Politics

Council tax may need to rise by up to 5% a year for the next three years – the latest in a long list of warnings that the cost of living is expected to increase substantially. The forecast comes from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which said that, under government spending plans, a rise

Boris Johnson has branded levelling up “the greatest project that any government can embark on” in his closing speech at the Conservative Party’s annual conference. In his keynote address marking the end of the four-day event, the prime minister pledged that his top team will “get on with our job of uniting and levelling up

Boris Johnson will close his party’s conference in a rousing finale in which he will accuse his Tory predecessors of “drift and dither” and lacking the guts to tackle big problems. Bringing the conference to a barnstorming climax with his speech to the adoring Tory faithful on Wednesday, he will a promise a “long overdue”

Boris Johnson has said he cannot guarantee that targets to improve rape prosecution and conviction rates set out in the government’s Rape Review will be met. Plans set out in the report, which was commissioned in 2019 and published in June of this year, said the volume of rape cases going to court should return

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab will promise to “transform” how the justice system handles violence against women, acknowledging the profound effect of the murder of those such as Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa. In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Tuesday, Mr Raab – who is also the deputy prime minister following

For a chancellor who came into office on the cusp of a global pandemic which forced his hand on policy-making, this speech was the reset moment for Rishi Sunak. Setting up the differences between Labour and the Conservatives on economic policy, a well-rehearsed path walked by most chancellors over the years, Mr Sunak’s speech was

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to announce a £500m expansion of government action to tackle unemployment and support job seekers following the end of the furlough scheme. In a speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Monday, Mr Sunak will outline fresh funding for schemes designed to increase the chances of employment for

Boris Johnson has not ruled out shortages continuing until Christmas, but said the festive period this year will be “considerably better” than last year. “I’m very confident this Christmas will be considerably better,” the prime minister said during a visit to a youth club in Manchester. Live updates from the Conservative Party conference When it

Boris Johnson has not ruled out a further relaxation of immigration rules to help ease the UK’s fuel and supply shortages – but the prime minister insisted he does not want to see a return to “a lot of low-wage immigration”. Amid the continuing queues at petrol stations across the country, the government has said

Staff in care homes who don’t receive both vaccine jabs ahead of a looming deadline should “get out and get another job”, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has warned. His warning comes ahead of the 11 November legal deadline for care home workers to have had both COVID-19 jabs, but some unions and care homes are

The golden rule of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives is that an otherwise disparate party is at its most happy when it’s talking about Brexit and its consequences. At times of stress, it’s the trump card the PM routinely reaches for. Given the stage of the country, expect it to feature heavily during the party conference. As

The policing minister has said it would be “perfectly reasonable” for anyone being approached by a lone police officer to call 999 and seek reassurance in the wake of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard. Speaking to Sky News’ Kay Burley, Kit Malthouse gave advice on what people should do if they are approached

Sir Keir Starmer has said the Labour conference this week was a turning point for the party and it now has a “credible programme” to win the next general election. The Labour leader, speaking the morning after his 90-minute keynote speech, said if voters do not want to support the plans put forward at conference

The government’s coronavirus furlough scheme ends today after supporting millions of workers during the pandemic. Ministers say the wages of more than 11 million jobs were subsidised for at least some of the scheme’s duration, at a cost of about £70bn. There is now uncertainty over the almost one million people still thought to be

Sir Keir Starmer has been on quite a journey in the past 18 months Elected leader in April 2020 on a message of party unity and continuity, he has travelled a long way from that starting point. And it was on Wednesday that he finally crystallised what that really means as he faced down the

Sir Keir Starmer batted away hecklers during a mammoth speech in which he used his personal experiences to show off his human side as he announced a key climate change policy. Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, introduced Sir Keir before his conference speech by thanking the Labour leader for helping prosecute his

Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly refused to say if he is moving Labour away from the left to the centre of British politics, but insisted: “You can’t lose four elections and not change”. On the eve of his first in-person Labour conference speech as party leader, Sir Keir said he was focussed on turning Labour

Ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has revealed he spoke to Andy McDonald before he announced he was quitting Sir Keir Starmer’s top team – but he denied there had been “some deep-laid Machiavellian plot”. Sir Keir has been rocked by the resignation of Mr McDonald as shadow secretary of state for employment rights and protections midway

Sir Keir Starmer is being warned that his party’s Brighton conference is “falling apart” following the dramatic resignation of a shadow minister. The Labour leader has been rocked by Andy McDonald’s decision to quit as shadow secretary of state for employment rights and protections midway through the party’s gathering on the South Coast. Mr McDonald’s

Brexit is “obviously a contributory factor” to the shortage of HGV drivers that is having a knock-on effect across the economy, the shadow chancellor has told Sky News. Speaking to Kay Burley from the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Rachel Reeves said: “To deny that I think flies in the face of reality. Fuel supply