Reform and Tories battle over the Budget with spending cuts calls November 18, 2025 Opposition parties Reform UK and the Conservatives are intensifying pressure on Labour ahead of the Budget with calls for dramatic spending cuts to fix public finances. In separate press conferences on Tuesday, leaders Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch called for deep cuts to government expenditure to balance the books. Their renewed attacks on the government [...]
CEOs say Reeves and Starmer are not doing enough – BGF boss November 18, 2025 Business leaders across the country feel the Labour government “certainly does not appear to be doing enough” to support them, the chief executive of investment giant BGF has said. Speaking on an up-coming episode of City AM’s Boardroom Uncovered podcast, Andy Gregory said a recent survey of BGF’s portfolio has revealed views from business leaders [...]
Banks back in Reeves’ tax targets amid Budget whiplash November 18, 2025 Britain’s banking giants are back in the Budget crosshairs as Chancellor Rachel Reeves mulls a tax raid on lenders’ profits. Banks had been expected to be spared from a tax grab in the forthcoming Budget due to Reeves’ inclination to protect the financial services sector, following a concerted lobbying effort by top finance chiefs. But [...]
Budget could hand economy £60bn if small businesses supported November 18, 2025 Small businesses could provide a £60bn injection to the UK economy if the Autumn Budget meets firm’s needs, fresh research has indicated. Fresh research from Barclays Business Prosperity Index showed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were playing it cautious ahead of the Budget, even more so than their larger corporate counterparts. Firms hit pause on [...]
‘Shenanigans’: Did the OBR save Reeves from hiking income taxes at the Budget? November 18, 2025 For weeks, Chancellor Rachel Reeves had been engaged in an extraordinary communications exercise of expectation management, leading Brits to believe that income tax was about to hiked for the first time in 50 years. In an unusual press conference earlier this month, she told journalists that everyone would have to contribute to the Labour government’s [...]
Consumer confidence plunges as Labour under fire November 17, 2025 Consumer confidence plunged to a four-month low last month, a leading survey has suggested, as Budget tax rumours shared by Labour officials instilled fear in Britons up and down the country. S&P Global’s UK consumer sentiment index slipped back in November as households became more nervous about their finances. The reading for household finances dropped [...]
Andy Haldane: Budget speculation is hitting growth November 17, 2025 Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane has said there is “without a shadow of a doubt” a direct link between feverish Budget speculation and sluggish growth in the UK economy. In an interview on Sky News on Monday morning, the incoming president of the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) told Sophy Ridge that [...]
University tuition fee hike to prop up high inflation November 17, 2025 A rise in university tuition fees and volatile airfare prices are expected to prop up price growth as economists are pencilling in slightly lower inflation in October than in the previous month. Economists polled by Bloomberg said they expected consumer price index (CPI) inflation to reach 3.6 per cent in fresh data to be released [...]
Rachel Reeves panics markets by ditching plans for income tax hike November 14, 2025 Rachel Reeves is understood to have scrapped plans to break Labour’s manifesto and hike income tax in the forthcoming Autumn Budget. The Chancellor was poised to hike income tax by 2p whilst cutting national insurance by the same amount in a move that would break Labour’s pledge to not raise taxes on ‘working people.’ Over [...]
Redundancies and scant vacancies weakens jobs market November 14, 2025 A fall in the number of vacancies and growth in the jobseekers pool due to more redundancies has led to a further decline in the jobs market, a leading survey has indicated. Official data this week showed a jump in the unemployment rate from 4.8 per cent to five per cent in a set of [...]