Chancellor Rishi Sunak has urged wealthy households to donate their energy bill handout to charity. Every single UK household will receive at least one £400 grant. People claiming benefits can receive another £650. £300 extra will be given to pensioners, with another £150 set aside for each person on non means tested disability benefits. Quizzed…
Has a school subject ever been so badly let down by the government? Reading the latest data review into the subject, you could make a pretty good case for that subject being RE. GCSE entries up by a third in a decade. A 50 per cent percentage increase in A-level entries since 2003 – beating…
While there has been some appreciation of the difficulties caused by the Protocol that the EU has seen fit to impose upon Northern Ireland as part of Brexit, the extent of the difficulties has been, and continues to be, massively under-estimated. One clear example of this tendency is provided by the Sub Committee on the…
In a damning report from the foreign affairs committee, MPs say the Foreign Office, the National Security Advisor and Ministers must accept responsibility for the failure to prepare or respond, abandoning the UK’s allies and damaging the UK’s interests. Missing in action: UK leadership and the withdrawal from Afghanistan is the result of the committee’s inquiry…
Last weekend a fascist terrorist opened fire in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and injuring three others. Following the modus operandi of numerous previous terrorists, the killer livestreamed the attack online and published a manifesto. Twitch, the Amazon-owned platform used by the killer to broadcast his murderous rampage, took down the…
This afternoon foreign secretary Liz Truss has said the government intends to bring forward changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, should EU negotiations continue to stall. Truss said that the government’s “first priority” was maintaining the Good Friday Agreement “in all its dimensions”. She said Westminster felt the Agreement remains “under strain” and that they…
Labour have this afternoon criticised the foreign secretary’s plans for the future of UK international development. Labour’s shadow international development minister Preet Kaur Gill said the public would prefer an aid budget that was geared toward: “help[ing] those most in need around the world, not horse-traded for favours to big British corporations”. She went on:…
Nearly 2,500 years ago the Greek politician and general Pericles said: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you” and in my time as a politician I have learnt that, alas, there is virtually nothing that escapes politics and regulation. This is now the…
The levelling up secretary has contradicted the government’s previous suggestions an emergency budget could be on the horizon. Yesterday afternoon the prim minister suggested that he would be “saying more” about the government’s cost of living response “in the days to come. These comments came after policing minister Kit Malthouse refused to rule out an…
Policing minister Kit Malthouse has refused to rule out an emergency budget to tackle the ongoing cost of living crisis. Quizzed by Sky News this morning after British Chambers of Commerce head Shevaun Haviland urged the chancellor to tackle soaring costs, Malthouse explained that he “ did not know” if an emergency budget would happen.…