News Update Today, Breaking News | Read Now

Instead of sticking to arbitrary limits, politicians should be able to make the case for spending on urgent social repair The UK has had seven sets of fiscal rules since 2010. In a study comparing it with 34 peer nations since 1985, Britain not only changed its rules more frequently but they also had shorter lives. Clearly fiscal rules are not immutable laws of nature but arbitrary, human-made restraints. Implicit in this model is a dim view of human nature: that politicians cannot be trusted to resist the temptation to abuse government spending programmes for political or ideological ends. The result is that, instead of a political leadership that spends too much, Britain has politicians who spend too little. This is no way to run a country when there is urgent social repair needed. Instead, on Wednesday, Jeremy Hunt appears ready to deliver a budget full of tax giveaways and cuts to struggling public services to meet his fiscal rules. Labour should offer an alternative. Unfortuna

Hull FC 28-24 London Broncos Visitors remain winless after last-minute heartache Being 200 miles away from the sport’s traditional heartlands, London Broncos have never been strangers to a unique rugby league situation. But even by their standards this season is completely unprecedented given the reality that, no matter what the Broncos do upon their return to Super League in 2024, they will be asked to quietly collect their belongings and leave later this year. With only the top 12 clubs in IMG’s grading system given a seat at the top table in 2025, the fact London were ranked 24th in the provisional rankings at the end of last season – below clubs such as Batley and Doncaster – means they simply won’t improve enough on and, more importantly, off the field in one season to climb into the top 12. Even winning the grand final, unlikely as it would be, wouldn’t be enough to save them. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/MEnlWyO

Manchester City moved to the top of the Women’s Super League table after defeating Everton 2-1. City picked up where they left off in their first match since defeating Chelsea last month, with goals from Khadija Shaw and Lauren Hemp taking them three points clear of Emma Hayes’ side, who visit Leicester on Sunday. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/YpuREDf

The author and Labour MP on his book about the last men in Britain to be hanged for their sexuality, his misgivings about the Church of England and the novel he always goes back to Chris Bryant has been Labour MP for Rhondda since 2001. He is the shadow minister for creative industries and digital, and former chair of the Commons committee on standards and privileges. He has published eight books; his ninth, James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder , out last month, reconstructs the lives and deaths of James Pratt and John Smith, who in 1835 became the last men to be hanged for homosexuality in Britain. James and John both tells the story of a terrible injustice and highlights how widespread the persecution of gay men was in this country: 404 British people were sentenced to death for the same “crime”. How did you alight on this particular case? A couple of years ago [in 2020], I wrote a book called The Glamour Boys about some gay Tory MPs in the 1930s who were killed i

The new Rochdale MP is hardly unique. He is just highly adept at swimming in the toxic swamp that is so much of our politics You’re going to hear a lot of talk about George Galloway in the coming days, much of it negative and almost all of it true. But there will be one charge thrown at the new member for Rochdale – winner of a byelection victory yesterday as sweeping as the triumph he recorded in Bradford West more than a decade ago – that will be false and unfair. Start with the accusations that stand up. Galloway poses as a man of the left – his latest vehicle is called the Workers party of Britain. But he backed Nigel Farage’s Brexit party (now Reform) in 2019 – the pair had appeared together, during the 2016 referendum campaign, laughing and smiling – and the Conservatives in Scotland in 2021 . You did not misread that sentence: George Galloway voted Tory only three years ago. Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this art

I still feel guilty every moment my loved ones are stuck there. But seeing the solidarity in London’s protests gives me hope Farah Morad is a Palestinian radiologist living in London When my three young children and I arrived in Gaza in August, we were looking forward to a two-month vacation to visit my family after 10 years spent building our lives abroad and in the UK. I am a radiologist, but since having my younger children I’ve been a full-time mum, preparing for fellowship exams while my husband works as a surgeon in London. The plan was to make happy memories for the children, who are nine, four and 18 months old – have them meet their relatives and see the place I grew up in for the first time. My husband was staying behind to work. And so, what feels like an eternity ago, we packed our bags and said goodbye to him. He wished us a safe trip, none of us suspecting that we would be trapped in a horrifying war, unsure if we would ever see each other again. We ended up fleeing

For the chancellor to yield to his rightwing obsessives would be bad economics and bad politics Few things in British politics are more glumly predictable, whatever the economic and political circumstances, than Conservative MPs and their rightwing media echo chamber demanding budget tax cuts. Reducing the tax burden for the less well-off undoubtedly has a place in an even-handed approach to Britain’s economic challenges. The tax system also needs reform. But renewed backbench calls for cuts in personal taxes in advance of Jeremy Hunt’s pre-election budget reveal a party that has learned nothing. It is only 18 months since Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng brought the UK economy to its knees by pursuing exactly this approach. Sterling crashed to its lowest level against the dollar in half a century after they declared their tax-cutting budget was just the start . Borrowing costs spiralled. The package also inflicted what may prove to be irreparable damage on the Tory party’s electoral