UK politics: Sunak refuses to say how abolition of national insurance would be funded – as it happened

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Admin

PM says ‘people trust me on these things’ and refuses to be drawn on whether government would forgo entire £46bn raised from measure

Keir Starmer has accused Jeremy Hunt of repeating the budget mistakes made by Liz Truss during her disastrous premiership.

In comments on the budget during a visit to a building site this morning, Starmer focused on Hunt’s proposal to abolish employees’ national insurance over time, saying that this was a bigger unfunded tax promise than those in Truss’s mini-budget. (See 9.28am.)

How humiliating was that for the government yesterday?

We’ve argued for years that they should get rid of the non-dom tax status, they’ve resisted that. And now, completely out of ideas, the only decent policy they’ve got is the one that they’ve lifted from us.

Nothing that Jeremy Hunt did yesterday, nor anything the OBR said, changes anything very significantly. Which is a shame. Because that means we are still:

-heading for a parliament in which people will on average be worse off at the end than at the start,

University Challenge special axed over lack of support for disabled contestants

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Admin

Christmas alumni episode had one blind entrant and another who was neurodivergent, both of whom say they did not get help

The BBC has apologised and pulled a Christmas episode of University Challenge after two contestants complained about a lack of provision for their disabilities.

The festive spin-off from the BBC Two quiz show, hosted by Amol Rajan, features teams of distinguished alumni who compete on behalf of their former universities.

BBC’s Amol Rajan criticised for using phrase ‘pro-life’ in Roe v Wade interview

Posted on June 25, 2022 by Admin

Pro-choice campaigners say hearing the term, seen as partisan, on Today programme was ‘disappointing’

One of the BBC’s most high-profile presenters has been criticised for using the term “pro-life” to describe anti-abortion campaigners in a discussion about the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.

The term, which is considered partisan, was used twice by Amol Rajan during Saturday morning’s Today programme on Radio 4, in segments about the landmark ruling ending Americans’ constitutional right to abortion.

The Princes and the Press review – more degrading airing of the royal dirty laundry

Posted on November 22, 2021 by Admin

BBC programme is a compelling analysis of the troubled relationship between media and monarchy

A few days before her wedding, Meghan decided she wanted to wear a particular tiara with emeralds. True, this isn’t the sort of issue that should trouble citizens of a mature democracy but when it comes to royals, Britain is neither mature nor, let’s face it, democratic. Indeed, Amol Rajan, the BBC media editor who presented the Princes and the Press (BBC Two), is a declared republican who once branded the royal family as “absurd” and the media as a “propaganda outlet” for the monarchy. As his measured, compelling analysis of the troubled relationship showed, he may have been right about the former, but the latter? Not so much. The media, we might conclude from his programme, may be driving the monarchy to self-destruct, which would, ironically enough, suit his earlier republican views.

Back to tiaras. There was a problem: the Duchess of Sussex could not be allowed to wear the emerald tiara because it had some unfortunate history to do with Russia, according to the Sun’s former correspondent Dan Wootton. We never learned what that history was nor why it should matter. What we did learn from Wootton’s report is that Harry reportedly shouted at a royal dresser (who is a person, not a thing) that “whatever Meghan wants, Meghan gets.” This in turn prompted the Queen to tell somebody off.