“And 17% of those who backed Johnson now say we should re-join the bloc.” https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/nearly-half-of-2019-tory-voters-want-closer-ties-with-the-eu-according-to-new-poll/
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Liz McKeown of the ONS said: “Our updated set of GDP figures shows quarterly growth unrevised across 2023, with a…
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The U.K. has the chance to align with the U.S. rather than wait around for the EU — but the…
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The UK’s electoral system is archaic and is being made ever more unfair by the disenfranchisement of society’s weakest
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: How democratic is the United Kingdom?
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Millions of people are at risk of falling victim to a “passport 10-year rule”, The Independent’s travel expert Simon…
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The New Yorker’s excoriating report on the state of the UK lays bare how Britain’s withdrawal from the European…
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Scottish Government Housing Minister Paul McLennan has blamed Brexit after the number of new homes built in Scotland fell by…
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Greater fall per head and latest trade data illustrate longer term decline of economy. Read More
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A human rights committee that examined a range of concerns called on Britain to abandon its controversial plan to send…
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Scottish salmon is the UK’s largest food export and while in 2019, more than 53,000 tonnes of the product were…
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MAJOR investment is required across departments to deal with problems caused by a “lack of forward thinking” from Government, the…
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Bob Copeland concludes his series by advocating ‘primary’ elections to select the best candidates to oppose the two major parties.
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The current British government is making attempts to distort the electoral process and jeopardising UK democracy
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Our democracy is under attack – from a government scared of a fair election
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Martin Griffiths recalls this 1915 poem which is still pertinent today.
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We recently welcomed Michael Richter to eu!radio! He is a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer at the University of Surrey, in Britain. He spoke about how Ukraine is not only defending itself against the Russian aggression, but also fighting a second battle, against corruption.
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We recently welcomed Simon Usherwood to eu!radio! He is a professor at the Open University in Britain, and Chair of UACES. He shared his thoughts on the forthcoming European Parliament elections.
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We recently welcomed Emilija Tudzarovska to eu!radio! She is a Lecturer in Contemporary European Politics at Charles University, in Prague and her research focuses on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. She spoke about her scientific approach to the crisis of representative democracy that we all perceive.
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Solid performances and a nostalgic 1980s soundtrack prop up loosely-plotted musical ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: ‘An Officer and a Gentleman: The Musical’ lands at the Alhambra, Bradford
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Yorkshire Water is the second worst in the country for sewage spills in 2023
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Yorkshire rivers and waterways polluted for over 500,000 hours in 2023
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Sevington site was never designed to handle volume of imports envisaged by post-Brexit changes due in April, port’s health chief warns
An inland facility set up to carry out checks on nearly all EU meat and dairy imports coming through Dover will be unable to cope when post-Brexit rules come in next month, the port’s health authority has warned.
The Dover Port Health Authority (DPHA) said the Sevington facility in Ashford, which is 22 miles inland, had not been designed to handle the scale of imports expected, and claimed its geographical position would “create an open door for disease and food fraud”.
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A new exhibition at the Hull History centre explores the colourful story of the lost Yorkshire island of Ravenser Odd
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Ravenser Odd: Yorkshire’s medieval Atlantis
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Labour peer says there is little desire among voters for a referendum and in Brussels for renegotiations
Peter Mandelson has dismissed the prospect of an incoming Labour government taking Britain back into the EU, saying “you’ve got to be joking” that Brussels would want to renegotiate the UK’s membership.
The Labour peer, a former EU trade commissioner and close adviser to Keir Starmer, said rejoining the 27-country bloc would require a referendum that UK voters had little desire for, after the Conservatives’ botched handling of Brexit.
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Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, must receive assurances from US before any extradition
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Julian Assange’s extradition ‘on hold’
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Embarking on a trip through the past to determine how successful Labour manifestos are created
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Labour 2024 in search of a manifesto
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The Oscar-winning film 20 Days in Mariupol, shows the reality and brutality of the war in Ukraine – a must-see, lest we forget
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Britain is afflicted by rampant income inequality: a simplified tax system is the answer
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Mending inequality in the UK: part one – changes since WW2
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Despite clear government maladministration, the WASPI campaign still has some way to go to finally secure justice
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: The WASPI fight for justice continues
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The new Police Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire will face challenges from budget cuts and worsening crime rates
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The BBC’s programming strategy aims to reflect all the UK’s people, including Yorkshire audiences. Katrina Bunker speaks to Yorkshire Bylines
Yorkshire Bylines Local News: The BBC’s Across the UK strategy is bringing broadcasting to the heart of Yorkshire
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Despite being called continuity Hunt, the shadow chancellor has set out a proposal for meaningful change
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt likes to tell business leaders not to worry about political instability and more policy upset. He claims to be carefully building policy that will survive – win or lose the next election. If the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, succeeds him, accepting nearly all his proposals, be reassured, he says, there will be continuity rather than change. In the run-up to her important Mais lecture last week, the pre-briefings seemed to warrant his judgment.
She would reaffirm her iron attachment to fiscal rules and budgetary discipline, we were told. After all, she had beaten a wholesale retreat from Labour’s cornerstone £28bn green spending commitment. In successive fiscal “events”, she has accepted all the proposed tax cuts, not even reinstating the cap on bank bonuses. There was chatter describing her as “continuity Hunt”. Even Margaret Thatcher, we read, would be invoked as a change agent she admired. Unite sharpened its claws, writing off the lecture even as Reeves spoke as “for the birds”. Only a “sustained rise in public investment in infrastructure”, declared general secretary Sharon Graham, “can turn the tide on decline”. Two days later, columnist Owen Jones resigned from the Labour party, citing the refusal to challenge catastrophic Tory policies in “a race to the bottom”.
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Hickory’s Smokehouse restaurant review praises the American southern-ranch style of the building, the atmosphere and the food
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Tax revenues from Silicon Valley giants have made the republic wealthy on paper, but housing and healthcare crises persist
In 1956, a chap named TK “Ken” Whitaker, an Irish civil servant who had trained as an economist, was appointed permanent secretary of the finance department in Dublin at the relatively young age of 39. From his vantage point at the top of his country’s treasury, the view was bleak. The Irish republic was, economically and socially, in deep trouble. It had no natural resources, very little industry and was mired in a deep depression. Inflation and unemployment were high. Ireland’s main export was its young people, who were fleeing in thousands every year, seeking work and better lives elsewhere. The proud dream of Irish independence had produced a poor, priest-ridden statelet on the brink of failure.
Whitaker immediately put together a team of younger officials who did a critical analysis of the country’s economic failings and came up with a set of policies for rescuing it. The resulting report, entitled First Programme for Economic Expansion, was published in November 1958, and after Seán Lemass was elected taoiseach (prime minister) in 1959, it became Ireland’s strategy for survival.
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Israel and Palestine maintained an uneasy status quo which has been destroyed by the 7 October attacks and subsequent conflict
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Dr Helmut Hubel asks if Germany’s Social Democratic Party, led by Chancellor Scholz, is not betraying Ukraine like Chamberlain did to Poland in 1938
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Notts County, the oldest professional football club in the world has an important legacy, supported through generations of fans
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This article on the Hester scandal was written in support of Diane Abbott, the first Black UK MP, and for Black women everywhere
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Chancellor says date would allow a spending review to be carried out in time for next April
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP and former business secretary, has described as “barmy” a ruling from Ofcom saying that GB News broke impartiality rules because it allowed him to present news during his show on the channel.
Ofcom said GB News had broken these rules on five occasions – two relating to programmes presented by Rees-Mogg, and three relating to programmes presented by Esther McVey, the Cabinet Office minister, and her husband, the Tory MP Philip Davies.
This strikes me as completely barmy that reporting, in a programme that lasts for an hour, an event that has happened, where somebody has been stabbed, where does due impartiality come into somebody’s being stabbed?
I just think this is a really eccentric judgment on that particular issue. It’s just a strange thing to say that there’s a question of impartiality on a stabbing. Stabbing people is wrong.
We recognise the factual nature of the content delivered by Jacob ReesMogg, which did not include any partial comment on, or discussion of, the wider issues involved.
However, as set out above, there are additional protections afforded to news because of its fundamental importance in a democratic society.
Yes I saw that and I didn’t think that that was appropriate.
Well, I think in describing objects, in museums and galleries, I think the creator has an important role to look at history to make sure that their objects are understood. But these are matters for those individual institutions.
Punch and Judy is seen as traditionally British, but it evolved from the 16th-century Italian street performance commedia dell’arte.
Although aimed at a family audience, the original narrative in its Victoria heyday featured domestic violence, hangings and racist caricatures – a jarring and inacceptable combination for modern audiences.
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West England Bylines is pleased to announce the opening of a 33 mile trail down the River Coln Valley. We hope our readers will be able to enjoy some or all of this beautiful route through the Cotswolds
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The Inter Faith Network that promotes understanding between different faiths in the UK is forced to close as government withdraws funding
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A hypothyroidism diagnosis for one patient has meant 15 years fighting for the only effective medication for her case
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Perhaps our government imagines bulldog spirit will protect us from the dangerous substances that Europe rules unsafe
It’s a benefit of Brexit – but only if you’re a manufacturer or distributor of toxic chemicals. For the rest of us, it’s another load we have to carry on behalf of the shysters and corner-cutters who lobbied for the UK to leave the EU.
The government insisted on a separate regulatory system for chemicals. At first sight, it’s senseless: chemical regulation is extremely complicated and expensive. Why replicate an EU system that costs many millions of euros and employs a small army of scientists and administrators? Why not simply adopt as UK standards the decisions it makes? After all, common regulatory standards make trading with the rest of Europe easier. Well, now we know. A separate system allows the UK to become a dumping ground for the chemicals that Europe rules unsafe.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Join George Monbiot for a Guardian Live online event on Wednesday 8 May 2024 at 8pm BST. He will be talking about his new book, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism. Book tickets here
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Iceland was an unusual place to visit but its history in World War II revealed the reasons for East German expert Professor Childs’ visit
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Wine Society describes planned alcohol duty changes as ‘ludicrous, expensive and probably unworkable’
British consumers have been told that the price of some of their favourite red wines could increase by more than 40p next year after the government ignored pleas from the wine industry to abandon complex post-Brexit tax changes.
The chief executive of Majestic Wine, John Colley, said the new alcohol duty system, which comes into effect in February 2025, would increase the number of tax bands for wine from one to 30, and cost businesses huge sums of money to administer.
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Geneviève Talon compares the British House of Lords to other second chambers and concludes that reform is needed but should be gradual so as not to throw away the Lords’ valuable scrutiny function
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Well-intentioned moves are afoot to ‘overhaul the machinery of government’. But it’s the policies that are the problem
It was Dr Johnson, not Boris Johnson, who declared “patriotism is a last refuge of the scoundrel”. Some years have passed since Johnson, Shirley Williams and I were guests of an institute outside Moscow. We were there to explain what we hoped were the wonders of western democracy – the freedom, the politics and the economic policies – to Russian politicians and academics who were glorying in having shaken off the constraints of the Soviet Union.
Alas, the glory days were not to last. Along came the so-called oligarchs, and then Putin. The ancient Greek word oligarkhía meant “rule by the few”. But in the post-Soviet world it came to denote a group of people who stripped the nation of its prime economic assets and became very rich – more plutocrats than oligarchs. We all know the consequences: the collapse of the Soviet Union evolved into rule by dictatorship, with the plutocrats fleeing abroad from Putin.
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The Royal College of Surgeons held an examination day for trainee surgeons, and I was an exam question.
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Imanishi Eitaro, the mild-mannered Tokyo detective, has returned to print in a well-deserved reissue of Seichō Matsumoto’s classic novel
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Talks offer ‘huge opportunities’ but come at a delicate time after Ankara held up Sweden’s accession to Nato
The UK and Turkey have started talks about a post-Brexit free trade agreement targeting the service sector of the economy.
The UK government said there were “huge opportunities” for British businesses in exporting to Turkey, as one of the fastest-growing economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development group of nations, with trade between the two countries worth £26bn in 2022.
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A bit of tricky one, this. It partly explains the hiatus in posting of late, although that might also be down to the rubbish weather. As we move towards a General Election, interest has naturally turned towards what a Labour government might look like and do. And EU policy is a recurring question.
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Our PM, in his political death throes, is like a crazed hostage-taker clinging on to his captive in the hope that the encircling rescuers might be hit by a thunderbolt.
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Richard Jones describes the journey of the ‘UK Star’ through the UK and how this talisman for our place in Europe is stimulating debate on a range of issues
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How to align research and innovation with values, needs and expectations of society? During the past ten years, researchers, policy-makers and funders in Europe have developed and supported the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach to address societal aspects of research and innovation early on.
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Rory Stewart's life in politics casts a remarkable and unflattering light on our system and those who work in it. The story concludes ...
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Somehow the chancellor omitted to mention the main cause of Britain’s woes
On Wednesday, I watched Jeremy Hunt unveil the budget live on TV, though a carefully coordinated campaign of leaks to client media outlets meant it held little of the excitement it did in the 1970s. Where’s the fun in that? If Hunt’s 2024 budget was a 19th-century Parisienne burlesque artist, she would have walked on stage already naked and then gradually put her clothes back on, to the increasing uninterestedness of the disappointed perverts in attendance.
What an event budget day was when I was a boy! The annual release of the budget was as thrilling to me as waiting for each week’s new No 1 in the Radio 1 chart rundown. To this day still, I have a battered C60 audio cassette on which I used to tape both direct from the radio. Side one is my favourite No 1 singles from the period 1974 to 1977 – the Rubettes’ Sugar Baby Love, Windsor Davies and Don Estelle’s Whispering Grass, the Wurzels’ The Combine Harvester and the Sex Pistols’ gamechanging God Save the Queen. Side two is highlights of the then chancellor Denis Healey’s budgetary announcements from the same years. Who can forget 1974’s 10% on crisps, 1975’s ½p on a loaf of bread, 1976’s beer up one penny and 1977’s unprecedented withdrawal of the 2% national insurance surcharge on charities, a decision so radical it was essentially Healey’s own punk rock moment.
Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is on tour in March at Darlington Hippodrome (16) and Kings Theatre Portsmouth (21)
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Neither of the leading political parties in Britain has proper respect for the natural world. Indeed both are a million miles from what’s needed
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No 10 years were plagued by in-fighting as she tried to deliver a Brexit that would placate hard-right and centrist factions
After grand dinners at Chequers, the UK prime ministers’ countryside retreat, Theresa May often used to ask her driver to take her 45 minutes across the Buckinghamshire countryside to her home in Maidenhead, rather than staying overnight.
Even as prime minister, May maintained a devotion to her constituency that sometimes baffled aides but encapsulated the contradictions at the heart of one of Britain’s most successful but hard-to-define politicians.
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Theresa May has announced she will not stand as an MP in the next general election. We look back over May’s political career, from being elected as MP for Maidenhead in 1997, to her time as home secretary for David Cameron, stewarding Brexit after Cameron’s resignation, the snap election that backfired, dancing at Tory party conferences, and her life as an MP since resigning as leader of the party
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Original date of publication on the UACES Ideas on Europe platform: 27 January 2016 The grandness of the EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy lies in its potential to render the existing conundrum of various EU strategies into a more orderly set of strands with a clear vision regarding their mutually complementary role. […]
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Original date of publication on the UACES Ideas on Europe platform: 11 April 2016 Do you have at work one of these lovely collaborative brainstorming boards? I do. Here is my inspirational (inspirational / management) quote. In short, I have taken the liberty to add a new twist to the widely used Altshuler’s quote. The […]
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Original date of publication on the UACES Ideas on Europe platform: 15 October 2019 Foreword The outlined science diplomacy research project is presented with a full appreciation of Adler-Nissen’s concise observation that ‘over the last 50 years, European states have come to view their nations as anchored so deeply within the institutions of the EU that their […]
The post The EU’s Diplomacy for Science in the Southern Neighbourhood: Setting a Research Agenda appeared first on Ideas on Europe.
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Original date of publication on the UACES Ideas on Europe platform: 21 October 2019 “In each one of us, in differing degrees, is contained the person we were yesterday, and indeed, in the nature of things it is even true that our past personae predominate in us, since the present is necessarily insignificant when compared […]
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Original date of publication on the UACES Ideas on Europe platform: 8 November 2019 This blog entry is a follow-up to the research agenda published last month. It presents further details of the research project. It captures the evolving complexity of the research project since the most recent reflections on Bourdieusian influences in the EU studies have encouraged […]
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Exclusive: Chancellor disappointed some Conservatives with only limited rise in threshold, but said he was restricted by Northern Ireland protocol
Jeremy Hunt has privately admitted to colleagues that he cannot further raise the VAT threshold for UK businesses because of EU rules.
The chancellor announced in his budget on Wednesday that businesses would no longer have to pay VAT if they had a turnover of less than £90,000, an increase from the previous threshold of £85,000.
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The Conservatives 2015 manifesto promised âvotes for lifeâ for all Britons living abroad â in line with other major democracies, such as the USA, France, Italy, and Canada. Britons whoâd been living abroad for more than 15 years werenât allowed to vote in UK elections. But the Tories pledged to change that. Those Britons abroad […]
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On the day after the EU referendum, 24 June 2016, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, stood outside 10 Downing Street. He could have said: âThe people of the United Kingdom have all had their say.â But he didnât. He didnât mention âUnited Kingdomâ at all. What he actually said was: âOver 33 million people, from […]
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The chancellor is prepared to inflict yet more austerity to pay for a budget bribe. But the UK needs more spending, not less
“When I was young, it grew on me by the minute
That we were outside Europe and should be in it
Now I am old and we are back outside it
I simply can’t abide it.”
This clerihew was sent to me out of the blue by Martin Bell, the celebrated former BBC foreign correspondent who became known as the Man in the White Suit during his 1997-2001 spell in parliament as the independent MP for Tatton.
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As the chancellor prepares next week’s budget, Labour says it is staring at a dire inheritance. The voters look likely to agree
The past 14 years have been a white-knuckle ride for the British economy. Record low interest rates, money creation from the Bank of England on an industrial scale, Brexit, millions of workers furloughed during the pandemic, the biggest fall in output in at least a century – all that, and a record number of people inactive through long-term ill health. Boring it hasn’t been.
At the end of it all, there is a sense of deja vu as Jeremy Hunt puts the finishing touches to next week’s budget. When Liam Byrne departed the Treasury in 2010 he left a note – meant as a joke – for his successor as chief secretary, which said: “I’m afraid there is no money.” After almost a decade and a half of economic underperformance, Byrne’s words have come back to haunt the Tories.
Economists say George Osborne blundered when he imposed severe austerity measures on a still-fragile economy
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UK democracy needs radical reform, but thereâs little evidence our leaders are ready to take up the challenge, writes Alun Drake. Iâm a great fan of jokes involving defective light bulbs. Hereâs an example: how many climate change deniers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none, because they claim itâs too early […]
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Producers say the labelling could add £250m a year to their costs, further fuelling inflation
Food industry trade bodies are discussing whether to take legal action against the government over post-Brexit plans that will require all meat and dairy products sold in the UK to be labelled as “not for EU”.
Food producers say the labelling could add £250m a year to their costs, further fuelling inflation, and they are discussing a legal challenge as a viable option if a solution with the government is not found.
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Eurosceptics often claim that they love Europe but hate the European Union. They assert that Britain can still be part of Europe without having to be part of the European Union. That, of course, is true to an extent, but it rather misses the point and purpose of the EU. The European Economic Community â […]
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Defra proposal to relax farming rules accused of breaking Tory pledge to raise standards post-Brexit as the practice can cause pain
Proposals to legalise the carrying of chickens by their legs in the UK would represent an unacceptable dilution of animal welfare standards and the first such weakening of regulations in the area since Brexit, campaigners have said.
The government’s Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) has made the recommendation despite acknowledging it to be a “welfare compromise” that can cause “pain, discomfort and breathing difficulty” leading to distress and injuries such as fractures and dislocations.
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The irony may be that Nigel Farage has done more for unification than generations of Republicans
A week before the Brexit vote on 23 June 2016, a reporter from an Irish radio station caught up with Nigel Farage on the campaign trail. He asked the Ukip leader if Britain’s departure from the EU would have any implications for the island of Ireland.
“Don’t worry, we’ll still buy your Guinness,” replied Farage, which chimed with the leave side’s broader dismissal of the consequences for the Good Friday agreement arising from the vote.
John Walsh is a Dublin-based journalist, and writer and co-producer of the feature-length documentary The Irish Question, which premiered at Dublin international film festival
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In Doncaster, at the insurgent rightwing party’s ‘biggest ever’ gathering, one absence is on everybody’ lips
On a sunny day at Doncaster racecourse, those gathered for Reform UK’s “biggest ever party conference” were presented with a dizzying array of pledges to cut tax and freeze “non-essential” immigration as its leading lights published a programme to “save Britain”. Yet even as the sun beamed down, the shadow of one absent figure seemed to hang over proceedings.
There was a jubilant mood at the South Yorkshire gathering as they cheered leader Richard Tice’s demands for an inquiry into vaccine harms, to break with the World Health Organization and to fire headteachers who refused to drop “critical race theory”.
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The EU is the most successful peace project in human history. Sure, itâs not perfect. But as a model for neighbouring countries to democratically work together, in cooperation and in peace, for the common goals of prosperity and security with respect for human rights, there is no better example on planet earth. If the world’s […]
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There is no doubt across the world, even in Russia, that Vladimir Putin was directly involved in the murder on Friday of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. Just as there is now little doubt that Russia directly interfered in the UKâs democratic processes â the Scottish referendum in 2014, the EU referendum in 2016, and […]
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Pre-election giveaways funded by yet more austerity will push the welfare state the opposition created towards ruin
As a longstanding observer of the British economy, I sympathise with the general reader trying to make sense of recent reports on what is happening to it.
One week he or she is told that inflation is falling; another week that it isn’t. One week we are reliably informed that interest rates are going to be reduced; the next that they are not. One week there is no danger of falling into recession. The next week we are informed that we are already in one.
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Compared to Brexit, the day Britain ditched its old money and adopted a new decimal currency was smooth sailing. Work on the new system began in earnest in March 1966 and decimalisation day came five years later, on 15 February 1971, when the government launched the new currency across the country. The familiar pounds, shillings […]
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My son says it means taking out the player without getting the ball, all while shouting ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Sound familiar?
For the umpteenth time, my son, with an Ikea stuffed ball he has had since infancy, is playing football in the living room. He is joined by one of his best friends, an equally football-obsessed 10-year-old who, before slide-tackling in what can only be described as a deliberate attempt to knock my son’s legs off, shouts: “Brexit means Brexit!” Confused, I pass it off as an example of tweenage precocity: which 10-year-old is happy to quote Theresa May while playing football?
Over the next year, however, I will hear the term used again and again when my son plays football at the local park. He turns 11 and is off to secondary school. There, too, the phrase seems to have become a “thing”. One evening, as he recounts the details of how he got a painful-looking graze on his shin, he quotes the attacking player’s prelude to clattering into him: “Brexit means Brexit!” I ask, finally, why people are saying this. Nonchalantly, as he practises “skills” with the same softball, he explains that the Brexit tackle “is a tackle that doesn’t get the ball, only takes out the player”. Urban Dictionary concurs, stating it is, among other things, “when somebody hits a massive slide tackle and usually sends them flying and it hurts them servely [sic]”.
Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer
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To win power, and to stay in power for more than one term, Labour needs to do something special. Itâs a sobering thought that although there have been six Labour Prime Ministers since the party was formed in 1900, only three of them won general elections: Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair. The Tory […]
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Former Conservatives Prime Minister, Sir John Major, did not mince his words about Brexit at a Westminster committee meeting. Speaking in February 2023, he asserted that leaving the European Union has been âa colossal mistake.â We should be back in the #EU, he said, to keep Britain safe. He said: âThere are three great power […]
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The Guardian has reported that Labour is planning to ditch radical reforms and only offer âsafe policiesâ in a stripped-down, cautious manifesto that is âbombproofâ to Tory attacks. Keir Starmer has now rowed back from numerous big policies, such as its £28bn a year commitment on green investment, replacing the House of Lords with a […]
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Trade rules aim to alleviate DUP opposition to the Irish Sea border and restore power sharing
The government has established new rules to smooth post-Brexit trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is to assuage Democratic Unionist party concerns that the Irish Sea border has undermined the region’s position in the UK. In return for these concessions the DUP has agreed to restore power sharing after a two-year boycott that has paralysed the Stormont assembly and executive.
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Today is first stage in a series of changes likely to raise costs for businesses and consumers
Today will bring the first stage in new, wide-ranging Brexit border controls on the import of plants, animals and food to the UK from the European Union.
The changes, the most significant for importers since the UK left the single market three years ago, are poised to have huge ramifications for businesses that rely on imports from the continent.
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DUP approves post-Brexit legislation, meaning devolved government could soon be functioning again
Power-sharing in Northern Ireland is on the verge of being restored after a night of drama in Belfast. It would end an almost two-year power vacuum in the region after the Democratic Unionist party collapsed the Stormont government to protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements.
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After talks with Canada hit a halt alongside those with US and India, the UK has limited Pacific agreements to show for Brexit
Negotiations over a trade deal between the UK and Canada have been halted after disagreements on beef and cheese tariffs.
The ability for the UK to secure its own global free trade deals was sold as one major benefit from the UK’s decision to leave the EU but progress has been mixed. Here we look at what agreements have been struck so far and with whom, and which other important economies are still at the negotiating table and why.
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The scale of the law changes means environmental legislation in the UK is facing death by a thousand cuts
Although the UK’s regression from EU environmental standards, revealed by the Guardian, seems very technical, the scale of the law changes means environmental legislation in Britain is facing death by a thousand cuts.
In practice, changes by the EU that the UK is not following and planned divergences from EU law will mean toxic chemicals banned in the EU will be allowed to be used in the UK, the UK will reduce greenhouse gas emissions more slowly, its waters will be dirtier, and consumer products will be more likely to contribute to global deforestation.
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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have clashed over the Rwanda asylum deal during PMQs. The Labour leader referred to the plan as a 'gimmick' while the prime minister declared Starmer was 'once again on the side of the people smugglers'. The pair also used Margaret Thatcher and Brexit to mock one another with Starmer questioning how the Conservative party went from 'up yours to laws to take our money Kagame'. Sunak said Starmer could role play Thatcher all he wanted but when it came to Europe his answer was the same, 'yes, yes, yes'
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Trade has been hit by Brexit, while the number in poverty has risen sharply in a country ill-prepared for the future
For years the British government from the prime minister down has lacked a coherent economic strategy, according to a thinktank’s health check of UK prospects.
“We are not on course towards setting any such strategy – indeed, we are not serious about the task,” says the report, titled “Ending Stagnation – a new economic strategy for Britain”.
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Ursula von der Leyen hopes young people can drive a rapprochement but polls show they have other things on their minds
“We goofed it up, you have to fix it,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday in a message to the younger generation about Brexit.
Fixing it would be “the direction of travel” with regard to the UK rejoining the EU, she told an audience in Brussels. But as the fourth anniversary of Brexit approaches, is it likely that Britain’s millennials and generation Z will demand a rapprochement?
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Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, has said that the problem raised by car manufacturers worried about exports to the EU facing tariffs from next year 'isn’t to do with Brexit'.
She made the comment during business questions in the Commons, where Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, criticised her record since she has been in post.
The 'rules of origin' requirements raised by car manufacturers were part of the TCA and related to Brexit, but all European car manufacturers were having problems because there was not enough battery supply in Europe, she said
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The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has said it 'feels wrong' that EU citizens who have lived in the UK for years and pay taxes here do not have the right to vote. Speaking to LBC on Monday, Starmer said: 'The thinking behind it is: if someone’s been here say 10, 20, 30 years, contributing to this economy, contributing to the community, they ought to be able to vote'
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The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsey Hoyle, lost his temper with Kemi Badenoch when the secretary of state failed to inform the house of the government's U-turn on repealing retained EU laws.
The government has decided to go ahead with plans to allow thousands of EU-inherited laws to expire by the end of the year, news that Badenoch released in a statement and to the Telegraph newpaper before making a statement in the House of Commons.
The business and trade secretary said she was sorry that the sequencing was not to the speaker's satisfaction, infuriating Hoyle further
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The US president said making sure the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework stay in place were the top priority of his trip to Northern Ireland. Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One, Joe Biden said 'making sure the Irish accords and the Windsor agreements stay in place, keep the peace, that's the main thing'.
Biden also addressed a question on the arrest of Evan Gershkovich by Russian authorities, calling his detention 'totally illegal'.
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Suella Braverman has denied Brexit is responsible for delays at the port of Dover after some passengers said they had been queueing for up to 14 hours to have their passports checked. Extra sailings were being put in place overnight with hopes of clearing the backlog by lunchtime on Sunday, after a critical incident was declared at the port on Friday. Speaking on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the home secretary said operations at the French border had been 'very good' since Brexit
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UK foreign secretary James Cleverly met with Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president, to agree to work 'intensively and faithfully' to implement the Windsor framework after formally adopting it. On behalf of the UK and EU, both counterparts agreed to accept the revised version of the Northern Ireland protocol. Prime minister Rishi Sunak's deal with the 27-nation bloc has rewritten the post-Brexit rules on Northern Ireland trade. Cleverly said that, after long negotiations, the two had finally found a way 'to move forward'
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Rishi Sunak has won parliamentary backing for his revised post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland despite hardline Conservative Brexiters voting against it. Among those who did not support the prime minister’s proposals were his two immediate predecessors, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, members of the European Research Group as well as Democratic Unionist party MPs
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Conservative MP Mark Francois, who chairs the European Research Group, makes a statement to the press detailing its study of Rishi Sunak's Northern Ireland Brexit plan. Summarising the ERG's stance, Francois said it had concluded the Stormont 'brake' was not effective and that the check-free 'green lane' for the bulk of goods moved between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not work as billed
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Speaking at the Global Soft Power summit in London, the ex-prime minister Boris Johnson said the Northern Ireland Brexit deal agreed by Sunak was 'not about the UK taking back control'. Johnson admitted he was at fault that the checks on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland had become too 'onerous' but reiterated his call for the UK to be allowed to diverge with EU regulations and laws. He said: 'This is nothing if it is not a Brexit government, and Brexit is nothing if we in this country don’t do things differently'
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When the history of Brexit is written, the Lib Dems’ decision to let Johnson hold this election will be seen as a key strategic error.
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We can kick Johnson out. So brave the elements and vote for the candidates with the best chance of beating the Tories.
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Relying on the WTO for our trade was always a terrible idea. Now that the US president has ripped a hole in it, it’s economic suicide.
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Good news from YouGov poll is Tory lead is shrinking. Bad news is they are still ahead because too many pro-European votes are being wasted.
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A Tory victory means more chaos. The only way to end the arguments over Brexit and fix our real problems is to vote them out.
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Johnson yesterday hinted he would axe the licence fee. This had two purposes: cover up his NHS blunder and pummel the BBC into submission.
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PM rips off Love Actually in his video but misses out the punch line: “Just because it’s Christmas and at Christmas you tell the truth.”
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Right-wing press has branded Corbyn unelectable. They are right - he is. Not for the reasons they suggest, but because of simple maths.
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To cover up Johnson’s NHS disaster, Tories fabricate story about Labour activist punching Hancock aide.
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Not only is Johnson lying about surrendering to the EU demand for an internal UK border, he isn’t ready to deliver a deal by December 2020.
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