Signal from Reeves that employers National Insurance tax will rise…
“The chancellor has given the clearest signal yet that businesses will face an increase in National Insurance on the day the government announced billions of pounds in overseas investment had been secured. Rachel Reeves said Labour’s election pledge not to increase National Insurance on “working people” related to the employee element, as opposed to the sum paid by employers. Her comments come as businesses await the new government’s economic plans in the Budget later this month.” – BBC
- Bluster can’t conceal this broken pledge – Leader, Daily Mail
- Halloween Budget could be a horror show – Harry Cole, The Sun
- Don’t trade social protections for growth – Leader, The Guardian
- Labour smoke and mirrors tax tricks won’t spark an investment revolution – Alex Brummer, Daily Mail
- Capital gains tax won’t rise to 39 per cent, Starmer hints – BBC
- Starmer woos investors with British beef and big money talk – The Times
- Labour donor to back Tortoise’s proposed purchase of the Observer newspaper – Financial Times
- Starmer pledges to thwart the NIMBYS – The Sun
- Tax fears are deterring investment, warns boss of HS2 contractor – Daily Telegraph
- Global business takes its chance to size up new Labour pitch – Financial Times
- Reeves cuts National Wealth Fund budget despite UK investment drive – Financial Times
- Shares in UK gambling firms fall £2bn amid talk of higher taxes in budget – The Guardian
>Today: Columnist Peter Franklin: Ten reasons why Labour is down but not out
>Yesterday: Charles Martin on Comment: Taking on Labour means looking at London and longer than just months before the next Mayoral race
…while Conservative plan to ease administrative burden for smaller firms is ditched
“Sir Keir Starmer was blasted last night for ditching Tory attempts to relieve the adminstrative burden on businesses – on the same day he vowed to scrap red tape. The Labour Government quietly announced yesterday that it would not go ahead with proposals put forward by Rishi Sunak to help small firms. The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said the plans to simplify company reporting, announced in March, are ‘not being taken forward at this time’. They would have raised the threshold for businesses being classed as medium-sized from 250 employees to 500, sparing many bosses of small enterprises the requirement to file detailed accounts, as well as exempting them from having to write ‘strategic reports’ reviewing the previous year.” – Daily Mail
NHS 1) Weight loss jabs proposed to get obese back to work
“Unemployed people living with obesity could be given new weight loss jabs to help them get back into work, the health secretary has said. Wes Streeting suggested the latest generation of medicines including Ozempic and Mounjaro could be “lifechanging” for individuals and would ease pressure on the NHS. “Our widening waistbands are also placing significant burden on our health service,” he said in an opinion piece for the Telegraph, external. The long-term benefits of these drugs could be monumental in our approach to tackling obesity.” Illnesses relating to obesity cost the NHS £11bn a year, Streeting said.” – BBC
- Widening waistbands are a burden on Britain – Wes Streeting, Daily Telegraph
NHS 2) Streeting to overhaul regulators
“The health secretary has ordered an overhaul of the “bureaucratic web of regulatory bodies” that have failed to spot a string of deadly NHS scandals. Wes Streeting intends to streamline the six overlapping organisations that currently share responsibility for patient safety in England, in one of his first major acts. He said that the present system was overcomplicated and “has failed to detect a series of disgraceful scandals in health and care”. These have included misconduct in maternity units in east Kent, Shrewsbury and Nottingham hospitals, as well as a series of cases of appalling neglect in care homes.” – The Times
- Not even Labour can rescue the NHS from imminent disaster – Sherelle Jacobs, Daily Telegraph
Unclear if Badenoch will debate Jenrick on BBC
“Robert Jenrick has challenged Kemi Badenoch to face him in a live BBC debate. The former immigration minister said he had accepted an offer to appear on a Question Time Conservative Party leadership contest special next week. But it was unclear whether Mrs Badenoch would take part, with her allies saying the decision would rest with Conservative HQ. Both candidates were sent an invitation to the prime-time show, which would be filmed next Thursday in Plymouth and hosted by Fiona Bruce.” – Daily Telegraph
- The world is sliding back to the 1930s. To keep safe, Britain must rearm – Robert Jenrick, Daily Telegraph
- Badenoch is the true inheritor of Thatcher’s legacy – Tony Sewell, Daily Telegraph
- Neither can stop shift to Reform UK warns polling guru – Daily Telegraph
>Today:
Lammy meets with EU
“Labour politicians ramped up their EU love-bombing campaigns yesterday with David Lammy insisting Britain and Brussels “speak with one voice”. Mr Lammy hailed a “historic moment” as he became the first minister to attend the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting for two years. At the gathering in Luxembourg Mr Lammy and his 27 European counterparts discussed the war in Ukraine and conflicts raging in the Middle East.” – The Sun
- Lammy joins EU ministers meeting in Europe ‘reset’ – BBC
- Cognitive warfare, as practised by Russia and China, could fatally weaken the West. We must step up efforts to combat it – William Hague, The Times
Slavery reparations “not on the agenda”
“Downing Street has rebuffed calls for Britain to hand out billions of pounds in slavery reparations ahead of a major Commonwealth summit. A group of Caribbean governments wants to discuss their demand for cash at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa next week. The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, is leading demands from West Indies nations, saying reparations for slavery and colonialism should be part of a new ‘global reset’. But No10 said today that reparations were ‘not on the agenda’ and the Government would not pay them anyway. It comes as Ms Mottley faces questions over her country’s links to China, where the UN has reported the forced labour of members of minority groups.” – Daily Mail
Johnson defends high migration
“Boris Johnson has claimed migration to Britain was allowed to soar to record levels because there were not enough workers to “stack shelves”. The former prime minister defended the surge in migration from 184,000 in 2019 to a record peak of 764,000 in 2022 because businesses and government departments were “freaking out” due to a shortage of workers “to get things done”. Speaking on The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots podcast, he warned that the alternative would have been rampant inflation, which would have been a “disaster” and hit people’s prosperity, turning the clock back to the 1970s.” – Daily Telegraph
Cameron: Britain can lead world in treating rare diseases
“To be truly transformational, genomics requires the best of academia, life sciences, pharmaceutical companies, philanthropy and venture capital from around the world to come together. That is what the Oxford-Harrington Rare Disease Centre, a recent transatlantic partnership between the University of Oxford and the Harrington Discovery Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, sets out to do. I am delighted to announce today my new role as chair of the centre’s advisory council, helping convene those key players — including distinguished experts, such as one of the world’s most influential scientists who played such a key role during the pandemic, Professor Sir John Bell. Together, we will drive forward a bold new mission: to develop 40 new treatments for rare diseases in the next decade.” – David Cameron, The Times
Phillips: Don’t ditch hereditary peers
“Once you start picking at the tapestry of the unwritten constitution the whole fabric starts to unravel. If inherited positions are bad, what about the monarchy — the supreme heritable title? Shouldn’t that go too? It might be argued that the monarchy is of priceless importance while the hereditaries are of no value. This ignores their deeply valuable independence. They answer to no one. Like the monarchy, their unique selling point is being above the political fray. To the progressive mind, however, this is like a red rag to a bull. As part of a democratic legislature, goes the thinking, the second chamber must adhere to all its conventions. Except that the role played by peers in that process is different from the rest of it. As a revising chamber with limited powers, the Lords relies on influence, suggestion and persuasion. Its role is to stand back from the political game and bring a more considered opinion as a corrective to and brake on the elected house.” – Melanie Phillips, The Times
Other political news
- Fury as number of troops in Army to fall below 70,000 for the first time since Napoleonic Era – Daily Mail
- Ex-minister’s firm lobbies for defence and oil giants – BBC
- New treatment regimen cuts cervical cancer deaths by 40 per cent – The Times
- UK farmers forced to cut food production to stay viable, warns NFU – Financial Times
- Private member’s bill to ban smartphones in schools – BBC
- Albanian burglar who snuck back into UK trolls Nigel Farage – Daily Express
- Harris accused of plagiarising Martin Luther King in her book – Daily Telegraph
- Social media is linked to anxiety in teenagers, say researchers – The Times
- Westminster’s reliance on Elon Musk’s X is ‘totally wrong’, says Labour MP – The Guardian
- Town halls want 10pc council tax rise to deliver housing targets – Daily Telegraph
- Anti-Zionism protected under equality law, judge rules – The Times
- Ministers will be required to publish list of freebies to public – Daily Telegraph
- Jewish group attacks Plaid’s Israel boycott call – BBC
- Labour MP hands parliamentary job to party donor who gave £55,000 – Daily Express
- Hundreds of Afghan soldiers to be allowed to relocate to UK after U-turn – BBC
News in brief
- Starmer’s investment summit won’t save the UK economy – Peter Franklin, Unherd
- Is Kemi Badenoch scared of Robert Jenrick? – William Atkinson, The Spectator
- Our public finances are terrible – it’s time to balance the books – Dr Gerard Lyon, CapX
- Why Ukraine almost certainly cannot win – Philippe Lemoine, The Critic
- Green Party spend £1m on legal fees in four years as gender rows continue – Sophie Church, The House magazine
