French AI boss calls for youth mobility scheme July 9, 2025 The boss of one of France’s most successful tech start-ups has thrown her weight behind calls for a youth mobility scheme between the EU and UK, warning that Europe must have access to deep pools of talent to stand a chance of competing in the AI arms race. Eleonore Crespo, co-founder of business planning unicorn [...]
Wealth and stealth: Starmer eyes fresh tax hikes July 9, 2025 Keir Starmer has refused to rule out a wealth tax or so-called stealth taxes, a day after the fiscal watchdog said unfunded spending commitments on welfare put the public finances under intense pressure. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) gave a damning verdict of the state of public finances in a comprehensive report published on [...]
Brutal bean-counters break the news: we’re utterly broke July 9, 2025 These are difficult times for a news organisation that likes to think of itself as being on the glass-half-full side of life. Optimism is in short supply, and whatever reserves remained after 12 months of this government were snatched away from us yesterday by those bean-counting assassins at the Office for Budget Responsibility. Once a [...]
Rachel Reeves to face fresh blow with sluggish growth data July 8, 2025 The UK economy is expected to have grown by a miserly 0.1 per cent in May, consensus among City economists suggests, undermining Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ commitment to deliver higher growth. The government’s difficult two weeks could get a whole lot worse on Friday morning when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes data on GDP [...]
EDF investment hailed as ‘vote of confidence in UK’, despite reduced stake July 8, 2025 The Prime Minister has hailed investment by French energy giant EDF in the Sizewell C nuclear plant as “a vote of confidence in the UK as an investment destination”, though the company appears to be taking a reduced stake in the major project. The French state-owned electricity company said it had agreed in principle to [...]
OBR warns unfunded spending to damage UK finances amid ‘daunting’ risks July 8, 2025 The UK economy is set for a “daunting” year as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned unfunded spending commitments and global trade tensions are likely to damage public finances. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is facing pressure to assuage Labour backbenchers by not cutting welfare spending while also upholding a pledge not to raise tax [...]
Charities ‘penalised’ by Rachel Reeves’ taxes July 8, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ hike to employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) has “penalised” staff at charities up and down the UK, a new study has suggested. Rachel Reeves has reportedly suggested the £20bn tax raid on mid-sized firms was “low hanging fruit” to provide extra funding for the NHS and schools. But the collateral damage from [...]
Labour voters are suffering from buyers’ remorse July 8, 2025 32 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2024 say that they regret voting the way that they did at the last General Election, compared to just 15 per cent of all voters, according to the latest City AM/Freshwater Strategy Poll, says Matthew Lesh Even the Chancellor’s harshest critics must have felt a flicker [...]
Labour go on about Liz Truss but are repeating all Rishi Sunak’s mistakes July 8, 2025 Too many in Labour congratulate themselves for rescuing the country from Liz Truss, forgetting that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt did most of the work. No wonder backbenchers are angry about a policy platform that’s barely distinct form their Tory predecessors, says Will Cooling There’s no shortage of things that have gone wrong with the [...]
A wealth tax would be a disaster – and an admission of total failure July 8, 2025 Why wouldn’t Downing Street rule out a wealth tax? It isn’t difficult, you just say “we will not introduce a wealth tax” and the show moves on. Instead, when asked about the growing clamour in Labour circles for new tax aimed squarely at the well-off, Downing Street’s spokesperson simply talked about the need for “the [...]