Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said she had found a £21.9 billion hole, and a black one at that, ‘covered up’ by the Tories in the finances Labour inherited. ‘The biggest single cause of the £22 billion fiscal hole was Reeves’s decision to give inflation-busting pay rises to public sector workers,’ the
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Disappearing England Sir: Rod Liddle’s reference to Labour’s intention to build 1.5 million new houses (‘The great bee-smuggling scandal’, 13 July), even though there is not a shortage, leads one to worry where they will be located. The green belt was introduced for London in 1938 and the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947
The unclued lights are French words or phrases which include a colour: 2, 10/32, 21A/7D, 21D, 28/8, 36/11, 37/8 and 38/15. Bleu at 8 does double duty, and ‘noir’ and ‘noire’ are the two forms. First prize Jeremiah Carter, Cambridge Runners-up Ian MacDonald, East Grinstead, W Sussex; C.R. Haigh, Hassocks, W. Sussex
Keir Starmer is advertising for someone to head his newly created Border Security Command. The salary is higher than his own: the person in charge of stopping the boats would earn between £140,000 and £200,000. According to the ad, the job of patrolling the English Channel can be done remotely from any one of 12
1968 again An incumbent who drops out of the race for re-election and a candidate who gets shot; this year’s US presidential election bears similarities to that of 1968. Lyndon Johnson had won the 1964 election by a landslide and was expected to win another term. But in April 1968 he withdrew from the race,
Home Britain enjoyed its share of the worldwide failure of 8.5 million computers reliant on Microsoft, through a faulty update of the CrowdStrike antivirus software. On the first day, 167 air departures were cancelled in the United Kingdom – 5.4 per cent of those scheduled. (Worldwide it was 5,078 – 4.6 per cent of those
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Decline, divorce and Democrat disaster
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What should be on your radar this August
Rain or shine Has a wet St Swithin’s Day (15 July) ever been followed by 40 wet days or a dry one by 40 dry days? – Since 1861, according to the Met Office there is not a single instance of the legend being literally true in England. However, the late meteorologist Philip Eden did record
Sitting ducks Sir: James Heale is right to highlight the important question about Rishi Sunak’s replacement (‘Who will lead the Tories?, 13 July). A weak leader will be a sitting duck for Nigel Farage to target, resulting in a worsening split on the right and an open goal for Labour to exploit at the next
Emily Brontë’s poem ‘Remembrance’ includes: ‘Cold in the earth – and fifteen wild Decembers, From those brown hills, have melted into spring.’ Brownhills is a town in the borough of Walsall, hence the title. First prize Anne Greenwood and Martin Plews, Horsham, W. Sussex Runners-up Ian Laming, Chippenham; Neville Twickel, Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire
Home The government funnelled three dozen bills into the King’s Speech, highlighting one to make a specific offence of spiking a drink, which is already illegal. But backbenchers and Labour in Scotland failed in efforts to remove the cap of two children for the payment of child benefit. A new state-owned energy company would be
Concerns have been raised in recent months after an outbreak of avian flu caused by the virus H5N1 was detected in cattle in the US. To date, 139 affected herds have been identified, and four dairy workers have contracted the virus. The UK Health Security Agency, which previously believed there to be minimal risk of
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