UK Politics

Nigel Farage is set to meet the billionaire owner of Manchester United before Christmas as Reform UK doubles down on its drive to woo business chiefs. The Reform leader will try to win over Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the founder of chemicals giant Ineos, who has amassed an estimated fortune of around £20bn.Sir Jim, who has been a fierce critic of Britain’s net zero drive, which Mr Farage and Reform also oppose, disclosed details of the meeting on a podcast. The Reform leader requested the meeting More

Sir Keir Starmer’s former top civil servant has questioned the prime minister’s explanation of how the case against two alleged Chinese spies collapsed. Simon Case, who served as cabinet secretary between July 2020 and December 2024, challenged Sir Keir’s assertion that the government’s hands were tied by the previous Conservative government’s stance on whether China was officially a threat. The director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, said this week that a trial involving two men – a former parliamentary researcher and an academic – accused of spying on behalf of China collapsed after the government refused to brand Beijing a threat to national security.Simon Case served as cabinet secretary between 2020 and 2024 More

Cabinet ministers have been warned they will no longer be able to dip into Treasury reserves to fund public sector pay rises in a bid to ease mounting pressure on government finances.Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray, has written to ministers to remind them to keep a tight control of public spending and said access to reserves will only be granted on an exceptional basis.Any extra help paid to departments will also have to be paid back to the Treasury, as part of preparations for next month’s highly anticipated Budget.Mr Murray said: “To keep tight control on public spending, departments must take responsibility for managing pressures and making choices about priorities without relying on the reserve.“We must deliver the efficiency plans set out in June – reducing administrative budgets, including those of arms-length bodies and agencies – and deliver comprehensive digital transformation.”The chancellor Rachel Reeves is under growing pressure after gloomy economic figures led to predictions that she will have to raise taxes or break her own fiscal rules to plug a £50bn gap in Labour’s sums. But the crackdown comes just months after Labour offered above-inflation pay rises to most public sector workers shortly after entering power. Chancellor Rachel Reeves (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Britain should embrace voluntary ID cards, Sir Keir Starmer has said, just weeks after announcing that digital identification will become compulsory to work in the UK.The prime minister said that while mandatory digital IDs “are very important” for employment, Britain could gain a “significant advantage” by adopting the cards for wider use.His comments came on a plane to India for a two-day trade visit to Mumbai, where he will hold meetings on how the South Asian nation uses digital ID.Opinion polls suggest support for the cards plummeted after the PM announced they would become mandatory to work in the UK by 2029, his flagship statement on the eve of the Labour conference last month. But the prime minister batted away suggestions he had killed off public support for the scheme, saying the IDs were important to meet his party’s manifesto pledge to tackle illegal migration.“We need to address the fact that too many people can come to this country and work illegally,” he said. “And that’s why ID mandatory for working is really important. I think there is a case to be made about the benefits for voluntary ID into other areas, and obviously we need to make that case.“I think it’s a really important discussion for us to have. So on the one hand, it’s mandatory for work, but I actually think it would be a good passport.Starmer poses with business leaders before jetting to India More

For much of this Tory conference in Manchester, the world’s oldest and once most successful democratic party looked like it was teetering on the edge of oblivion.Key shadow ministers were delivering their speeches to empty seats, people slept in the main hall, corporates had deserted in terms of stalls, and there were vast open spaces in a sparsely attended Manchester Central conference centre; the buzz of previous years replaced by an echoing despondency.The only queues were for the fringe events for the man who many believe will replace Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in the coming months – shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick.He seemed to be the man of the moment, the preferred speaker for anyone who wanted to hold an event, a genuine crowd puller.Kemi Badenoch with her husband, Hamish Badenoch, after making her keynote speech (Danny Lawson/PA) More

Keir Starmer has called for a police crackdown on some of the chants heard at pro-Palestine protests.His comment came just hours after students defied his calls and took part in pro-Gaza marches on university campuses across the UK on the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel.Among the chants heard at the protests was: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which some consider to be antisemitic as they believe it calls for the eradication of Israel.Proponents of the chant claim they are calling for an end to conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.The anniversary came less than a week after knife-wielding terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, killed two men at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester.The prime minister had described the protests as “un-British” and claimed they showed a lack of respect. Sir Keir Starmer called pro-Palestine protests ‘un-British’ More

Kemi Badenoch has vowed to abolish stamp duty if the Conservatives win the next election, as she unveiled a raft of tax cuts in a bid to win back voters and boost the party’s ratings.Outlining the major policy announcement to a packed audience at her Tory conference speech on Wednesday, she said the move to scrap the “bad tax” would “help achieve the dream of home ownership for millions”.The plans, which the Tories say would cost around £9bn, have been praised by economists, but questions remain over how the party would pay for it. After a lacklustre party conference, Ms Badenoch also used her speech to take aim at Labour, pledging to overturn a series of policies brought in by Sir Keir Starmer’s government, including: abolishing the controversial VAT on private school feesreversing changes to inheritance tax for farms, dubbed the tractor taxa promise to undo Angela Rayner’s workers’ rights reformsbanning doctors from going on strike, which she linked to higher NHS waiting listsscrapping the carbon tax Having focused on securing the UK’s borders by withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights in her opening address, Mrs Badenoch then set out her vision of a country where the state “does less but does it better” and “profit is not a dirty word”.Kemi Badenoch has promised to abolish stamp duty for primary residences More