Wages soar to £1.5bn as HMRC ramps up on compliance staff September 24, 2025 HMRC has allocated over £1.5bn for 2024-25 to support staff in compliance, preventing and detecting fraud cases and collecting taxes, representing a 23 per cent increase on its 2021-22 staff bill. According to a freedom of information (FOI) shared with City AM by think tank Parliament Street, over the past fiscal year as part of [...]
Nigel Farage rows back on key migration pledges September 24, 2025 Nigel Farage has appeared to row back on key aspects of his legal migration pledges amid mounting questions over whether his figures stand up as well as fierce criticism from top lawyers and researchers on the viability of his plan to end Indefinite Leave to Remain. The Reform UK leader told LBC on Wednesday morning [...]
Pat McFadden says lifting two-child benefit cap must be budgeted September 24, 2025 Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden has conceded that any plans to lift the two-child benefit cap must be “budgeted” amid growing calls from key Labour figures for the Tory-era policy to be scrapped. McFadden warned Labour backbenchers that any commitment to lift the cap would have to be funded by higher government revenue. “Everything [...]
Even in Lib Dem Bournemouth, Farage makes the weather September 24, 2025 Two important speeches took place yesterday, attracting, I suspect, very different sized audiences. At the United Nations in New York, US President Donald Trump disregarded the 15 minute slot he’d been allocated to embark on a rambling, contentious, provocative and interesting speech to the assembled nations. Meanwhile, in Bournemouth, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, [...]
Rachel Reeves urged to reconsider Labour manifesto tax pledges September 24, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been warned that tweaking small levies and relying on the wealthy to contribute to the state would hinder growth as another prominent report has called for Labour manifesto commitments to be reversed. In a report by the Institute for Government (IfG), Labour strategists were criticised for the party’s “original sin” of [...]
Trump’s culture war turns Europe into a ‘Truman Show’ spectacle September 23, 2025 US President Donald Trump and the American MAGA movement have launched a ‘culture war’ on Europe, says a new think tank report, warning that this transatlantic clash is reshaping European politics. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) report, published on Tuesday, claims the US is waging its ‘culture [...]
Ed Davey claims Farage will make UK ‘Trump’s America’ September 23, 2025 Ed Davey told Lib Dem members that Nigel Farage would make the UK “Trump’s America” if he were elected prime minister, with claims that Reform would destroy the NHS and roll back gun laws among the main messages made by the Liberal Dem’s leader in his conference speech. Speaking to the party faithful in Bournemouth, [...]
India Business Group awards celebrate cross-border collaboration September 23, 2025 The deepening commercial relationship between the UK and India was thrust into the spotlight last night as business leaders gathered at the House of Lords for the fourth annual Indian Awards, hosted by the India Business Group (IBG). The gala event came just months after the signing of a landmark Free Trade Agreement between the [...]
Maro Itoje eyes politics: ‘Opportunity to effect real change is attractive’ September 23, 2025 England, Saracens and British and Irish Lions captain Maro Itoje has talked up his interest in a career in politics when he hangs up his rugby boots. Itoje, 30, discussed his post-playing ambitions in an appearance on the Rest Is Politics podcast with Westminster veterans Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. “It’s something that is of [...]
Startups tell Labour to snatch talent ‘displaced’ by Trump’s H-1B fee September 23, 2025 An entrepreneur campaign group backed by executives at top UK businesses has urged the Labour government to re-design its Global Talent visa to take innovators “displaced” by President Trump’s radical changes to the H-1B visa. The Startup Coalition has urged Home Office officials to change its Global Talent visa to help individuals re-locate from the [...]