Senior Labour figures packed into the Commons as ex-deputy prime minister Angela Rayner gave her resignation speech, a month after admitting she underpaid stamp duty. Rayner said the past few weeks had been "incredibly tough" on her family, but said she will "take responsibility" for her mistake. The Commons was packed with Cabinet ministers including - including Rachel Reeves, David Lammy and Bridget Phillipson, but not Sir Keir Starmer - as Rayner called for Labour to be "bold" in power.
The thinktank argues that scrapping youth minimum wage tiers could risk "pricing out" young people from entry-level roles at a time when employers are already scaling back hiring due to rising labour costs.
If we are to succeed in our mission to transform Britain and fight back against Reform, we must be bold and embrace new ideas that put more money back into the pockets of working people. One place we can start is by looking at ways we can abolish the outdated, deeply regressive, and increasingly indefensible council tax system. Created in the early 1990s and still based on property valuations from 1991, it bears little resemblance to the realities of today's housing market.
Crises can liberate governments. Collapses in popularity, huge dilemmas about public spending, foreign policy emergencies, poll surges by opponents and the prospect of losing office: all can persuade even previously cautious administrations to change their direction and rhetoric or simply say more clearly why they are in power. Politicians sometimes enjoy being bolder. Commonly seen as always calculating and never spontaneous, some are in fact relieved to stop filtering their public words and finally speak their minds.
Workers could be charged a fee to take their bosses to court under plans being explored by Labour as it faces pressure from businesses lobbying to water down its landmark changes to employment rights. In a development described by unions as a disaster, sources in Westminster said ministers were looking at reviving a proposal made by the last Conservative government to impose fees on employment tribunal claims.
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.
"I think this whole thing calling Nigel Farage a racist is quite pathetic. I've seen him really try to take issue with genuine racists in his party. So you can attack Nigel Farage on a whole load of things, but calling him a racist? I really disapprove of that." He continued, "Labour is moving to a position where it could work very well with Reform. That's just the reality for the Prime Minister."
Well, look, I think everyone can see in the last year that the world has changed, and we're not immune to that change. Whether it is wars in Europe and the Middle East, whether it is increased barriers to trade because of tariffs coming from the United States, whether it is the global cost of borrowing, we're not immune to any of those things.
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.