Guido hears the government is set to announce an increase in tuition fees today. Fees have been frozen at £9,250 a year since 2017. Labour briefed two months after coming to office that “the current system is unsustainable and we need to raise tuition fees.” Post-budget they are set to announce a rise along with inflation to £9,535 for the financial year 2025/26. The figure was set late last week…
Labour made clear that discussions were “live” to re-introduce maintenance grants for poorer students of up to £3,500, which were scrapped in 2016 by the Tories. Though, judging by the budget, they’ve got no problem hanging the less well-off out to dry…
UPDATE: Asked about Guido’s story at this afternoon’s Lobby briefing, Starmer’s spokesman said the “Government inherited a higher education sector facing huge financial challenges, tough decisions are necessary.”
UPDATE II: Now confirmed by Phillipson.
Badenoch is continuing to make the first appointments to her Shadow Cabinet. It will be together by their first meeting on Tuesday…
Guido will bring you more updates as they come…
Rachel Reeves’ tax raid has sent investors fleeing from the stock market in droves, leading to a record exodus last month as they scrambled to withdraw their cash. In October alone, investors offloaded a staggering net £2.7 billion from equity funds—the largest outflow ever recorded—draining every category of fund in the process. Investors ran for the hills ahead of looming capital gains tax hikes. Now it’s been confirmed in the Budget, many more will follow…
This rush to withdraw came on the heels of September’s dismal figures, where savers also pulled their capital, marking the first net outflows in 11 months, according to Calastone. The recent sell-off has set off alarm bells for the London market, plunging the UK into a “doom loop” of Labour’s making. As UK company valuations nosedive, investors are bolting British stocks faster than you can say “economic mismanagement”…
Kemi has been chatting to staff in CCHQ. It’s been a ghost ship with a skeleton crew in the long period since the election…
They key points as briefed out by the Tories are:
Shadow Cabinet announcements are inbound. Ahead of an actually-combative PMQs on Wednesday…
Today, it’s all eyes on the Channel migrant crisis as the government scrambles to look tough. Yvette Cooper and Sir Keir Starmer are trotting out speeches to unveil a measly £150 million package to crack down on small boat Channel crossings. Meanwhile, the Channel remains as busy as ever. Over the past four days alone, 1,227 migrants have landed on UK shores—shattering last year’s numbers with weeks still left in 2024. Not exactly the kind of statistics the Home Office want up on the board…
As for when Britons can expect the number of illegal boats to actually come down? Cooper refused to lay out a timeline today, not even committing to figures falling by the next election. Instead, she took the opportunity to bash the Tories for their empty “slogans,” despite her own rallying cry to “smash the gangs” sounding suspiciously slogan-like. Meanwhile, Richard Tice dubbed Cooper’s lines as “meaningless twaddle” and even the government’s own Border Security Commander admitted some form of deterrence is needed to stop the boats. Labour’s empty tough talk won’t put off those “irregular migrants” anytime soon…
The BBC is busy promoting its ‘fact-checking’ article on Reeves’ new farm tax. The Verify team consulted with “independent tax expert” Dan Neidle who pooh-poohs claims from farmer groups that the tax will be highly damaging to a high number of family farms. The article finishes that section by saying Environment Secretary Steve Reed “confirmed the ‘vast majority’ of farmers will not be affected by changes.” He would say that, wouldn’t he…
What the top fact-checker sleuths over at Verify have failed to mention is that their “independent expert” is a senior and longtime Labour activist. Dan Neidle wrote in his successful pitch for election to Labour’s National Constitutional Committee in 2022:
“I’ve been a member of the Labour Party for 35 years and have been a ward secretary, ward chair and CLP Secretary. More recently, I’ve been the agent for two MPs and dozens of local councillors, and helped turn seats that were once marginal into Labour strongholds. I’ve practised law for 22 years and have advised candidates, MPs and campaign groups on electoral law, successfully fighting off attempts by other parties to use the legal system against us. I know the Labour Party rulebook.”
The NCC is “a senior organ of the UK Labour Party concerned with discipline.” Neidle was election agent for both Stella Creasy and Emily Thornberry, for whom he deployed such savvy electoral tricks as sending letters from fake neighbours urging a vote for Labour. You’d think with a combined salary of £3.2 million the Verify team may have noticed that one…
Guido’s not saying the BBC shouldn’t consult people like Neidle, just that the readers might like to know who they actually are. It always conducts its due diligence with right-wingers – funny that…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”