Chancellor to pitch budget at wealth creators – UK politics live
John Healey is expected to cut red tape requirements, particularly for smaller businesses Good morning. A week today John Healey, the chancellor, will be doing a media round defending the budget he is presenting on Wednesday next week. Ahead of that, he has given an interview to Patrick Maguire from the Times. As you would expect, there is no real detail in it about the measures he will be presenting to MPs. But the big picture message is very clear – and quite surprising, coming from a chancellor serving a PM who in some respects is steering left compared to his predecessor. Healey says that he wants to be on the side of bloody-minded entrepreneurs who make a profit, he acknowledges that government has made their life harder over the past two years, and he suggests that cutting the ‘cost of living’ for business is just as important as cutting the real cost of living for families. In the quote that gives the Times its splash headline, Healey says: I want to be a chancellor who backs business in Britain making a profit, and those entrepreneurs who, in the end, are the ones who challenge the status quo, come up with innovative ideas and are trying, some of them through sheer bloody-mindedness, to keep going through these sorts of pressures … If you’re not making a profit, you’ve got nothing to put back into the business. And for the people who start up these businesses, the ones who really thrive and grow, they have to make a profit — and they will be much more inclined to put it back into their own business. But we want it to grow here and stay here. If you talk to any of the businesses that have come in and have either had one-to-ones or round tables with me, I have recognised that in recent times there’s been a lot of pressure: employment law, regulation, tax, input costs, supply chains. And so when I talk about the cost of business, and recognising that in the same way as we’re recognising the cost of living pressures, I’m conscious of that as I go into the budget for both businesses and households. [Healey] is expected to use the budget to make significant cuts to regulation on businesses that one senior Treasury source described as “the sludge choking firms”. Reporting requirements are likely to be abolished for many smaller enterprises, The Times understands. Continue reading...
West End to get another lesson from The History Boys two decades on
Nation’s favourite play makes London comeback amid renewed debate about future of humanities teaching The History Boys is to return to the West End for the first time in two decades, with a warning from its director of an “almost terminal decline” in humanities teaching in state schools. Nicholas Hytner, who directed Alan Bennett’s play at the National Theatre and its 2006 film adaptation, said the themes of education, history and the value of literature for its own sake felt especially relevant amid renewed debate about what schools should teach. Continue reading...
Merz’s eastern nightmare is far from over
The weakened German leader wants to overcome humiliating losses to the far right in eastern elections — but the prospect of the AfD’s biggest win yet haunts his chancellorship.
Macron hosts security council meeting ahead of planned weekend of protests – Europe live
‘The government must hold its nerve,’ Macron told reporters earlier this week French president Emmanuel Macron is back from his tour of the Gulf and convening a meeting with relevant ministers and intelligence services to figure out what can be done to prevent unsavoury scenes on the streets of French cities as more protests are planned for this Saturday. “The government must hold its nerve,” Macron told reporters earlier this week. Continue reading...
Criminals who refuse to attend sentencing could lose prison privileges under new rules
England and Wales judges will be able to keep inmates in their cells for longer or stop visits if they refuse to face their victims’ families in court Offenders who refuse to face their victims’ families in court for sentencing could be stripped of privileges or kept in cells for weeks under government changes granting wider powers to judges in England and Wales. The imposition of new prison sanctions, coming into effect next year, build on existing laws that order offenders to attend sentencing or face a fine or be jailed for a further two years for contempt of court. Continue reading...
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