UK politics

UK politics

Britain is getting older and sicker, while a greater share of its population has a disability. While these trends affect the whole of society, they are starkest in the poorest half of working-age families across the country. While we talk a lot about the effects of ageing and ill-health, the implications on demand for unpaid care is largely absent from political debate.

The Epstein files reveal not just a catastrophic breach of trust, but the final act in a long political psychodrama. Donald Macintyre reveals how a man so adept at managing risk came to take one that could destroy a government not to mention his own career and says the answers lie deep in a life shaped by a fatal attraction to wealth and influence

The council's leadership claimed it has found 100m in savings, 39.5m of which come from what it said was two net zero-related projects: 32m by scrapping a programme to make properties more environmentally friendly, and 7.5m by not making the council's fleet of vehicles electric by 2030. After Kemkaran announced these at a council meeting last July, Polly Billington, a Labour MP in Kent, requested details of the apparent savings via a freedom of information request, setting off a months-long battle with the council.

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.

If this was just a UK story it would be bad enough, but we are seeing it is a French story, it is a German story and a US story. All these countries are cutting. There will be a time lag but this will cost lives. We have a responsibility to protect these lives.

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.

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.

Those changes were the tipping point,

"If we don't get what we need [in terms of extra government help] then a Section 114 Notice will come in, which is effective bankruptcy. We'd then get administrators come in, in effect - they'd then make a plan for where the money gets spent in Worcestershire. It would be a catastrophe. We're going to have to halt projects that were put into the budget by the previous administration, things that maybe were 'nice to have', but we can't afford them."

Disabled people are enduring average waits exceeding 100 days for crucial support applications designed to help them secure or maintain employment, a new report reveals. A leading disability equality charity has condemned the findings from the National Audit Office (NAO), describing the public spending watchdog's report as "laying bare the brutal reality for disabled people trying to get into and stay in work."

We're doing something that hasn't been done in decades providing low-interest loans to build the affordable homes Londoners desperately need.

Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.

The road between Piccadilly Circus and St James's Park could be transformed into a massive public plaza and vehicles could be banned from Regent Street St James's, Waterloo Place and the south side of Piccadilly Circus. If the proposals are enacted, the pedestrianisation of certain roads would lead to more than 35,000 square metres of new public space, equivalent to more than five football pitches, created in the West End.

Official evaluations from National Highways, some of which had been held back by the Department for Transport (DfT) since completion in 2023, showed that a slew of big projects to convert the hard shoulder on the M1, M4, M6 and M25 were rated as poor or very poor value. The AA said the long-awaited reports revealed smart motorways had been a catastrophic waste of time, money and effort, although the government said they showed the project could allow more vehicles to travel safely.

Thatcher rose to power on the back of a campaign to Make Britain Great Again-a promise to reverse the previous two decades of austerity, imperial contraction, and stagnating modernization. By 1979, the country was undeniably in decline-not just materially but on a more ineffable level, too. Divested of the unifying effect of global superpower status, the increasingly dis-United Kingdom's common identity was now an open, and anxious, question.