Category Archives: UK news

Treasury to delay publishing OBR forecast by six weeks after 7 October delivery – UK politics live

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Budget watchdog to give assessment of fiscal plans next week but public will have to wait until chancellor’s November statement

Following a meeting with the prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed it will deliver an initial forecast on 7 October.

A spokesperson for the OBR said:

[The forecast] will, as always, be based on our independent judgment about economic and fiscal prospects and the impact of the government’s policies.

We discussed the economic and fiscal outlook, and the forecast we are preparing for the chancellor’s medium-term fiscal plan.

We will deliver the first iteration of that forecast to the chancellor on Friday 7 October, and will set out the full timetable up to 23 November next week.

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Social media firms ‘monetising misery’, says Molly Russell’s father after inquest

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Coroner finds harmful online content likely to have contributed to Molly’s death ‘in a more than minimal way’

Molly Russell’s father has accused the world’s biggest social media firms of “monetising misery” after an inquest ruled that harmful online content contributed to the 14-year-old’s death.

Ian Russell accused Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, of guiding his daughter on a “demented trail of life-sucking content”, after the landmark ruling raised the regulatory pressure on social media companies.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.

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How Truss’s post-Brexit farming policy descended into chaos

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Rumours rife as farmers fear PM plans U-turn on financial subsidy measures to improve environment

The chaos in the English countryside began with the click of a civil servant’s mouse. At the end of last week, farmers who had been working with the government on environmental subsidy schemes saw that their regular meetings about it had been removed from their online diaries without warning.

This appeared to hint at what had been feared – that the new post-Brexit farming subsidy scheme was in danger of being scrapped.

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Currys raises pay for third time in 13 months amid staff shortage

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Electrical goods retailer keen to attract and retain workers as cost of living increases

Currys has raised pay for the third time in 13 months to attract and retain workers amid a labour shortage and rise in the cost of living.

The electrical goods retailer said that from 30 October it was increasing rates by 3.5% to a minimum of £10.35 an hour (£11.43 in London), only a month after a previous rise came into effect.

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Truss and Kwarteng to hold back OBR forecasts for six weeks

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PM and chancellor say they will not publish projections until late November despite them being ready next week

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will refuse to release forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) until more than six weeks after receiving them, despite calls for them to be published as soon as possible.

The prime minister and chancellor said they would only publish the independent forecasts on 23 November alongside a fiscal statement, despite them being ready on 7 October.

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English Heritage to host ghost story tours at five monasteries

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Tours at sites in north of England aim to be academically rigorous and shed light on the ruins’ deeper histories

“It is autumnal isn’t it, you can feel the death and decay,” said the clearly delighted historian Michael Carter as he prepared to embark on a new venture at some of England’s most spectacular and atmospheric ruins.

English Heritage will this weekend begin a new series of ghost story tours at five of its northern monasteries.

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Arab diplomats urge Liz Truss not to move British embassy to Jerusalem

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Private letter says ‘illegal’ plan could jeopardise free trade deal between UK and Gulf Cooperation Council

Arab ambassadors in London are urging Liz Truss not to go ahead with “an illegal and ill-judged” plan to move the British embassy to Jerusalem.

Some Arab diplomats have even said the plan could jeopardise talks on a highly prized free trade deal between the UK and the Gulf Cooperation Council due to be completed this year.

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OBR: we offered to update forecasts in time for ‘mini-budget’ – live

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Watchdog said it was ready to supply information, but was not asked to do so by Kwasi Kwarteng

Q: Can you reassure listeners that your judgment is better than that of people like the IMF and the Bank of England, who have criticised the mini-budget?

Truss says:

I have to do what I believe is right for the country and what is going to help move our country forward.

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Liz Truss to attend first meeting of European Political Community

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Inaugural summit of EU initiative that aims to unite Europe on issues such as security and energy to take place in Prague

Liz Truss will attend the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC) next week, an initiative by the EU aimed at uniting the continent to work together on security and other common projects.

The prime minister plans to attend the first EPC summit in Prague on 6 October, a No 10 source told the Guardian, despite her scepticism about the EU-led initiative.

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Buy-to-let landlords facing financial cliff edge after mini-budget

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Mortgage market meltdown has left many amateur landlords facing a stark choice: to raise rents or sell up

Britain’s amateur landlords have benefited from years of runaway house price inflation, while intense competition among tenants has sent rents soaring. Now, thanks to the meltdown in the mortgage market triggered by last week’s disastrous mini-budget, many face a financial cliff edge.

Figures shared with the Guardian show that the number of new buy-to-let mortgage deals available has plummeted by 55% in less than a week as lenders frantically pulled products and in many cases increased prices.

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Germany unveils €200bn help for consumers and says it won’t follow UK’s route

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Finance minister announces €200bn fund to protect citizens from rising gas prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine

Germany’s finance minister has vowed that he will not follow the UK “down the path of an expansionary fiscal policy” as his government announced a €200bn (£177bn) fund designed to protect consumers and businesses from rising gas prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Europe’s largest economy will reactivate an economic stabilising fund previously used during the global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, said the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at a joint press conference with the finance minister, Christian Lindner, and the economic minister, Robert Habeck, on Thursday afternoon.

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Thousands of children at risk as vaccination rates fall in England

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Health officials urge parents to ensure children have routine jabs amid fears of measles outbreak

Thousands of children face an increased risk of catching deadly diseases in England, and significant outbreaks are likely, child health experts have warned, as “alarming” figures show vaccination levels have plunged across virtually all jabs.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is urging parents and guardians to ensure their children have received the routine jabs against potentially serious diseases, such as polio and measles, after official data revealed a drop in vaccination rates.

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Man guilty of murdering secret lover and their son near Inverness in 1976

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Circumstantial evidence enough to convict William MacDowell, now 80, of killing Renee and Andrew MacRae

An 80-year-old man has been found guilty of murdering his secret lover and their three-year-old son almost half a century after the pair vanished without trace from a layby on the A9 near Inverness, concluding one of Scotland’s most extensive and longest-running missing persons investigations.

Although the bodies of Renee MacRae, who was 36 when she disappeared in 1976, and her younger son, Andrew, have never been found, William MacDowell, now 80, was convicted by a “compelling and classic case of circumstantial evidence”, as the prosecutor Alex Prentice KC described it in his closing speech to the jury.

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Behaviour adviser urges English schools to crack down on pupils’ vaping

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Headteachers say more children are using vapes, forcing them to take action to tackle the problem

The government’s school behaviour adviser has called on headteachers to crack down on vaping among pupils, calling it “a huge health hazard” and an “enormous distraction”, amid reports that more children are using the devices, including some of primary age.

Tom Bennett said vaping was now as big an issue in schools as cigarettes once were, with children becoming “addicted to the practice and the chemicals involved”.

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Treasury watchdog to ask Kwarteng to hand over growth forecasts

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Tory chair Mel Stride says watchdog needs to hear how chancellor will boost growth, and suggests one option might be via immigration

Kwasi Kwarteng will be called before parliament’s Treasury watchdog and asked to hand over independent growth forecasts, as its chairman said there is “not a very broad path” out of the current economic situation.

Mel Stride, a Conservative MP and chair of the Treasury committee, said Kwarteng was “very, very unlikely to reverse” the £45bn of unfunded permanent tax cuts he announced last Friday, even though that is an option. The alternative, he said, was to act quickly to “demonstrate to the markets that growth is realistic”. The third option would be deep cuts to public spending, but that would be difficult given the current pressure of inflation, Stride said.

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UK government faces court challenge in Nigerian rendition case

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Family of Nnamdi Kanu granted judicial review over failure of Britain to intervene after arrest last year

The family of a British citizen who was allegedly taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition has been granted a court hearing to challenge the UK government for not intervening in his case.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, was arrested in Kenya in June last year before being transported against his will to Nigeria, where he has been held ever since.

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English district councils warn support services for poorest face axe

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Services such as debt advice and hardship funds under threat amid £400m bill caused by inflation

A network of councils in England is warning support services for families hit hardest by the cost of living crisis face being axed amid an unexpected £400m bill caused by soaring inflation.

Services that district councils have no legal obligation to provide – such as debt and benefits advice, hardship funds for families, homelessness prevention projects and help hubs for people facing poverty – are under threat.

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Most students think UK universities protect free speech, survey finds

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King’s College London finds 65% believe campuses places of ‘robust debate’ – but growing number disagrees

Most UK students say their universities are places of free speech and debate – although a growing number are aware of free speech being restricted on campus, a study published by King’s College London has found.

The analysis, by KCL’s Policy Institute, found that 65% of students agreed that “free speech and robust debate are well protected in my university”, a higher proportion than the 63% who felt that way in a survey three years ago.

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Two aircraft involved in ‘minor collision’ on runway at Heathrow

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No injuries have been reported and there is no significant impact on departures or arrivals

Two aircraft have been involved in a “minor collision” on the runway at Heathrow, the airport has said.

Emergency services are at the scene but no injuries have been reported. An Icelandair plane and Korean Air aircraft are understood to have had a collision on the airfield at about 8pm on Wednesday, which is being investigated.

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Bank of England in £65bn scramble to avert financial crisis

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Bank of England left with no action but to intervene after Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget

The Bank of England has been forced into emergency action to halt a run on Britain’s pension funds after the impact of Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-received mini budget prompted fears of a 2008-style financial crisis.

Threadneedle Street said the fallout from a dramatic rise in government borrowing costs since the chancellor’s statement had left it with no choice but to intervene to protect the UK’s financial system.

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