London Sports Festival moves from 3×3 basketball success to pickleball at the City of London Corporation’s Guildhall Yard
Bingo halls at risk if Burnham hikes taxes, Mecca Bingo owner warns Hospitality Britain’s “much-loved” bingo halls are at risk if the Andy Burnham commits to a £460m hike on gambling taxes, the owner of Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo has said. Richard Harris, chief executive of Rank Group, said on Thursday: “Tax proposals from anti-gambling campaigners continue to cast clouds over a regulated industry that is proud [...]
Devolution should mean regions competing for investment Opinion The next phase of devolution should focus less on how funding is distributed and more on how growth is rewarded, says Gus Wiseman For more than 30 years, governments have tried to rebalance England’s economy by directing funding towards regions outside London and the South East. Many of those programmes have delivered worthwhile projects, but [...]
Banning vape shops won’t fix scuzzy high streets Opinion Andy Burnham’s plans to revamp high streets by cutting down on vape shops aren’t ambitious enough, says Joseph Dinnage Andy Burnham is taking his hand to cleaning up Britain’s high streets. Commenting on the degradation of our urban centres, Burnham said that many areas have been “hollowed out”, and that the high streets we grew [...]
Burnham’s devolution drive could ‘push 90,000 jobs out of London’ August 12, 2026 Roughly 90,000 of London’s white-collar jobs could be pushed into other parts of the country as Andy Burnham accelerates his devolution drive, a top recruitment firm has predicted. Legal, banking and accounting firms could be among those to shift thousands of jobs away from the capital in a bid to capitalise on the Prime Minister’s [...]
Labour’s ‘chaotic’ zero-hour crackdown could cost firms £3bn per year August 12, 2026 Labour’s ‘chaotic’ crackdown on zero-hour contracts could cost businesses nearly £3bn every year, though firms have warned the real cost could spiral even higher. The cost of the new rules, which include offering guaranteed-hour contracts to flexible employees and paying workers for cancelled shifts, has been revealed in a government impact assessment. The reforms could [...]
Emergency government meeting held over high temperature amid ‘strain on public finances’ August 12, 2026 The government will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the country’s response to this summer’s high temperatures and drought amid fears that it will add a “strain” on the public finances. Prime Minister Andy Burnham will chair the ‘Cobra’ meeting of ministers overseeing health, water, housing and local government, as well as officials from agencies [...]
Andy Burnham to ‘go further’ in business rates reform August 12, 2026 Andy Burnham said he would “go further” in introducing business rates reform after already announcing that property taxes would be cut for pubs in return for higher levies on vape shops. The Prime Minister said he will look to bring in more radical changes to the business rates system as part of efforts to ease [...]
The Burnham bounce won’t last unless Brits get better off August 12, 2026 Andy Burnham’s approval ratings are soaring but Labour’s overall vote has only moved moderately. The real test will be the Budget, says Matthew Lesh Andy Burnham has undoubtedly had a significantly stronger start to his premiership than Keir Starmer. Just two years ago, the government got off to a rotten beginning by signalling tax rises [...]
The City is awash with talk of an early general election August 12, 2026 Every month since January 2025 we’ve run a nationwide survey of UK voters, with our polling partners Freshwater Strategy. The latest set of results, our 20th survey of voters’ attitudes, landed on Monday and I’ve been going through the data. Here’s an interesting development: For 19 consecutive months we’ve asked voters whether they felt the [...]
Can John Healey deliver Burnham’s make-or-break devolution agenda? August 11, 2026 Devolution is Andy Burnham’s preferred growth lever. Maurício Alencar explores how devolution under Chancellor John Healey could save Britain – or destroy it. In 1998, two of the closest aides of then-chancellor Gordon Brown produced a report into the regional economic divide in Britain. The report, called ‘Towards a new regional policy: Delivering growth and [...]