UK

David Lammy has threatened more sanctions on Israel if a ceasefire in Gaza is not achieved in the coming weeks. Giving evidence to the Foreign Affairs select committee, the foreign secretary also refused to set a timeframe for when the UK would recognise Palestinian statehood, saying he could not “tie myself to a calendar because it’s convenient for a soundbite”.It comes just weeks after The Independent revealed that the Trades Union Congress (TUC), representing unions that finance Labour, issued a joint statement with its Canadian and French counterparts calling on the UK government to change its position.David Lammy has threatened further sanctions on Israel More

More than 13 people may have killed themselves as a result of the Post Office Horizon scandal, according to the first tranche of a public inquiry’s report into what has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in UK history. The inquiry chairman, retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, said at least 59 people “contemplated suicide at various points in time” and “attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”.He made the remarks in a report which laid bare the “disastrous human impact” for the 1,000-plus post office workers wrongly accused of taking money from their branches because of faulty software.Sir Wyn said “bankruptcies had occurred” and “marriage and families have been wrecked” over the scandal, adding: “The picture which has emerged is profoundly disturbing.” After the report was released, former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton, who was falsely prosecuted for a shortfall of £36,000 at her Post Office branch, said: “It shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us. We were just decent people trying to do a day’s work for our community.”Sir Wyn Williams has led the inquiry More

Chris Blackhurst’s claim that Britain “simply can’t afford” a wealth tax has sparked fierce debate among Independent readers, who were deeply split over whether taxing extreme wealth is fair, workable, or economically sensible.Many backed Lord Kinnock’s call for what one commenter dubbed an “obscene wealth tax”, arguing that while wages have stagnated, asset values have skyrocketed. They claimed that taxing the ultra-wealthy is the only way to rebalance a system rigged in favour of those who make more money from owning than working. Several called for a land value tax too, insisting it’s fairer, harder to dodge, and long overdue.Others weren’t convinced, with some questioning the practicality of taxing wealth, especially when it’s tied up in private businesses or property. One pointed out: “How do you tax the value of something that can’t be easily sold?” Another warned that entrepreneurs would simply leave the country, taking jobs and investment with them.There were strong words for Labour, with accusations that the party is chasing populism over sound economics. But just as many readers argued that the real risk is doing nothing – letting inequality grow while public services crumble.Here’s what you had to say:Obscene wealth taxIt’s not a wealth tax we need.It’s an obscene wealth tax.When simply having money can make more money than earning it can, and a class of super-rich see no shame in possessing such grotesque amounts of wealth, an obscene wealth tax is the only possible counterbalance to the inevitable concentration of money in the hands of an ever-shrinking number that capitalism enforces.It may not work. But we have to try.HeHeHitThatTooWellCliveLand value taxThe government should urgently look at resurrecting an idea that nearly became law a hundred years ago – a land value tax. There is so much money tied up in property and, by definition, land that it would be perverse not to tax it. Rich individuals purchase land as a means of evading taxes, and some landowners have managed to avoid paying taxes for centuries by owning their land through trusts.Tax it. The land cannot be taken abroad, and it’s a tax that cannot be avoided, irrespective of “who or what entity owns it”. You don’t tax any property itself, you tax the value of the land it sits on. Closing this loophole would raise billions.flying scotDo you think the UK should introduce a wealth tax on the super-rich to help fund public services? Share your views in the comments.Socialism exists only for the richI get that large salaries attract the best people for certain positions, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that the top 1 per cent of rich people hold more wealth than the bottom 50 per cent. The gap between the very wealthy and the working class is massive and is only getting wider.It wasn’t that long ago when one decent working-class wage could buy a house, a car, and still manage to bring up a couple of kids. Socialism only exists for the rich, while the working classes, people with disabilities, and now kids with disabilities are being targeted to raise more money.PlasticpaddyHow do you value a private business?The vast majority of people in the UK with personal wealth over £10 million are entrepreneurs or business founders, and almost all of their wealth is in the form of shares in their business. These businesses will mostly be privately held, so there is no market-based price discovery mechanism available to value them.So, to make this work, the government would, on an annual basis, have to accurately estimate the value of every privately owned business in the UK. They would be backed up in court for decades with appeals, because the value of a business ultimately is “what someone else is prepared to pay for it”.There is no universally agreed-upon formula.But long before this became a problem, every single high-net-worth business owner would have re-domiciled their business overseas and left the country for good, taking all the jobs with them, most likely.sj99Millionaires remove money from the economyMoney spent on winter fuel allowance, teacher wages, and special needs support stays in the economy because it cannot be saved.Wealth accruing to millionaire CEOs leaves the economy, usually via tax-efficient schemes in foreign jurisdictions.Millionaires and billionaires remove money from our economy because they don’t live paycheque to paycheque.RodyaRaskolnikovHigh salaries create tax, not trickle downLord Kinnock is certainly right about one thing: a wealth tax will be highly popular among voters.Taking money off those rich so-and-so’s and giving some to me – what’s not to like?What its proponents don’t understand is that high salaries attract high taxes, and the Treasury is no doubt grateful. But they don’t have any significant multiplier effect.Whereas companies set up by rich people (or who have become rich due to the value of those companies) employ workers who pay income tax and NI, generate pensions for retirees, produce goods and services which attract VAT, make profits which incur corporation tax and pay dividends on which dividend taxes are paid.So there is a large tax multiplier function. Impeding that process is not a good idea.OldContemptibleGentrification doesn’t make you richThe problem is: how do you define wealth?I am working class and I live in a house in a once down-market neighbourhood that has been gentrified. It’s worth considerably more than I paid for it 50 years ago. It’s an asset that could attract a wealth tax.But I’m a pensioner on limited means, and there is no way I could afford 10 per cent or even 1 per cent of the value of my asset in a wealth tax every year.I could move, but stamp duty and other costs make that unappealing – assuming I could find a suitable property for an ageing couple.How’s that fair?EnglishCastleWho are the real wealth creators?Well, the country has the choice of keeping a regressive tax system and declining public services, or doing something about it.I see no reason at all why capital gains tax should not be the same rate as income.Why does this country allow the curious ransom-like threat of the wealthy leaving to dominate fiscal policy?Who are the real wealth creators? Those who do the work, of course.Land value tax is another possibility. They can’t take their land and house abroad.International cooperation would be a big help, of course, so that low-tax regimes cease to exist.Regardless, wealth distribution has become acutely unequal in recent decades. If nothing is done, the economy will decay, as we’re already seeing.The rich will always gripe and offer special pleading.Those who are not rich yet back regressive taxation, are cutting their own throats.PoulterTop bosses won’t flee for losing £1mA good part of the collapse in Labour’s support is that they are intent on avoiding any meaningful tax increases for the rich, while penalising the disabled and others at the bottom of the wealth scale.It’s no doubt a complex issue, but a couple of things strike me:1. Are we to believe that if the income of a top boss drops, as a result of extra tax, from say £3m a year to £2m, it will become impossible to find someone competent to do the job at the lower rate (assuming the first scarpers off abroad)?2. Does the argument that we have to pay top rates to get the best talent bear any scrutiny?E.g. the main skill demonstrated by water company bosses seems to lie in accruing as much wealth for themselves, with the lowest benefit to anyone else. Is that what we’re paying top rates for?It’s funny how the same argument somehow never gets used for people who actually do something useful, like care workers.EadwineWealth doesn’t trickle downUnfortunately, this is based purely and simply on the belief that wealth trickles down, which is largely untrue.And the ‘wealth’ does not benefit the country – it is spent and invested elsewhere.A tax based simply on land ownership and usage, easy to verify by drone or satellite and with clear ownership recorded by the Land Registry, resolves that, and might also put an end to leaseholds…To suggest that millionaires and billionaires should contribute more, and that all working people be paid a minimum of the living wage, and those unable to work full time be topped up from taxation on those able to pay, should not be contentious.Topsham1Popular, but counter-productiveAs Colbert said more than 300 years ago:”The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest amount of hissing.”With a wealth tax, a government gets neither feathers nor hissing, as the rich simply leave the country for more welcoming shores.The idea is popular, but also utterly counter-productive.paulThe rich pay the tax alreadySo many lefties think that they are paying too much tax and that, instead, the government should soak the rich.The reality is that the vast majority of people in the UK are net recipients.The top 10 per cent of earners pay nearly 60 per cent of tax, and the tax rate in the UK is one of the lowest in Western Europe.If you want decent services, pay for them.YetAnotherNameWhen does wealth creation become a problem?When someone starts and grows a business, they risk their savings and even their house. They work long hours and only make a profit and grow the business if they provide the goods and services that people want to buy.They also create jobs that would otherwise not exist and pay taxes that would otherwise not be paid.At what point does any of this wealth generation become a problem?MarkWant to share your views? Simply register your details below. Once registered, you can comment on the day’s top stories for a chance to be featured. Alternatively, click ‘log in’ or ‘register’ in the top right corner to sign in or sign up.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here. More

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