Badenoch bets on experience as Griffith and Tugendhat claim shadow cabinet top spots August 31, 2026 Andrew Griffith has been announced as the new shadow chancellor, replacing Sir Mel Stride in a Conservative Party reshuffle carried out before parliament returns on Tuesday. Griffith, who was the shadow business secretary, will now lead on economic policy for the Tories heading up a new Conservative Economics Unit. Kemi Badenoch’s decision to sack Stride [...]
Reform sidelines crypto industry at pivotal conference August 28, 2026 Reform UK is set to sideline crypto companies at its conference next week and cut the industry’s access to senior figures after backlash over Nigel Farage’s £5m gift from a bitcoin billionaire, City AM can reveal. Reform was an early champion of the digital currency and tokenisation industries, which have been a mainstay at previous [...]
Neets dip below one million as Labour blamed for youth unemployment August 27, 2026 The number of Neets, who are young people not in employment, education or training, has fallen marginally below the one million mark, the UK’s official data body said. The Office for National Statistics said it estimated the number of people aged between 16 and 24 out of work to be about 981,000 in the three [...]
Reform to slash HMRC officials’ pay if taxpayers wait too long August 26, 2026 HMRC officials would be fined and dismissed if they keep taxpayers waiting too long to deal with government services under a Reform UK government. If Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister, customer services officers at the tax collector would have their pay tied to performance levels and be required to keep waiting times to below 30 [...]
Jenrick pledges reform for small businesses August 25, 2026 Reform UK’s economics chief Robert Jenrick has billed a package of tax and red tape reforms for small businesses as the “biggest plan” presented in a decade. A week before the party’s conference in Birmingham, Jenrick has hailed a number of flagship policies designed to appeal to bosses employing fewer than 50 employees. The party [...]
Jenrick: Welfare cuts worth £50bn allows us to ‘sustainably pay’ triple lock pension August 17, 2026 Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has said a £50bn welfare cut plan allows the state to “sustainably pay” for the triple lock pension. In a press conference on Monday, Jenrick said plans to strip welfare from around 3m people, including foreign nationals, would be the biggest overhaul of the benefits system in a generation. Jenrick said [...]
Nigel Farage wins in Clacton – and triggers investigation August 14, 2026 Nigel Farage’s re-election has triggered a parliamentary investigation into his financial affairs after he swept to victory in the Clacton by-election. The Reform UK leader won with over 11,000 more votes than the novelty candidate Count Binface, who was the main opposition after every other major party refused to take part in the poll. The [...]
Vodafone defends migrant SIM scheme after Reform threat August 13, 2026 Vodafone has defended its charity SIM card programme after Reform UK threatened the telecoms giant with government contract bans and its bosses with prison over thousands of cards distributed through Care4Calais. The telecoms group said its programme provides SIM cards to registered UK charities for distribution to vulnerable people in Britain, after Reform shadow home [...]
Energy discount scheme for homes near new pylons branded ‘bribe’ by Reform August 12, 2026 Households around north London and a series of other places where new pylons are being built will receive electricity bill discounts from next year in a scheme branded as a “bribe” by Reform UK. Families living in more than 40 locations across Britain — mostly in Scotland — will receive biannual cash discounts on bills. [...]
Burnham bounce: PM gets popularity boost – at Farage’s expense August 10, 2026 Andy Burnham scored a sharp boost in popularity ratings in July just as Nigel Farage’s ratings cratered, new polling has found. The latest City AM/Freshwater Strategy poll of UK voters has shown that Burnham’s approval ratings jumped by 12 points in July from a net score of zero, making him the most positively received figure [...]