Institute for Fiscal Studies director says chancellors continue to ‘shy away from meaningful tax reform that could move the dial’
The Conservative party is attacking the budget on the grounds that Rachel Reeves is putting up taxes supposedly to fund more spending on benefit claimants. Even though the rationale for this claim is questionable, the Tories were making it before the budget was announced, and Kemi Badenoch firmed it up last night, claiming it was a “Benefits Street budget”.
On LBC this morning, asked if the budget meant “alarm clock Britain paying for Benefits Street”, Reeves said she did not accept that. She said 60% of the families that would benefit from the removal of the two-child benefit cap (the most expensive welfare announcement in the budget) were in work.
I don’t think children should be punished by this pernicious policy any longer. And the cost to society of this is huge, the cost for councils of temporary accommodation, when people can no longer afford the rent, putting families in B&Bs, kids having to move to school all the time because parents have moved from B&B to another lot of temporary accommodation, and there’s costs for years to come, because all the evidence shows that kids that are growing up poor are less likely to get into work and more reliant on the welfare state in the future for them.
So this is a good investment in those kids, to give them the chances that I want for my kids, and everyone wants for their kids. It also saves money for taxpayers on that accommodation, on those additional health costs, and ensuring that those kids grow up to be productive adults.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images
The food’s better, the price is better and the company is better. You know where you are at a proper caff
Early some mornings, when I’m working in London, I go for breakfast with two good friends. So that’s me, a fabric dealer and a psychotherapist. Obviously this sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s one for which, at the time of writing, I have no punchline. Soho’s our hunting ground, the hunt in question being for somewhere to have breakfast at 7am. There’s not much open at that time. I mean, it’s not asking for much, is it? Somewhere to sit and eat at what is hardly a punishingly early hour.
Being gentlemen of a certain age, we also require access to a toilet, which narrows our options still further. What this leaves us with is the grand total of four establishments. Three are fancy restaurants; one isn’t.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Avalon/Construction Photography/Alamy
© Photograph: Avalon/Construction Photography/Alamy
© Photograph: Avalon/Construction Photography/Alamy
Twenty years after the first face transplant, patients are dying, data is missing, and the experimental procedure’s future hangs in the balance
In the early hours of 28 May 2005, Isabelle Dinoire woke up in a pool of blood. After fighting with her family the night before, she turned to alcohol and sleeping tablets “to forget”, she later said.
Reaching for a cigarette out of habit, she realized she couldn’t hold it between her lips. She understood something was wrong.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Franck CRUSIAUX/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
© Photograph: Franck CRUSIAUX/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
© Photograph: Franck CRUSIAUX/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
If support for Israel is no longer de rigueur in New York, it may soon not be obligatory in Washington. That is good news for Palestinians
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be quaking in his boots at the decisive victory of Zohran Mamdani in the 4 November New York City mayoral election. Not because of absurd allegations of antisemitism for which there is no evidence, but because Mamdani has broken the longstanding taboo for successful New York candidates against criticizing the Israeli government. And he has only reinforced his approach in the month since his election.
New York has the largest Jewish population in the United States – and the second-largest of any city in the world after Tel Aviv. The longstanding assumption was that many Jewish voters prioritized the defense of the Israeli government over other issues, so criticism of Israel would set them against a politician.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Lev Radin/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Lev Radin/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Lev Radin/Shutterstock
Figure of 204,000 in 12 months to June 2025 is lowest since 2021, statistics body says
Net migration to the UK has fallen by more than two-thirds to 204,000 in a single year, the lowest annual figure since 2021, according to the latest official statistics.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show there was a 69% drop from 649,000 in the number of people immigrating minus the number of people emigrating, in the year to June 2025.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
© Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
© Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
The company is being sued under the new Elvis act, which protects a person’s voice from exploitation without consent
The estate of Johnny Cash is suing Coca-Cola for illegally hiring a tribute act to impersonate the late US country singer in an advertisement that plays between college football games.
The case has been filed under the Elvis Act of Tennessee, made effective last year, which protects a person’s voice from exploitation without consent. The estate said that while it has previously licensed Cash’s songs, Coca-Cola did not approach them for permission in this instance.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: ABC Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television/Getty Images
© Photograph: ABC Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television/Getty Images
© Photograph: ABC Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television/Getty Images
Now a hugely popular photographic genre, many women pay thousands to have intimate portraits taken of themselves by a professional. What do they get out of it?
A few hours into Brittany Witt’s boudoir shoot, with the mimosas kicking in and the music going strong, the photographer asked: “How do we feel about some completely nude photos?” Witt was lying on the bed in lingerie, in a studio in Texas, and hadn’t considered nudity an option. “I was like: ‘OK, we’re on this trust path.’” She undressed. The photographer, JoAnna Moore, covered Witt with body oil and squirted her with water, then asked her “to crawl across the floor with my full trust,” Witt says. “I did so. The pose was nude, and it was completely open. I wasn’t covered with a sheet. It was all out, it was all open, and it brought that worst level of self-doubt. I was terrified.”
Witt, 33, has come to see that terror as an important part of her experience. She used to be a competitive weightlifter. “I had a very masculine aura. I showed up in strength,” she says. At school and work – in the construction side of the oil and gas industry – she was “type A – scheduler, planner, had everything together, kind of led the group”. A turbulent home life when she was growing up led her to develop robust protection mechanisms which, in adulthood, acted as a block to relationships – issues she had been addressing with a life coach. But in that moment, on all-fours in Moore’s studio: “I felt those protections stripped away. There was nothing to hide behind, literally, figuratively.”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Paul Lausier
© Photograph: Paul Lausier
© Photograph: Paul Lausier
Gray pleased team scored three goals in Paris
He praises ‘helpful’ individual plans from coaches
Archie Gray believes Tottenham can take a number of positives from Wednesday night’s 5-3 Champions League defeat at Paris Saint-Germain despite describing the result as “not good enough.”
The pre-match talk at the club had been about effecting a reset after Sunday’s 4-1 derby humbling at Arsenal to boost confidence for Saturday’s home game against Fulham. Spurs are desperate for a victory at their stadium having won only once there in the league this season under Thomas Frank. More broadly, their home league record shows three victories in 20 matches.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Jean Catuffe/DPPI/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Jean Catuffe/DPPI/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Jean Catuffe/DPPI/Shutterstock
Documentary series of Interview with the Vampire writer available to stream with potential for further releases
The worst heartbreak and most riveting triumph of Anne Rice’s life happened in relatively quick succession, each beginning when the US novelist’s daughter – Michele, then about three – told her she was too tired to play.
Rice had never heard such a comment from a child that age, and subsequent blood tests ordered by a doctor revealed that her beloved “Mouse” had acute granulocytic leukemia, considered untreatable for her.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Bryce Lankard/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bryce Lankard/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bryce Lankard/Getty Images
Connexion