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The UK’s leading employers’ organisation has warned Rishi Sunak that businesses running short of cash and resilience cannot afford to wait six weeks for the budget to secure more financial help from the government. Tony Danker, the director-general of the CBI, called on the chancellor to extend the furlough scheme, defer VAT payments and resist […]

Lawyers for Jeremy Corbyn have accused the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, of making “inflammatory and disingenuous” attacks on his predecessor following a row over the party’s handling of antisemitism. At a high court hearing on Monday, Corbyn’s lawyers said documents would help prove there was a deal with Starmer’s office to readmit him to the […]

The prime minister appears to have had a personality transplant. There are those of us who remember Boris Johnson driving a JCB with “Get Brexit Done” on the front of the digger through a polystyrene wall marked “Gridlock” during the last general election. Others may recall him waving fish or a cheque for £350m made […]

The Treasury is considering a partial climbdown over plans to end the boost to universal credit amid pressure from the work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, and a slew of Tory MPs bruised by the school meals row. Speaking on Monday, Boris Johnson himself hinted at a rethink over the £20-a-week uplift, which is due […]

A Treasury minister has downplayed the need for immediate tax rises to tackle record levels of government borrowing caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Jesse Norman said a rapid economic recovery from the worst recession for more than three centuries could help ministers avoid increasing the tax take in response to record borrowing levels. Answering questions […]

Today’s Conservative party is the opposite of what it pretends to be. Boris Johnson’s great crusade, he claimed, was to level up Britain. Coronavirus affects everyone, but not equally. Wealthier folk can shrug off the economic shock; the poor cannot. The best way to help those at the very bottom of society is to give […]

The government is struggling to contain a potential backbench rebellion over its China policy after the Conservative Muslim Forum, the International Bar Association (IBA), and the prime minister’s former envoy on freedom of religious belief backed a move to give the UK courts a say in determining whether countries are committing genocide. The measure is […]

If two elderly Conservative canvassers had been hospitalised by members of Momentum, you can be sure the incident would make the outraged front pages of national newspapers. Indeed, during the last general election campaign, an alleged punch thrown by a Labour activist at a Tory adviser received wide attention from our broadcast media: it was […]

A coroner has called for a review into smart motorways, concluding that the lack of a hard shoulder contributed to the deaths of two men. Sheffield’s coroner, David Urpeth, said smart motorways, which allow motorists to drive on the hard shoulder, present an ongoing risk of future deaths. He said he will be writing to […]

Fishing lorries from Scotland and Devon descended on Westminster on Monday to stage a protest against the Brexit red tape they say is either delaying or ruining exports of their fresh shellfish to the EU. Trucks with slogans including “Brexit carnage” and “Incompetent government destroying shellfish industry” parked metres from Downing Street but they stopped […]

Brexit has beached the fishing boats at Hastings. The two-man crew of Paul Joy’s boat Kaya have left for shore jobs, after the price of the huss they land fell to just 2p a kilo. Exports to the European Union are Brexit-blighted, with fishers across Britain poleaxed by new costs and regulations, their catches rotting […]

A series of healthcare failures that could lead to more people dying from Covid-19 were highlighted by a coroner during rare inquests into deaths in the first wave of the pandemic. The senior coroner for Greater Manchester South, Alison Mutch, sent reports to NHS England, Public Health England and other authorities as part of her […]

The first phase of the UK’s Covid vaccination programme is under way, with priority groups including health workers and vulnerable groups. But debate continues over who will get first access to the vaccine among the rest of the population. Here, we look at the options. Black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities According to data from […]

We can see the U-turn coming, the tyres burning, the wheels screaming. The government will surely sooner or later decide to continue the £20-a-week uplift in universal benefits until the crisis ends. So why not do it now? Boris Johnson today ordered his MPs to abstain on a Labour motion demanding the uplift stays beyond […]

Boris Johnson believes people need to be “civil and kind to each other” in political debate, his spokeswoman has said, as she accused Labour of making the public worry unnecessarily by debating universal credit and free school meals. “The prime minister believes that all of us, in our political language and debate, need to remember […]

As several NHS trusts warned staff that they faced imminent collapse this month, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, gave a sunny interview to the Spectator. Looking to the vaccine as a “light at the end of the tunnel”, he outlined his desire to loosen restrictions the moment that enough vulnerable people had been vaccinated. The […]

Britain’s equality watchdog is being undermined by political pressure to support the government’s misguided agenda, a former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said. The criticism from David Isaac, the chair of the organisation from 2016 until August last year, follows a spate of controversy surrounding the EHRC, including the revelation […]