Theresa May calls for return of maintenance grants for poorer students May 29, 2019 Theresa May will call for the reintroduction of maintenance grants for university students from poorer backgrounds on Thursday. The outgoing Prime Minister is backing a recommendation made by an independent review of further education, which calls for handouts of at least £3,000 for those from poorer backgrounds. Maintenance grants were axed in 2015 by then-chancellor George [...]
Esther McVey reveals she will stand in the next Tory leadership contest May 9, 2019 Another Conservative MP has joined the race to become the next Prime Minister, with former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey announcing she will stand in the race to succeed Theresa May. McVey, who lost her Wirral West seat in 2015 before being elected as MP for Tatton two years later, revealed this morning that [...]
Evening Standard set to cut jobs as it merges print and online business May 3, 2019 The Evening Standard is to announce a string of job cuts as it looks to merge its print and online businesses. Read more: Mirror publisher Reach revenues slip amid pressure on print In an email to staff, editor George Osborne said the paper is making the cuts in a bid to counteract rising costs. “We [...]
Labour policies will represent ‘revolution’ for UK economy says John McDonnell April 29, 2019 Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Labour will unleash an economic “revolution” if it wins power. The Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, who has previously named Soviet revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky as key intellectual influences, told the BBC he saw parallels with 1979 when Margaret Thatcher swept to power. "Things aren't working for people, so they're [...]
A new book about austerity has put Keynesian economists on the defensive April 29, 2019 Notoriously, economists quarrel about almost everything in their subject. But since the publication of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936, they are supposed to agree on one point: that increases in government spending boost demand and output, and reductions in government spending depress them. Indeed, according to the theory, a [...]
DEBATE: Should individuals be held accountable for the failure of the Garden Bridge project? April 12, 2019 Should individuals be held accountable for the failure of the Garden Bridge project? Caroline Pidgeon, chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee, says YES. When £53.5m is spent on a project, including £43m from the public’s pocket, and there is literally nothing to show for it, some very fundamental questions have to be answered. I fundamentally [...]
Charity watchdog criticised for lack of action against £53.5m Garden Bridge project trustees April 9, 2019 The charity watchdog has been criticised for failing to take action against the people behind the failed Garden Bridge project that cost taxpayers £43m. The Charity Commission’s inquiry into the conduct of the Garden Bridge Trust, whose members included the actor Joanna Lumley and PR tycoon Roland Rudd, found that the botched bridge project across [...]
George Osborne tax scheme gave ‘unjustified preferential treatment’ to multinational companies April 2, 2019 The European Commission (EC) has found a UK scheme gave tax breaks to some multinational companies illegally, and has ordered Britain to recover the money from firms that benefited. Officials in Brussels said on Tuesday they found the scheme, first introduced in 2012, gave tax breaks to the firms under the guise of state aid. [...]
Home-buying or retirement: What are Lifetime Isa savers planning to use their money for? March 20, 2019 When then chancellor George Osborne announced that the government would launch the Lifetime Isa in 2017, the industry was stunned. Designed for people under 40 to either save for retirement or for a home, few people saw this hybrid product coming. Alongside concerns that the Isa could distract from the new workplace pension scheme, a lot of [...]
Fresh data reveals the folly of Britain’s apprentice levy March 4, 2019 Today is the start of National Apprenticeship Week, an event that should celebrate the endeavours of ambitious young adults across the country. Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to mark the occasion without noting the disaster that the government’s Apprenticeship Levy has become. The tax was launched with the supposed intention of lifting the number of [...]