Politics

The Labour manifesto never did add up. On the one hand, Keir Starmer vowed there would be “no return to austerity” under his government, while also insisting he had “no plans” to raise taxes beyond an £8bn raid on private equity, oil and gas companies, private school fees and non-doms to pay for more teachers

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will promise to “invest, invest, invest” in Labour’s first budget for 15 years. Ms Reeves – who is set to stand up in the Commons just after 12.30pm on Wednesday – will also give a pledge that “working people won’t face higher taxes in their payslips”. However, she will clarify that Labour’s

Kemi Badenoch has suggested she will offer all six candidates in the Tory leadership race a job in her shadow cabinet if she is elected leader. The Tory leadership hopeful, who is competing against Robert Jenrick to become the next head of the Tory party, said she “did not know” if they would like the

The budget will deliver billions of pounds of new funding for the NHS to unlock two million extra appointments a year, the government has announced. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is expected to unveil £1.5bn for new surgical hubs and scanners alongside £70m for radiotherapy machines. An additional £1.8bn will also be put towards elective appointments

Briefings and speculation are rife over what will be included in the chancellor’s budget on Wednesday, particularly the scale of tax rises. The biggest expected revenue raiser, set to generate as much as £20bn for public services, is a hike in employers’ national insurance. Government sources have given strong indications of the chancellor’s thinking, prompting

People will not face higher taxes on their payslips after the budget, a cabinet minister said, as she refused to be drawn on what measures could be in the £40bn revenue raiser. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson repeatedly said she could not speculate on how Chancellor Rachel Reeves intends to fill the black hole in the

Mayors are set to be one of the big winners in the budget after Sir Keir Starmer personally intervened to ensure they have more freedom to spend cash and boost growth, Sky News understands. England’s dozen metro mayors have been working together to push the prime minister, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner for more powers

A Labour MP has said he was involved in an incident where he “felt threatened” and is cooperating with police. Mike Amesbury, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, said he felt “threatened on the street following an evening out with friends” on Friday night in Cheshire. “This morning, I contacted Cheshire Police myself to report

The UK has agreed to step up its partnership with Albania following a successful summer in which the two countries carried out a collaborative crackdown on drugs and crime. Senior Home Office officials will travel to Tirana, the capital of Albania, for further talks before Christmas on how to tackle serious and organised crime, as

Newly elected MPs are struggling to set up offices in their constituencies due to fears for their safety and spiralling rents, Sky News has learnt. Several MPs who spoke to Sky News said they believed landlords were becoming increasingly reluctant to have them as tenants due to the perceived risks that came with the job

Who counts as a working person will matter a lot next week when the new Labour government unveils what is being billed as a historic budget. Sir Keir Starmer used the phrase “working people” repeatedly in the general election as he sought to reassure voters he wasn’t going to raise their taxes. But as this

Apologising for the UK’s role in the slave trade is “not on the agenda,” Downing Street has said amid the row engulfing the Commonwealth summit. The prime minister has called the transatlantic slave trade “abhorrent” but ruled out reparations as he said countries affected would rather the UK help them with current issues, such as

Public investment in new technologies and the energy transition is “badly needed” to drive growth in the UK and prevent the national debt rising to risky levels, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned. Speaking as Rachel Reeves travelled to Washington to attend her first IMF annual meeting as chancellor, the body identified the UK

Sir Keir Starmer has rejected calls for reparations for slavery, saying it would lead to “very long, endless discussions” about the past. The prime minister said while the transatlantic slave trade was “abhorrent”, he believes the countries affected by it would rather the UK help them with contemporary challenges, such as the impact of climate

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted his relationship with Donald Trump has not been jeopardised after the Trump team filed a legal complaint against the Labour Party over its activists travelling to the US to support Kamala Harris in the tightly fought US presidential race. The prime minister said on Tuesday he had “established a good

One prisoner let out today under the government’s early release scheme celebrated by saying “big up Keir Starmer”. But Number 10 did not see the funny side of the situation – with the prime minister’s spokesperson saying Sir Keir “shares the public’s anger” over the matter. Today is the second time the Labour government has

Tougher punishments outside prison are being considered as part of a government review into sentencing. The review will be launched on Tuesday by Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood in a bid to ease overcrowding in the prison system. Led by former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke, the review will be activated on the same day that

Sir Keir Starmer has praised the King for doing a “fantastic job” after he was heckled by a senator in the Australian parliament. The prime minister said the King was an “incredible ambassador” for the UK and the 56 independent countries that make up the Commonwealth. He was speaking after the monarch was heckled by

The health secretary has warned of “difficult and big choices” coming in the budget, while refusing to rule out that tax thresholds will be frozen. Wes Streeting told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme the government “can’t fix 14 years in one budget” and there are lots of choices “we will have to

A housing minister has lost her building safety brief after Grenfell survivors complained about her attendance at a conference sponsored by a firm criticised by an inquiry into the deadly fire. Rushanara Ali said she understands that “perception matters” and trusted relationships between the government and the Grenfell community are “essential”. It came after Grenfell

A housing minister has lost her building safety brief after Grenfell survivors complained about her attendance at a conference sponsored by a firm criticised by an inquiry into the deadly fire. Rushanara Ali said she understands that “perception matters” and trusted relationships between the government and the Grenfell community are “essential”. It came after Grenfell

One in five councillors in England and Wales have received death threats or threats of violence, according to a new survey. The findings from the Local Government Association (LGA) come as the group calls for the UK government to take more action to protect councillors and other local political figures. Almost three-quarters of those who

The world “will not tolerate any more excuses on humanitarian assistance” from Israel on the situation in Gaza, the prime minister has said. Speaking following a meeting with US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer sought to make the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar a

The son of Jimmy Lai, the tycoon and pro-democracy activist jailed in China, has called for “urgent” intervention from the UK as his father’s health deteriorates in solitary confinement. British citizen Mr Lai, one of the most prominent critics of the Chinese Communist Party, has been in prison in Hong Kong since December 2020. He

Sir Keir Starmer will travel to Germany on Friday for talks with Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron on the situation in the Middle East. The leaders of the UK, the US, Germany and France will discuss the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza, where the UN has warned essential supplies for survival are

Several government departments failed to agree their spending settlement by yesterday’s deadline in a sign of ongoing turbulence over the budget, Sky News can reveal.  A number of departments have still been unable to agree with the Treasury on the scale of cuts they will be expected to deliver in the next two years, despite

Former prime minister David Cameron has opened up about the death of his six-year-old son Ivan in 2009 – and described the “chaos” of caring for him while balancing a life in politics. Speaking to Sky’s Kay Burley, the former Tory leader, 58, said the loss of Ivan – who had Ohtahara’s syndrome – was

Labour’s first budget in 14 years will be delivered on 30 October, and as per the warnings of Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer, it will not be one the public is likely to welcome. The chancellor and prime minister have spent months preparing the stage for a “painful” budget, where tax rises are likely

Sir Keir Starmer met Taylor Swift when he attended her concert in Wembley, Sky News understands. It has emerged the prime minister and his family spoke to the pop star and her mum for 10 minutes and discussed the Southport stabbings. It had not been clear previously if the two had met. Sir Keir’s attendance

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to support a new law to ban smartphones in schools to stop children “doom-scrolling” – after Number 10 refused to back the plan. New Labour MP Josh MacAlister is calling for the government to make legal changes to make social media and smartphones less addictive for children and to

It was billed as a “big moment” for the Starmer administration and, arriving at Labour’s International Investment Summit, it was clear how seriously the government was taking it The venue was the spectacular 15th century Guildhall in the heart of the City of London, where 200 leading executives gathered with the UK’s prime minister, cabinet,

Google’s former boss has warned Sir Keir Starmer that he would fail to meet his 2030 clean energy goal unless he fixes UK regulations. Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive officer, said he believes Sir Keir can speed up regulation bureaucracy to ensure the government reaches its goal of decarbonising electricity by 2030. But he

Alex Salmond was the undisputed figurehead of the independence movement for decades.  He was the instantly recognisable, colourful, controversial, and complicated face of a movement that Salmond dragged from the fringes to the forefront of political discourse in the Scotland we know today. Although Salmond has been on the sidelines of the show in recent