Markus Andrews

There are growing fears that Britain will be plunged back into austerity, as Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a swathe of spending cuts at next week’s budget. The chancellor is set to deliver her spring statement next Wednesday, against the backdrop of a faltering economy and reduced headroom when it comes to the strict borrowing rules she set herself in October.According to the Guardian, the chancellor will announce plans to cut Whitehall budgets by billions of pounds more than previously expected, with some departments facing cuts of up to 7 per cent over the next four years. It is understood that she won’t change taxes, meaning a swathe of spending cuts are needed in order to balance the books after the Bank of England reduced its forecasts for growth this year.Chancellor Rachel Reeves (Jonathan Brady/PA) More

Half of Reform UK voters have little or no confidence in Covid-19 vaccines, compared with the general public who overwhelmingly trust the jabs, a YouGov poll has found. Those who back Nigel Farage’s party have a “distinct” attitude towards the vaccines, with 50 per cent saying they do not trust them. That compares to 71 per cent of the public who said they trust the Covid jab a great deal or a fair amount, and just 24 per cent of voters who said they do not trust it much or at all. Reform voters are also significantly more likely to not have been vaccinated against Covid during the pandemic, the poll found. Backers of Nigel Farage’s party are much more likely to be unvaccinated More

Labour’s plans to cut the welfare bill do not go nearly far enough, the former minister who brought in the biggest reform of benefits since their creation in the 1940s has warned.In a week where Keir Starmer’s government announced plans to remove disability benefits from an estimated 1 million claimants, former Tory work and pensions secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith said more must be done to stop “a tsunami of so called fit notes signing people off work forever”.Writing exclusively for The Independent, Sir Iain also raised problems with a culture where young people leave school “and go straight to their sick beds”.Conservative former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of waging “war on the countryside” after the government quietly scrapped a grant that helped local groups buy closure-threatened pubs.The Community Ownership Fund, which launched 2021 with the aim of handing out £150m worth of grants by the end of 2025, was cancelled early with £135m having been allocated to date. As the number of pubs in England and Wales sits at a record low, with more than 400 closing their doors for good in 2024 alone, there is growing concern in rural areas that the cancellation of the fund just days before Christmas will damage communities across the country. The Fox Inn, Ryton, benefitted from the fund More

Sir Keir Starmer has said that Vladimir Putin fears Britain’s nuclear weapons, saying that Trident continues to be a crucial deterrent as Russia resists efforts for peace in Ukraine. Speaking ahead of a visit to Barrow on Thursday – where he will lay the keel for the next generation of Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarines – the prime minister said it has proven “incredibly effective” since its introduction in the 1990s. Speaking about Russia, Sir Keir said: “I think they appreciate our capability. What is obviously important is that they appreciate that it is what it is, which is a credible capability”. The PM will lay the keel for the next generation of submarines More

The UK Technology Secretary will set out plans to turn areas of industrial wasteland into “hotbeds” for AI development in a pitch to American investors during a visit to the US.Speaking at a business summit in San Jose, Peter Kyle will detail how “relics of economic eras past” will be transformed into so-called “growth zones” dedicated to attracting investment through advances in computing.Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has set out an AI “action plan” to drastically expand use of the technology with the aim of helping to revolutionise creaking public services and turn around Britain’s economy.The measures include development of a series of “growth zones” around the country to build infrastructure such as data centres and improve access to the energy grid.The Government wants these to be located in areas with existing power connections or a clear path to securing them and deindustrialised regions with land and infrastructure suitable for redevelopment.Mr Kyle is expected to offer further detail about the sites as he addresses business chiefs and developers at the Nvidia annual conference on Thursday.“In empty factories and abandoned mines, in derelict sites and unused power supplies, I see the places where we can begin to build a new economic model,” the minister will say.“A model completely rewired around the immense power of artificial intelligence.“Where, faced with that power, the state is neither a blocker nor a shirker – but an agile, proactive partner.”The Technology Secretary is expected to say that states “owe it to their citizens to support” AI initiatives, “not through diktat or directive, but through partnership”.The UK’s AI sector is valued at 92 billion dollars (£71 billion) and projected to surpass one trillion dollars by 2035, according to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).As part of the visit, Mr Kyle will also meet representatives from tech companies including Open AI, Anthropic, Nvidia and Vantage, the DSIT said. More