely seriously", Byrne said. "And I can guarantee you that MPs are not in the market for letting anything slip through the cracks," he added.

Some long-time supporters said they no longer wish to fund the organisation, arguing that the service is "encouraging illegal activity" and is "shocking and unacceptable." One critic told The Sun: "It's shocking to see a charity effectively acting as a taxi service for people breaking the law." A donor told The Sun, "It's shocking. They're saving lives, yes - but they're also sending the wrong message. "Stop funding them until they rethink this."

"This is a government-in-waiting team," Farage told reporters. "Robert brings experience, energy, and the know-how to fix Britain's finances."

The committees not had a chance to reflect on these allegations because recess means Parliament isn't sitting this week. My task this week is to make sure that the committee's got options in front of them when they meet on Tuesday for how we might or might not take this investigation forward. Obviously, we can't and don't want to compromise a police investigation.

The government hoped a single trade window (STW) would simplify border processes after Brexit by creating a single digital platform in which importers and exporters could upload all documentation linked to goods before they are transported. However, the STW project was paused in 2024 amid concerns over the cost of implementing the scheme. Government responses to freedom of information requests, submitted by the thinktank TaxWatch and seen by the Financial Times, now suggest no money has been spent on the project since January last year, with the Treasury writing that the programme had been brought to an early closure.

The Conservatives are calling for a proposed renovation of the Houses of Parliament to be paused and "refocused" over concerns about costs potentially running into the tens of billions. MPs have been presented with proposals to refurbish the ailing Palace of Westminster, including a plan that could cost almost 40bn and take 61 years to complete. The project team has warned delaying the restoration of the historic building, which costs 1.5m a week to maintain, would lead to "an expensive managed decline of the Palace".

To argue publicly that there was just one complaint is willfully misleading. They were presented to London in one dossier, but there were multiple complaints.

Existing policies are complex and expensive, and tweaking them could make a huge difference to people's pockets

British dual nationals living abroad have told of their disgust, fury and distress over new UK border rules that mean they could risk be denied boarding on a flight, ferry or train. The new rules, which come into force on 25 February, have caught many by surprise and require British dual nationals to present a British passport or a certificate of entitlement, which costs 589, to visit the UK on their non-British passport.

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. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

As reported by , TeamSpeak has posted to X to warn users that "current hosting capacity has been reached in many regions, especially in the United States," along with an exploding cat meme. It credits these perhaps welcome technical issues to "the incredible surge of new users joining TeamSpeak and subscribing to communities," and adds that the company is "working on expanding availability across additional regions."

Caseworkers get a copilot [to] read all the attachments and documents for a case, and that gives them a summary at the start. You look at the end-to-end handling time of a case, and you go through and you evolve and improve every step along the way. That's the process that we are starting to undergo now [and is a] core part of driving productivity.

Around 5,000 seats across 136 local councils will now be up for grabs, following the government's U-turn on council election delays. Ministers had granted 30 authorities permission to delay elections until May 2027 - including five areas where polls had already been put back from May 2025. But in February, the government said those elections would go ahead in May this year, following legal advice in the wake of a challenge from Reform UK.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: The way the LGA has conducted pay negotiations has been nothing short of a disgrace. Craft workers who do difficult and highly skilled jobs deserve better than the LGA playing politics with their livelihoods and imposing a poor pay offer without negotiations. They will have Unite's full backing throughout this dispute which is of the LGA's own making.