Guardian Politics

Wes Streeting says overseas suppliers of defence contracts will need to spend the equivalent amount in the UKJohn Swinney, the Scottish first minister, and Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Welsh first minister, arrived together for the national economic council meeting in Glasgow. The SNP and Plaid Cymru are sister parties, and recently Swinney, ap Iorwerth and the Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill held a meeting in Cardiff that was characterised by opponents as a summit to dismantle

Liz Truss is like a broken record, Harry Kane is for ever Spurs, and the celebs in the castle are getting on my nervesYou would have thought someone would have made an intervention by now. To save Liz Truss from the worst excesses and delusions of herself. Most former prime ministers – and there are enough of them by now – make the transition into civilian life with little fuss. More or less. John Major found himself elevated from national joke to statesman after 20 years; Tony Blair took the gr

Ex-energy secretary Ed Miliband’s agenda appears undermined as money is diverted from renewables to defenceBritain is unlikely to hit its targets on green heating after the cuts announced by John Healey this week, experts have warned, as critics of Ed Miliband claim the former energy secretary’s green agenda is being dismantled.The chancellor unveiled more than £3bn worth of cuts to the energy department’s budget this week, much of which will pay for higher defence spending. Continue reading...

Prime minister says room for manoeuvre was limited by geopolitical crises and Labour’s 2024 manifestoAndy Burnham has admitted his first budget as prime minister was not as radical as he would have liked because of the economic uncertainty facing the country.He said he would have liked to have gone further with this week’s announcement – including with higher energy support payments – but felt hemmed in by external events such as the war in Iran, which has pushed up borrowing costs. Continue rea

Our sport-loving PM is willing to risk a bitter north v south furore, all for the sake of table tennis in TeessideAs someone who barely understands their own finances, let alone the country’s, I will admit that budget day doesn’t always register with me. Perhaps if there were outre outfits or horse-drawn carriages involved, like there are at the state opening of parliament, I’d get into it, but the only accessory of note is a briefcase and it doesn’t even glow mysteriously when you open it.This

Home secretary’s colleagues fear homelessness will rise as a result of changes to the asylum systemShabana Mahmood has infuriated ministerial colleagues by failing to share what they see as crucial information about the impact of her migration changes.Sources say the home secretary has repeatedly refused to reveal how much she expects homelessness to rise as a result of changes to the asylum system. Continue reading...

Cross-party committee says ‘moonshot’ vow to end obesity epidemic in a decade will fail without personal leadership from PMThe UK government’s promise to reverse rising obesity rates in the next decade is “doomed to fail” without a major rethink and a new plan led directly by the prime minister, a cross-party committee of MPs has concluded.The health and social care select committee said in a report that there are no signs the so-called “moonshot ambition on obesity”, set out in the 10-year heal

Conservative-run Hillingdon aims to save £100,000 but local people fear dog poo will ‘be dumped everywhere’People in a west London borough fear it will become covered in dog poo after their cash-strapped council decided to remove 700 dog-waste bins to save money.“People are worried there’s going to be dog shit everywhere,” said Daniel O’Neill, the chief road steward at Ruislip Residents’ Association. Continue reading...

Ryan Dinnage – who accompanied Reform UK leader on walkabouts before local elections – was later jailed, raising questions about vetting failureOne of Nigel Farage’s security team who accompanied him on the local election campaign trail this year was facing a rape charge and was later jailed for eight years, raising questions about a failure of vetting.Ryan Dinnage spent time protecting Farage in April and May, but in June was convicted of having raped a woman while she slept in a caravan at the

The prime minister’s ambitions might be ambiguous, but unlike the Conservative leader, he is following voters and the factsBritish politics is still polarised around Brexit, although 10 years on from the referendum, the terms of debate are very different. Or they should be. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has moved discussions of European solidarity from the realm of abstraction to a matter of urgent defence partnership. Donald Trump’s presidency in the US, marked by scorn for European demo

Expressions of disappointment are not an adequate response to the concerning lack of safety improvements for children on social mediaOne thing is clear following last week’s report from the media regulator, Ofcom: the mammoth task of protecting children from online harms has barely begun. Campaigners said that they were dismayed but not surprised that the proportion of children viewing harmful content has stayed the same despite a raft of measures in the Online Safety Act designed to protect the

The chancellor’s budget giveaway is, unfortunately, a reflection of how life works in the global aerospace businessIt wasn’t a “nothing” budget for engine-maker Rolls-Royce. The company was handed £1.25bn from public coffers to part-fund the development of a next-generation engine for single-aisle commercial planes.The chancellor buried this giveaway in two short sentences in the stodgy middle of his speech, presumably because it would look too much like a case of corporate welfare just after he

John Healey aced the morning-after media round because his Martin Lewis measures left nothing to challenge him on Maybe it had been one of the greatest acts of political genius after all. The day after the budget is usually the moment when things start to fall apart. When clued-up journalists and economists have had a chance to go through all the fine points the chancellor would rather everyone had missed. The forecasts that suggest everything is predicated on a wing and a prayer. The hidden unf

The chancellor outlined ‘the biggest wave of devolution in a generation’ – but large swathes of the country are excludedBudget 2026: key points at a glanceIn just two years, there could be dozens of mayors preparing to spend billions of pounds as part of Andy Burnham’s mission to devolve greater powers across England.Fresh devolution deals could also be in place following negotiations with leaders in Scotland, Wales and possibly Northern Ireland, allowing the prime minister to say at the next el

Chancellor cuts business rates for more small businesses and limits rise in minimum wage for younger workersBudget 2026: key points at a glance“It is like letting the tyres down and then handing you a pump,” says James Nye, assessing the relief handed to businesses in John Healey’s first budget as chancellor.The managing director of Norfolk’s Anglian Country Inns argues that the budget made a “couple of steps towards helping” but added more labour costs for already burdened companies. Continue r

Banks, landlords and gambling firms will pay more as the chancellor begins building a fairer economy and a more active state in a cost of living crisisJohn Healey’s first budget was a Rorschach test. Supporters saw dozens of measures offering “breathing space” to a public worn down by rising prices. Critics admitted to a slew of announcements but countered that each was modest in value. Underlying both views is that the budget was more ambitious on how a state can do more to protect the public t

Reform UK leader ‘shocked’ by £10bn pledged to Ukraine and doubles down on cutting tax for crypto investorsBudget 2026: key points at a glanceNigel Farage skipped the chancellor’s first budget because he was worried he would get in a “physical altercation” with another MP in a row over seating arrangements.The Reform UK leader admitted he was not present in the House of Commons but gave a press conference afterwards in which he said he was “shocked” by the £10bn going to support Ukraine and doub

OBR says that living standards are forecast to rise by just 1% over the whole post-Covid decadeBudget 2026: key points at a glanceMartin Lewis said that, when he met John Healey this morning, the chancellor said that, having removed standing charges from gas bills, he would also like to get rid of them from electricity bills. Lewis said:The chancellor said he will be talking to Ofgem about how they get rid of the charge on electricity as well, but that is ‘trickier’ apparently and will take long

Armed with 98 measures, a rictus grin and a decidedly comedy-free speech, the chancellor at least offered us – and Labour – some breathing spaceIt was as if John Healey was taking the Hippocratic oath. First do no harm. For your first budget, this may be no bad thing: we can all think of plenty of chancellors who have done untold damage. Take a bow George Osborne. It might just have been better if the doctor that Healey had chosen to impersonate was not Dr Death.John can’t help looking like the

John Healey has delivered a ‘steady as she goes’ budget, with help for the cost of living a big theme. The chancellor promised a £100 energy payment for some households, extended the VAT suspension on electricity bills to next July and confirmed the scrapping of gas standing charges.But after months of the same old message of ‘hope in difficult times’, and many of the big decisions on tax and spending delayed until next year, what should we take away from today? Continue reading...