Rishi Sunak's tax hikes will lead to a £44 billion bombshell by 2024, equivalent to almost £1,600 per UK household. The stark figures were buried in the small print of today's Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) report accompanying the Spring Statement. It finds that the net impact of the tax policies announced by Rishi Sunak since March 2020, including today's tax changes, will mean tax receipts are £43.8 billion higher in 2024-25. The OBR also reveals the impact of Rishi Sunak's stealth tax and freezing of income tax thresholds, which will cost taxpayers £17.5 billion a year. By 2025-26, 2.8 ...
Responding to the Chancellor's Spring Statement, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Christine Jardine MP said: "Families were looking to the Chancellor to offer them hope, instead he is adding to their pain by refusing to scrap his unfair tax rises. "People seeing the biggest plunge in living standards in fifty years will see through the Chancellor's spin. "Rishi Sunak has failed to introduce a windfall tax on the super profits of oil and gas producers, which could have raised billions to help people with their energy bills. And he has refused to bring in an emergency cut to VAT, as Liberal ...
As per my comments at this time last year I continue to believe that we British make far too much fuss about the annual budget (though we are told this isn't one, but just a Spring Statement.) In spite of the horrors of the war in Ukraine this year's "event" has received lots of discussion and publicity before it and will doubtless have generated a lot of comment in tomorrow's papers. This year, for once, there was an opportunity to relieve the really serous distress on the horizon for a large part of our population, and Mr Sunak has not ...
Here's how Liberal Democrats are reacting to Rishi Sunak's Spring Statement: Today's statement from Sunak is swindling the British people. Nothing to stop the cost of living crisis, nothing to stop eye-watering inflation and nothing to stop budget cuts to schools. A shocking Tory failure to rise to the crisis facing millions of people. — Ed Davey MP [IMG: 🔶] [IMG: 🇬🇧] [IMG: 🇪🇺] (@EdwardJDavey) March 23, 2022
Having been involved in politics here on Merseyside since 1980, one of the many things I've learned is that whilst the Labour Party fight like ferrets in a sack internally they always, always try to put forward a united front in public. But hey, things may be changing as Maghull Labour are rightly trying to turn the screw on big brother Sefton Labour. You'd expect it to end in tears for Maghull Labour but let's give them credit for standing up to Sefton Labour. I have a feeling that the Maghull Town Council/Sefton Borough Council relationship may be getting a ...
Speaking yesterday in Westminster Hall, Wera Hobhouse tackled the "hugely difficult and harrowing" subject of sibling sexual abuse which, she said, can have "devastating, lifelong consequences". The child who has harmed often has to deal with the dichotomy of their actions as a child and who they are now as an adult. Parents are often faced with the "double dilemma" of trying to support both of the children involved, dealing with school, social services, children's services and police investigations, as well as unaffected siblings, friends and extended family. Criminal justice is not the answer to tackling sibling sexual abuse; we ...
Rochdale Online reports on a boost for the Liberal Democrats locally ahead of the May council elections: A former Labour mayor of Rochdale has defected to the Liberal Democrats. Councillor Mohammed Zaman confirmed his decision to cross the floor citing 'in-fighting' and splits within Labour ranks for his departure. It means the Lib Dems now have four members on the council... Councillor Zaman said: "I have made the decision to leave the Labour party because of the amount of infighting and partisan factions that have emerged in the past few years. I have always put my community first and Labour ...
In his budget today, Rishi Sunak cut fuel duty by 5p a litre, raised the threshold at which workers start paying national insurance by £3,000 a year and announced a future 1% reduction in income tax. But the OBR said almost 3 million more people will be brought into paying income because the income tax threshold has been frozen. Ed Davey said: This tax bombshell will send a shiver down the spine of families who are drowning in spiralling bills. Rishi Sunak is trying to swindle the British public by burying the true cost of his disgraceful tax hikes. He ...
Wed 23rd
12:50
Ambulance handover delays at Shropshire's A&Es are a national disgrace - an inquiry is needed
Significant delays in handovers from ambulances to A&E departments continue at Shropshire's two acute hospitals. This winter, half of ambulances arriving at the two A&Es experienced handover delays of 30 minutes. This much worse than the experience across England, where one fifth of ambulance handovers were delayed by 30 minutes or more over the same period. The national target is 15 minutes. Ambulances that are stuck in the A&E queues are not available to answer new 999 calls. It is unacceptable that a fifth of ambulances are experiencing long handover delays in England. The handover delays at the Royal Shrewsbury ...
Tue, 16:05: RT @Greebohobbes: Ann Codee in 1924 She was a Belgian actress with numerous hit films on her résumé, such as Can-Can, Kiss Me Kate, and In... Tue, 18:28: The Unofficial Doctor Who Annual 1972, ed. Mark Worgan https://t.co/Ofv75lQiQX https://t.co/2eRzVpnMcr Tue, 20:48: RT @PostingCast: A short 🧵 on the tiresome and boring transphobia dragging up the advice that teachers don't use "mum and dad" when talking...
It is a year today since Tony died. I have been talking with other friends and his family about how best to remember him in a way which captures both the essence of the man and the extent of his contribution to Liberalism and his party over 60 years of activism. I finish by asking how we to remember Tony and build on the massive legacy of his life in Liberalism. Tony had the most secure moral compass for Liberalism of anyone I have known. Time and again, his reaction to events demonstrated an instinctively Liberal mind. He applied Liberalism ...
A pariah state is one considered to be an outcast in the international community, usually because it is guilty of heinous crimes against its own population. The UK is nowhere near that standard and we clearly still have friends, but the government appear to be doing everything they can to stand apart from international conventions and to alienate some important allies. Key to that behaviour is the attitude of ministers to refugees and asylum seekers. Fortress Britain is a real thing and is being reinforced by Priti Patel's new Nationality and Borders Bill, which according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), ...
In a passionate speech in the House of Commons yesterday, Tim Farron condemned the Nationality and Borders Bill saying it is based on a bogus premise, that we are swamped by asylum seekers. He slammed the "utterly bogus, completely contrived and arbitrary notion" that asylum seekers should be treated if they got here by illegal routes. Farron asked why are we not granting asylum seekers the right to work? He said if MPs vote for this Bill, "they are voting for deaths in the channel". People come here not because of the pull factor, but because of the push factor ...
From Sheena Wellington : No Trees to Whisper - a song cycle for soprano and clarinet Performed by Turning the Elements Frances Cooper (soprano) Joanna Nicholson (clarinet) Saturday 26th March 2022 - at 2pm - on Zoom Join us for the video premiere of this beautiful collaborative new work commissioned by soprano and clarinet duo Turning the Elements, with the support of Creative Scotland. The inspiration for the project came from Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell's famous diaries of their Journey to the Highlands and Islands in 1773 - " I sat down on a bank, such as a ...
