Markus Andrews

A leading pollster has suggested that support for Reform UK has “topped out”, and that the momentum that was carrying the party up in the polls has ground to a halt.Conservative peer Robert Hayward has told The Independent that the results of recent council by-elections in which Reform lost while defending seats, coupled with a small fall in the party’s polling figures, suggest that the march of Nigel Farage to Downing Street at the next general election could be facing a setback.It comes after business leaders and senior figures in the Labour Party urged Sir Keir Starmer to “stop obsessing” about Reform.The analysis follows two by-elections last week in which Reform lost council seats it was defending for the first time.Nigel Farage has seen his party’s momentum in the polls grind to a halt More

Goldman Sachs has appointed former prime minister Rishi Sunak as a senior adviser.The role, which will see Mr Sunak return to Goldman after 21 years, is his first major position since resigning as lead of the Conservative Party following its general election defeat last year.Mr Sunak, who was prime minister between October 2022 and July 2024, is set to advise leaders across the firm and provide “insights on the macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape”.The MP for Richmond and Northallerton worked for Goldman Sachs between 2001 and 2004.The appointment comes just over a year since Mr Sunak’s resignation as prime minister, allowing him to take on the advisory position.The US investment banking giant is reportedly set to cut around 3,200 jobs (Alamy/PA)However, the ACOBA (Advisory Committee on Business Appointments) body, which regulates business appointments of sitting MPs, said Mr Sunak cannot lobby the Government or use ministerial contacts to influence policy or secure business advantage for another year.It also restricted him from advising on matters linked to foreign governments or sovereign wealth funds for another year.Chairman and chief executive David Solomon said: “I am excited to welcome Rishi back to Goldman Sachs in his new capacity as a senior advisor.“In his role, he will work with leaders across the firm to advise our clients globally on a range of important topics, sharing his unique perspectives and insights on the macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape.“He will also spend time with our people around the world, contributing to our culture of ongoing learning and development.”Earlier this year, the former prime minister also took up posts with the University of Oxford and Stanford University. More

Ministers have been urged to learn about crisis planning from “our Scandinavian neighbours”, where authorities have handed out pamphlets about preparing for war and emergencies.Pat McFadden said national resilience against crises, built through “dialogue with the public”, was “a little bit less normal in this country” than it is elsewhere.The Cabinet Office minister spoke to MPs after the Government unveiled plans for a national drill later this September when mobile phones will ring out with an alarm during an emergency alert system test.But Sarah Olney warned that in a real emergency, digital alerts “will miss millions” of people who do not have access to a phone.”While the Liberal Democrats welcome the alert test, we would also call for a wider public information campaign to ensure that the public are properly ready for any potential future conflict or disaster that will support resilience-building across the UK, and perhaps take some lessons from, for example, our Scandinavian neighbours,” she warned.“They are always working towards potential future threats, providing information to their citizens, and this kind of information should be provided through a number of different means, including leaflets and traditional broadcast.“And while we welcome the alert test, as I said, websites and text alerts will miss millions of British people, people without phones, without signal, without battery, so we need to be ready on all fronts and not just rely on these single text alerts.”The Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokeswoman asked whether the Government would “launch a national awareness campaign which draws upon different modes of contact”.Ms Olney told the Commons: “The world is less stable and more insecure now than at any time since the Cold War, and consequently the Government must ensure that the British people and the United Kingdom are prepared in the event that our country or an overseas territory is threatened.”Authorities in Sweden have published a pamphlet titled In Case Of Crisis Or War, with a message to Swedish citizens that they “live in uncertain times”.It features information about air raids, an outdoor warning system including sirens, and seeking “food that is filling, energy-rich and that can be stored safely at room temperature”.A similar guide from Norway’s civil protection directorate sets out that “the Norwegian authorities recommend that as many people as possible be prepared to be self-sustained for one week”.Responding to Ms Olney, Mr McFadden said information about the emergency alert system would be “publicised well in advance, not just through the test itself but in advance including working with domestic violence charities and other people so that everybody knows what is coming”.He added: “I do agree with her that dialogue with the public on this is important. In many other countries, this is absolutely normal. Perhaps it’s been a little bit less normal in this country, but I think we should change that.”The Cabinet Office team “scans the horizon constantly for these things”, Mr McFadden said as he promised that the Government was “always prepared and ready to go”.Liberal Democrat Scotland spokeswoman Christine Jardine asked whether ministers had “given any thought to perhaps a more old fashioned way of perhaps sirens or some other way of alerting the public when there’s an emergency”.Mr McFadden said a mobile phone system was a “significant addition to our armoury as the coverage gets better”.The emergency alert system will be tested at around 3pm on September 7, its second-ever nationwide drill.During the test, the UK’s approximately 87 million mobile devices will ring out with a high-pitched alarm and vibrate for approximately 10 seconds, while a message will appear on the screen making it clear the notification is only a test.Alex Burghart, Conservative shadow Cabinet Office minister, had earlier said: “It is understandable that faced with the collapse of the economy and collapse of Government, with capital flight, spiralling borrowing costs and the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) this morning warning that the Chancellor’s latest U-turns have left Britain more vulnerable and less able to respond to future crises, that the Government would want to come forward with a plan.”He said ministers’ resilience efforts did not “deal with widespread industrial action”, including in healthcare, and asked: “Is the Government planning for the eventuality of a general strike?”Mr McFadden replied that the Government had “made a very fair pay offer” to NHS workers.“We very much value the work that doctors do, but hope that everyone in the NHS realises that we are a Government that supports the NHS, wants to work with the staff and that industrial action will not do anything to contribute towards that goal,” he added. More

Britain’s spending watchdog has issued a dire warning over the public finances claiming they are in a “relatively vulnerable position”.In the first major assessment since Keir Starmer greenlighted two major U-turns on welfare in the last month, the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned that recent attempts to shore up the government’s balance sheet are only showing limited success. The health check on the economy will raise further questions about the position of chancellor Rachel Reeves who was in tears during PMQs last week as Sir Keir failed to guarantee her future. It was only after the markets reacted badly to the uncertainty over who would run the Treasury that the prime minister publicly backed her.Rachel Reeves is under huge pressure ahead of the Budget this autumn More

The government spending watchdog set alarm bells ringing in the Treasury on Tuesday with the release of a report laying bare the perilous state of Britain’s public finances. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said spending, borrowing, and the size of the government debt pile are all set to soar in the decades to come. It blamed the government’s inability to commit to tax hikes and spending cuts, a nod to Sir Keir Starmer’s recent welfare U-turns, but laid out a wider set of warnings about the dangerous path ahead for the government. The Independent looks at the six starkest warnings in the OBR’s report. Britain’s public finances in ‘relatively vulnerable position’ Britain’s public finances have been left in a “relatively vulnerable position” by successive governments, the OBR warned. It blamed the “major shocks” of the Covid pandemic and energy crisis in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for the scale of the increase in debt since 2010. But it also said efforts to return the public finances to a more sustainable footing “have met with only limited and temporary success in recent years”. It said debt has continued to rise because successive governments reversed planned tax rises and, pointing to Sir Keir’s recent U-turns, abandoned public spending cuts. Climate change to slash GDP The OBR also highlighted the threat of climate change to Britain’s economy, warning that it “poses significant risks” to GDP. The watchdog said the costs of mitigating the impact of climate change, repairing the damage it causes and adapting to new weather extremes were all likely to affect government spending and the wider economy.There is “an increasing likelihood of more severe impacts of climate change on economies”, the OBR said, as the latest analysis now accounted for “the impacts of higher precipitation and temperature variability”.As a result, the OBR has updated its estimates for the economic damage caused by climate change in both its best case scenario – 2C of warming – and its worst case, an increase of 3C.GDP could fall by 3.3 per cent by 2060 in the event of 2C warming, the watchdog said, and 7.8 per cent by 2060 in the 3C scenario.State pension triple lockThe cost of the state pension triple lock is set to be three times higher by the end of the decade than its original estimate, the OBR said. It said the cost of the state pension has “risen steadily over the past eight decades”, from around 2 per cent of GDP in the mid-20th century to the current 5 per cent of GDP, or £138bn, and is estimated to rise to 7.7 per cent of GDP in the early 2070s.The triple-lock guarantee, first implemented in 2011, means the state pension increases year-on-year by the highest of three measures. These are:Inflation, taken from the previous September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) figure The average wage increase in the UK Or 2.5 per cent, if both inflation and earnings are lower than this percentage Demographic changes – more people living longer, healthier lives – and the triple lock up-rating mechanism are among the drivers for the continued rise, according to the OBR.It added: “Due to inflation and earnings volatility over its first two decades in operation, the triple lock has cost around three times more than initial expectations.” The state pension triple lock is expected to have cost an additional £15.5bn per year by the end of the decade.Unprecedented debt pile In one of the most stark warnings in the report, the OBR said that the pressures of Britain’s ageing population, rising healthcare costs and other age-related spending would see government debt soar to unprecedented levels. The OBR said borrowing will soar to more than 20 per cent of the size of the economy, while the debt pile is expected to surpass 270 per cent of GDP by the early 2070s.Inability to respond to future shocks The OBR said Britain’s support through Covid and the energy crisis after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was relatively generous compared to advanced economies. And it cited the shocks as part of the reason the debt pile has grown so much. But it warned that, as a result, Britain’s ability to respond to future shocks has been substantially eroded. “The government has left itself very small margins against its objectives of restoring the current budget to balance and getting net financial liabilities to fall by the end of the decade,” the OBR said. But it warned that, despite pressure on the public finances, the public expectation of how much government support should be available appears to be growing. Trump and rising tensions around the worldThe OBR said one of the biggest increases in risk since its last report has come from “rising geopolitical tensions” and global tariff rates being hiked to their highest level in more than a century. As well, European leaders have been put under significant pressure to hike defence spending to post-Cold War highs. Both have been pushed through by Donald Trump since his re-election, highlighting the scale of the challenge the US president has posed for the chancellor. More

Norman Tebbit, the eurosceptic, anti-immigration former cabinet minister known as one of Margaret Thatcher’s most loyal supporters, has died aged 94.The Conservative grandee, who served as employment secretary and Conservative Party chairman in the 1980s, played a key role in Tory politics for a generation and would remain one of the biggest influences on the rightwing until his late years. As employment secretary he took on the trade unions and told Britain’s 3 million unemployed to “get on your bike” to find a job. As chairman of the Conservative Party from 1985 to 1987 he helped Mrs Thatcher secure her third general election victory.Tributes poured in following the news of Lord Tebbit’s death More

The Post Office Horizon scandal saw approximately 1,000 subpostmasters wrongfully prosecuted in what has been dubbed as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.On Tuesday, the scale of the human impact of the scandal was revealed as the first volume of the public inquiry’s final report was published.Chairman Sir Wyn Williams concluded that a “number of senior” people at the organisation were aware that the system, known as Legacy Horizon, was capable of error up until it was changed in 2010. Some employees were also aware that the updated system, Horizon Online, also had bugs and defects.Sir Wyn Williams More

Watch live as Emmanuel Macron begins a state visit to the UK on Tuesday, 8 July, with the French president set to meet Sir Keir Starmer and King Charles III as part of his three-day trip.Mr Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, were greeted by the Prince and Princess of Wales upon arriving at RAF Northolt.During the first state visit by a French president since 2008, Mr Macron will be hosted by the King and is expected to address parliament as his predecessor-but-one, Nicolas Sarkozy, did during his trip.Top of the agenda for Mr Macron and Sir Keir is likely to be discussions on small boat crossings as the British PM presses for more help in stopping them from travelling across the Channel.The total number of people crossing the Channel in small boats this year has passed 20,000, with the total now standing at 21,117 according to PA news agency analysis of Home Office figures.Ministers have been urging France to amend its rules to allow police to intervene when boats are in shallow water, rather than requiring them to still be on land.Later on Tuesday, Mr Macron and his wife will be welcomed by the King and Queen in Windsor town centre and take a carriage procession with the royals to Windsor Castle.There will then be a ceremonial welcome at Windsor Castle and an inspection of the Guard of Honour, followed by lunch with members of the royal family.Mr Macron will later visit Westminster Abbey to lay a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior before giving an address in the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster. He will later receive Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey at Lancaster House, before a state banquet at Windsor Castle with speeches from both the King and Mr Macron. More