Search for the hero inside yourself. Or, if not the hero, then the working person. In his speech in Birmingham to explain why he couldn’t explain any more ahead of Wednesday’s budget, Keir Starmer had just one firm promise. While he couldn’t guarantee there would be no further tax rises in future budgets, or say […]
Scottish Rugby Ken MacAulay raised over £13,000 for charity prior to his death A former Scotland rugby international has died just one day after completing a 1,000-mile cycle for charity. Ken MacAulay, 66 died following a cardiac arrest on Sunday after completing a three-week challenge that saw him raise over £13,000 for four charities. The […]
A row has broken out between the UK’s financial watchdog and former Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt over a review into the so-called £22bn “black hole” in the public finances Labour claims it has inherited. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is expected to raise several taxes in her Budget on Wednesday to cover the claimed shortfall. But […]
Getty People have started catching a new Covid variant that could soon take off and become the dominant type, according to scientists. Identified in Germany, in June, cases of the XEC variant have since emerged in the UK, US, Denmark and several other countries, say users on X, formerly known as Twitter. It has some […]
Do you ever wonder if the British might be a fundamentally unserious people? I do, though I should stress that I include myself; a thoroughly trivial person whose “professional” life is mainly spent in the silliest corners of an internet that long ago destroyed my capacity for joined-up thinking. Still, if you do have any […]
BBC Barrett Pall showing a diary entry about his experience to BBC correspondent Rianna Croxford In a federal courtroom in New York, for the first time I’m face to face with Mike Jeffries – the multi-millionaire ex-fashion boss I’ve spent three years investigating for the BBC. He stares at me directly, lips pursed, and chin […]
She was only seven years old at the time, but Michiko Kodama has a crystal-clear memory of the morning of August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan. “It was a sunny day,” she says. “At 8:15, I was at school, sitting at my desk at the front of the class, when there was a tremendous white […]
Reuters Israel has carried out what it described as “precise and targeted” airstrikes on Iran in retaliation for the barrage of missile strikes launched by Tehran against Israel earlier this month. It is the latest in a series of exchanges between the two countries that for months have sparked fears of an all-out regional war. […]
BBC Yusely Perez says she was forced to collect firewood to burn for cooking Cuba has endured one of its toughest weeks in years after a nationwide blackout which left around 10 million Cubans without power for several days. Adding to the Caribbean island’s problems, Hurricane Oscar left a trail of destruction along the north-eastern […]
The chancellor is set to increase the amount employers in the UK pay in National Insurance to raise £20bn for public services including the NHS. Rachel Reeves is also expected to use Wednesday’s Budget to lower the threshold for when employers start paying the tax, but is not likely to introduce the levy to employer […]