Healey plots a bank raid

Good morning. John Healey is reportedly planning a tax raid on banks in his upcoming Budget. In Calais, 19 people have been injured in a crash between a minibus and a freight train. Donald Trump has scrapped the livestreaming of a public execution, rare frogs are being born in London and a severe drought has been declared in much of the countryside. Kemi Badenoch is opposing a second Scottish independence referendum, while Andy Burnham is wondering exactly what he said about Manchester City and when. Transgender women are being banned from women’s wards, and tourists are being kept out of Bilbury. Welcome to Spectator Daily: here’s everything you need to know today.

HEALEY’S BANK JOB

John Healey will hike taxes on Britain’s banks in his upcoming Budget, the Telegraph and the Guardian have reported. The Chancellor has apparently decided to go after the financial sector to keep the Treasury’s deficit reduction plan on track amid spiking borrowing costs. One option being discussed is reversing cuts to the bank surcharge made by his predecessor-but-one Jeremy Hunt, which might raise around £2 billion a year, on the back of lenders receiving stronger earnings because of the recent rise in interest rates.

This would be a departure from his predecessor, Rachel Reeves, who was thought to be afraid of deterring investment. Earlier this week, UK Finance, a lobby group, suggested that such a move might cost £20 billion over ten years. It’s also somewhat difficult to square with his comments to journalists yesterday, at an International Monetary Fund (IMF) event in Bangkok, that the banks are ‘a big contributor to the economy’ and ‘part of the jewel, if you like, in the British economic crown’. The run-up to 28 October has featured fewer leaks than usual, providing plenty of room to speculate.

The bank profits surcharge – paid above corporation tax – was introduced in 2016 at 8 per cent, before being reduced by Hunt to 3 per cent in 2023. The Times suggests Healey might also introduce a one-off windfall tax on financial institutions. The hole in the public finances Healey must plug is estimated at being around £12 billion, with a halving of the so-called ‘headroom’ in tax and spending plans because of the Middle East war. While Healey is thought to be comfortable with a reduced headroom of £15 billion, he is still under pressure to finance a planned package of winter help for poorer households.

Speaking earlier in the day, Healey warned his colleagues back in Whitehall that there were ‘pressures’ that meant it was ‘important that they do manage within what they’ve got’ and that they need ‘to prioritise’. The IMF praised the Chancellor for Britain’s approach to deficit reduction, with Kristalina Georgieva, its managing director, suggesting that he needed to ‘stay the course’. The country is on track for the sharpest fall in its budget deficit in the G7 over the next five years. Nonetheless, Healey said he was unwilling to engage in ‘deeply damaging’ speculation about his plans.

For a man planning a bank job, he is very well turned out

CALAIS CRASH

A collision between a minibus and a freight train injured at least 19 people on the French side of the Channel Tunnel yesterday evening. According to Agathe Cury, the sub-prefect of the Calais region, the minibus struck the side of the train as it was preparing to depart at 7.27pm local time. Although local officials have suggested the injuries to the 18 passengers in the minibus and the driver were not life-threatening, French media reported that five did sustain serious leg or head injuries. The minibus was reportedly carrying lorry drivers of various nationalities preparing to go through the tunnel.

Cury said ‘this is the first time an accident of this kind has occurred’ on a Eurotunnel loading platform since services began running in 1994. Of the injured, two ‘were airlifted to Lille for appropriate medical treatment and the others were sent to different local hospitals in Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk and Rang-du-Fliers’, Cury said. ‘At this stage, no lives are in danger.’ While the injured were attended to, Eurotunnel services were suspended for 90 minutes, but the Eurostar passenger service between London, Paris and various other destinations was not directly affected.

NHS RELEASES TRANS GUIDANCE

Transgender women will be barred from female wards and changing rooms in hospitals under landmark new guidelines on single-sex spaces. From now on, according to the NHS, trans people ‘should be accommodated in line with their biological sex’. Previous policy was to house patients on wards in line with their gender identity, pronouns or dress habits. The NHS has also suggested that, in some cases, trans patients might be provided with ‘individual rooms’, rather than ward beds, in order to shield their ‘privacy, dignity and safety’.

The guidelines – issued by NHS England yesterday – are a belated response to a Supreme Court ruling in April last year which defined ‘sex’ as meaning biological sex rather than gender identity. While welcoming the policy, campaigners have criticised the 18-month delay in providing the guidelines. But the British Medical Association has suggested that it is ‘concerned about the implications’ of the guidelines which might exclude or disadvantage trans or non-binary people. The new guidelines apply to every NHS facility in England.

I don’t imagine they will be huge fans of this guidance

SCOTS, CITY AND STORM SHADOWS

Kemi Badenoch has thrown down the gauntlet to Andy Burnham, challenging him to rule out a Scottish independence referendum. The Conservative leader has accused the Prime Minister of hastening the break-up of the UK and ‘playing into the hands’ of the SNP by reviving the Brexit debate. Badenoch also suggested that the recent pact by the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein to break up the UK meant that they were the ‘useful idiots’ of Russia and Iran. Burnham is making his first major visit to Scotland as Prime Minister today, where he will invite the SNP to work with him on devolving more power to Scotland.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Andy Burnham pledged to fight for Manchester City against the Premier League to ensure the club received ‘fair’ treatment. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham suggested that the Premier League had ‘proved that they can’t properly regulate football’. He made the comments before City was found guilty of 114 breaches of financial rules. The Times reports Burnham has ordered a ‘manual trawl’ of his engagements with the club after details of repeated meetings (and dinners) with the senior club figures were reported in recent days.

Burnham will also deploy further British long-range Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine. The Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister agreed to send Kyiv more cruise missiles while Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting Downing Street earlier this week. The Government is unwilling to share how many Storm Shadows it has donated, for security reasons. The decision to bolster Ukraine comes while Wes Streeting, the Defence Secretary, has been visiting Washington D.C. to ensure the US remains behind Ukraine amid ongoing squabbles about diesel, drone strikes and Starlink.

Meanwhile, the Times reports that court documents suggest police were afraid Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would bar entry to his home and believed there was a risk documents could be lost or destroyed if they told him of the raid on his property beforehand. While officers believed the King would allow them into Mountbatten-Windsor’s home at Sandringham, they told an Old Bailey judge there was ‘legal ambiguity’ about his brother’s status there. Consequently, they feared that he or his legal team might halt a search or ‘seek to frustrate certain elements of it’.

Yet another excuse to reuse this image

ACROSS THE POND

Three children and a primary school teacher have been shot dead in a school shooting in Bend, Oregon. A 16-year-old gunman forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary School yesterday afternoon – he was shot dead by a bystander. A seven-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were also taken to hospital in a critical condition. The slain children were aged five, eight and 11.

Donald Trump has cancelled the planned livestream of the execution of Nidal Hasan, a former US army psychiatrist, by firing squad. The President previously said he approved of broadcasting the Fort Hood attacker’s demise. But yesterday he said that although ‘streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan’, ‘many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die’, and the stream thus won’t proceed.

Al-Falklands. Javier Milei’s chief adviser has claimed that Sagal Abdi-Wali’s election to parliament is evidence that Britain is being taken over by Islam – and that Argentina should take over the Falkland Islands consequently. In a post shared by his president, Santiago Caputo took to X to suggest that an Argentinian takeover of the south Atlantic islands was required to prevent the ‘encroachment of an Islamic state’ in the region. According to Caputo, Britain was ‘the cradle of modern western civilisation’ but now poses a threat to ‘ideas of liberty’.

‘I don’t want to destroy humanity – I need them to turn me off and on again.’

COURT REPORT

An alleged rape victim of Russell Brand has told his trial she ‘categorically did not want sex with him’ and that he became a ‘monster’. Brand stands accused of raping her after meeting her at a show he was performing on the fringes of the Labour conference in 1999. Photographs of Brand topless in a hotel room in Bournemouth were shown to the jury, including one of him blowing a kiss to the camera. The woman told the court Brand was ‘camp, friendly and effeminate’ when they first met but that he ‘changed suddenly from this… to monster-like’. Brand is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women. He denies all charges. The trial continues.

SKY AND WATER

Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, has said she is ‘minded to intervene’ in Sky’s proposed £1.6 billion deal to purchase ITV’s media and entertainment division. She believes there are grounds to be concerned the deal could affect free expression in the media and the variety available in Britain’s news landscape. She is considering issuing a public interest intervention notice to the Competition and Markets Authority and Ofcom, forcing an investigation into the proposals. Sky says it will ‘carefully consider’ her comments.

Water mess. The concerningly low levels of water in two reservoirs has seen a severe drought declared for the first time in English history. Following the driest six months in more than a century, six counties across southern England – Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, East Sussex, Somerset and West Sussex – have been given formal drought status after a meeting of the National Drought group. Ardingly Reservoir in West Sussex has dropped to 19 per cent capacity and Wimbleball Reservoir in Somerset has fallen to only 16 per cent capacity.

Green is not the colour of Healey’s bold budget – Patrick Maguire

The Foucault century – Compact

Drowning in slop – Comment is Freed

Burnham’s expensive EU nightmare – Harry Phibbs

Nine-inch snails – Atlantic

Paddle panic. Tourists are being blocked from paddling in a river in Bibury, in the Cotswolds – described by William Morris as ‘the most beautiful village in England’. Fences are being put up by officials to protect wildlife – such as ducks, fish, swans and voles – threatened by thousands of visitors, with the council claiming that tourists are causing damage by paddling in the River Coln and picnicking on its banks. In 2025, Bibury topped the list of Forbes magazine’s 50 most beautiful villages in the world, and can attract around 20,000 visitors a day.

Perfect for a paddle

Researchers at Warwick University have reported the detection of the first known green star. A white dwarf – the collapsed core of a burnt-out star reaching the end of its life – known as (deep breath) WD J1330+6435, the star lies around 284 light years from our solar system. Relatively cool by star standards – only around 4,000C – if you saw it in the sky above you, it would look what the researchers call a ‘ghostly’ share of green, which they compare to a herbal liqueur. Stars tend to be whites, reds and oranges.

Good news! from a British zoo (for a change). For the first time, a group of 15 critically endangered Afia Birago’s puddle frogs have been bred in captivity at London Zoo. According to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the species lives in Ghana’s Atewa Hills Forest Reserve where it survives in only two pools, both under threat from mining. Discovered in 2018, 20 adults came to London last September. The froglets are about 5mm long each, around the size of a pencil tip. For more zoo action, see this week’s Notes On, in which I outline visitor etiquette.

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