The Independent reports that leading charities have warned that nearly 200,000 families will be pushed into poverty or deeper poverty due to Labour's decision not to end the freeze on housing benefits at the Budget. The paper says that in an open letter to prime minister Andy Burnham groups, including the Trussell Trust, Generation Rent and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation say that maintaining the measure will "critically undermine" his commitment to end rough sleeping: The formula used to calculate housing benefit levels - the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) - has been frozen since April 2024. The mechanism is designed to ...
Dan Harrison has resigned as leader of Leicestershire County Council's minority Reform UK administration, reports BBC News: It comes after Harrison had apologised after being recorded saying 76 council solicitors would be made redundant, branding them "incompetent", before saying "what I want to look at now is the women", in remarks which were then released on social media. Harrison has said that his deputy Kevin Crook will become the council's acting leader. The Reform Party UK Exposed Bluesky has talked of rumours that several Reform councillors are in talks with Restore Britain or considering going independent. See last week's Harborough ...
John Rogers writes on YouTube: This picturesque walk takes us across the vanished landscape of the Wantsum Channel which once separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland. We start at Herne Bay Pier and talk about the great French artist Marcel Duchamp's relationship with the town. At Reculver we explore the ruins of the medieval church and monastery and the Roman fort. Then we walk across the windswept land that once lie under the sea before strolling in the sunset through Birchington-on-sea, Westgate-on-sea and arriving in Margate in the dark. A truly memorable walk. I have been to Herne ...
I went into Leicester today to see Pawel Pawlowski's new film Fatherland and also to buy the new issue of Fortean Times at the T.G. Jones on Leicester station. Fatherland is well worth seeing, but here are a couple of minor quibbles occasioned by my flick through the magazine on the bus home. David Hambling writes in his regular science column about some regions' claims to have lots of inhabitants who have lived well past the age of 100 - and about how they generally prove to be unfounded upon investigation. One region that made such a claim was Abkhazia ...
New Zealand's Opportunity Party (TOP) could hold the balance of power after the 7 November election. A late-October poll put it on 7.2%, potentially securing nine MPs and entering Parliament for the first time. For Liberal Democrats, TOP's significance lies in its radical centrism: combining support for enterprise and growth with substantial reforms to taxation, income security and economic power. Its policies connect two questions too often discussed separately: how do we produce more wealth, and how should we distribute it? Security and productive investment TOP's flagship proposal combines a Citizen's Income of approximately NZ$19,400 annually for eligible adults with ...
In the years after Labour came to power in 1997, NHS healthcare improved rapidly. Waiting lists came down, we were offered a greater choice of providers through a new Choose and Book scheme and walk-in centres were set up, meaning patients could be seen on the day in the community for urgent health problems. But no more. No one can fail to have noticed the decline in NHS healthcare provision in England in recent years: long waits to see a GP for routine appointments; more GP consultations over the phone instead of face-to-face; even longer waits for outpatient appointments and ...
Anna Sabine MP (photo: Frome & East Somerset Lib Dems) Anna Sabine, the Liberal Democrat MP for Frome and East Somerset, has spoken about her experience of losing and then partly regaining her voice. She lost her voice after a thyroid operation in June and used a microphone to speak in the House of Commons, but woke one morning a few weeks ago to find it had regained some of its natural strength. LBC reports what she has told the Press Association about this experience: "When I came back to work in September I really wanted to hide, I did ...
The Guardian reports that the former Green party leader Adrian Ramsay has said the party must fix its internal democracy to avoid a takeover by the hard left, saying that some new members "might be more at home" in Your Party or the Socialist Workers party. The paper says that Ramsay, who has been critical of the handling of the row over a "Zionism is racism" motion passed at the Green party conference, said there were a "small number" of individuals who used "divisive" tactics to influence the party's agenda: "I think there's a real crossroads point for the party ...
