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Sir Keir Starmer is marking his first 100 days in office. When his press spokesperson was asked ahead of the big day if the prime minister thought it had been a successful start, he simply said: "It's up to the public to decide that."

The verdict is in, and it isn't good: Sir Keir's approval poll ratings last week fell to -33 - a drop of 44 points since his post-election high, while one poll put Labour just one point ahead of the Tories.

A poll out this weekend by YouGov finds nearly half of those who voted Labour in the last general election feel let down so far, while six in 10 disapprove of the government's record so far, against one in six who approve of the Starmer government.

Sir Keir will no doubt say it's not about the first 100 days, it's about the "next decade of national renewal". And perhaps he has a point. How can you foretell the fortunes of a political leader from 100 days?

The great late Alistair Cooke in one of his Letter from America dispatches said making a big deal out of the first 100 days was a "foolish custom".

All eyes were on outgoing Post Office chief executive Nick Read this week as he spent three days in front of the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal.

Mr Read replaced former boss Paula Vennels in 2019 and was brought in to "right the wrongs of the past".

Wrongful prosecutions may have stopped, but he still had questions to answer about how much the organisation has really changed when he gave evidence.

Mr Read had taken leave of absence from his day job to prepare for the inquiry.

Unlike the appearance of his predecessor, Paula Vennells, there were no tears. But there were some key revelations. ( (Here are five things we learned from his evidence.

• Told not to 'dig into' the past
• Frustrated about his own pay
• Government using Post Office as a 'shield'
• Staff implicated by the scandal still working
• Contract for sub-postmasters is 'heavy-handed'

A record 9.3 million people - including one in five children - are facing hunger and hardship in the UK, according to an anti-poverty charity.

This is one million more than five years ago, the Trussell Trust said in a new report.

The charity said almost a quarter of children under four face hunger and hardship, making them the age group most at risk.

Unless changes are made by the government, a further 425,000 people, including 170,000 children, are projected to fall into this category by 2027, it said.

A government spokesperson told the BBC that "no child should be in poverty".

The report, The Cost of Hunger and Hardship, external, was published on Wednesday.

Trussell Trust worked with economic and public policy experts WPI Economics to analyse government data.

It found that one in seven people across the UK face hunger and hardship and one in five children are growing up under these circumstances.

This means that 46% more children are facing hunger and hardship than two decades ago.

More than half of people currently facing hardship are living in a disabled family, the report said.

The Trussell Trust said a total of 32% of people in single-parent families face hunger and hardship, and children under four face the highest risk of being in this situation of any age group at 24%.

Having employment is not a reliable route out of hardship, the report concluded, with 58% of people facing hunger and hardship living in a family where someone is working.

The rate of hunger and hardship is highest for people living in Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British families at 28%, compared to 11% for people living in White families, the report said.

The chancellor will need to raise taxes by £25bn if she wants to keep spending in line with a key indicator of the nation's economic health, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

In its annual 'Green Budget' analysis, the IFS warned that the government would have to dramatically increase the £9bn of tax rises outlined in its manifesto to meet the pressures on public services.

The chancellor is likely to stick to her fiscal rule, which requires day-to-day spending to be met by tax revenues. This means she cannot increase borrowing to fill the gap.

Rachel Reeves will present her first budget in the Commons on 30 October. Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said this budget could be "the most consequential since at least 2010".

Sixty of the wealthiest people in the UK collectively contributed more than £3bn a year in income tax, the BBC has learned.

The amount of income tax they paid is roughly equivalent to around two-thirds of Labour’s entire additional spending commitments in their manifesto earlier this year.

Each of the 60 individuals had an income of at least £50m a year in 2021/22, but many will have earned far more and probably pay large amounts in other taxes too.

There is concern tax rises in this month's Budget could prompt an exit of the super-rich, hurting UK finances. Labour ruled out income tax changes, but Chancellor Rachel Reeves left the door open for other tax hikes.

A Treasury spokesperson said the government was committed to "addressing unfairness in the tax system".

Swiss banking giant UBS predicted in July the UK would lose half its millionaires by 2028, partly as a result of some switching to low-tax countries.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the Treasury needed to be aware that a small number of this super-rich group leaving the country would create a "relatively big hole in its finances”.

But the Green Party argued claims taxing the wealthy more would lead to them leaving the UK were not credible.

Deaths have outstripped births in the UK for the first time in nearly half a century, excluding the start of the pandemic, official figures showed on Tuesday.

Declining fertility and the demise of baby boomers means there are now more funerals than baby celebrations, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

There were an estimated 16,300 fewer births than deaths in the UK in the year to mid-2023, the first time this has happened since the 1970s “baby bust”, if excess deaths during Covid are stripped out.

But the figures continue to show a growing population, up 1% in the year to 68,265,209 people, due to net international migration of 677,300.

The dominance of deaths over births was described by economists as “a stark reminder of Britain’s demographic challenges”.

On October 3, the British government announced that it was giving up sovereignty over a small tropical atoll in the Indian Ocean known as the Chagos Islands. The islands would be handed over to the neighboring island country of Mauritius, about 1,100 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa.

The story did not make the tech press, but perhaps it should have. The decision to transfer the islands to their new owner will result in the loss of one of the tech and gaming industry’s preferred top-level domains: .io.

Whether it’s Github.io, gaming site itch.io, or even Google I/O (which arguably kicked off the trend in 2008), .io has been a constant presence in the tech lexicon. Its popularity is sometimes explained by how it represents the abbreviation for “input/output,” or the data received and processed by any system. What’s not often acknowledged is that it’s more than a quippy domain. It’s a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) related to a nation—meaning it involves politics far beyond the digital world

...

Once this treaty is signed, the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. Various international bodies will update their records. In particular, the International Standard for Organization (ISO) will remove country code “IO” from its specification. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which creates and delegates top-level domains, uses this specification to determine which top-level country domains should exist. Once IO is removed, the IANA will refuse to allow any new registrations with a .io domain. It will also automatically begin the process of retiring existing ones. (There is no official count of the number of extant .io domains.)

Boris Johnson rejects the notion that he is a 'liar'.

Speaking to Matt Chorley on BBC Radio 5 Live, the former prime minister defends claims made by Vote Leave during the 2016 EU Referendum and asks why the rival Remain campaign aren't branded "a bunch of liars" for their claims.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/30558477

Britain is facing a “staggering rise” in attempts at assassination, sabotage and other crimes on U.K. soil by Russia and Iran, as the two states recruit criminals to “do their dirty work,” the head of the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday.

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said his agents and police have tackled 20 “potentially lethal” plots backed by Iran since 2022 and warned that it could expand its targets in the U.K. if conflicts in the Middle East deepen.

The spy chief said if the crisis escalates with Israel launching a major attack in response to Iran’s recent missile barrage, there is the risk “of an increase in — or broadening of -– Iranian state aggression in the U.K.”

Keir Starmer does not have a problem with women, the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has said, but she admitted the government had made “missteps”.

Haigh, one of a number of female cabinet ministers who had been close to Starmer’s former chief of staff Sue Gray, defended the prime minister after Gray left her post to be replaced by his campaign director, Morgan McSweeney.

Starmer had also been accused of having a woman problem by the former Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who quit the party last month.

But Haigh said the prime minister had promoted a number of women. “I don’t think the prime minister has any problem working with women,” she told Sky News. “If you look at the women he has around him, the first female chancellor [Rachel Reeves], Angela Rayner – the cabinet is gender balanced. We have more female Labour MPs than there are Tory MPs in total.

“So I don’t think any sense that the Labour party has a problem with women – or the prime minister – is evidenced by the facts of us.”

The average UK house price came close to reaching a record high last month as falling mortgage rates helped to boost confidence among buyers, according to Halifax.

The UK's largest mortgage lender said the average price hit £293,399 in September, just short of the record £293,507 reached in June 2022.

Prices have now risen for three months in a row, Halifax said, as market conditions improve.

"Mortgage affordability has been easing thanks to strong wage growth and falling interest rates," said Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax.

"This has boosted confidence among potential buyers, with the number of mortgages agreed up over 40% in the last year and now at their highest level since July 2022."

Compared with a year ago, Halifax said house prices were up 4.7% - the fastest pace of growth since November 2022.

That was partially a reflection of the weakness of activity a year ago. The value of a typical property value has risen by about £13,000 over the past year, but was a rebound from falling value over the previous 12 months.

Looking back two years, prices had only increased by just 0.4%, the equivalent of £1,202, the Halifax said.

The availability of weight loss drugs on the NHS doesn’t mean people can give up healthy lifestyles, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has warned.

Experts believe drugs like Ozempic will play an important role in tackling the UK’s obesity crisis.

But Mr Sweeting told the Daily Telegraph it was in “everyone’s interest to play their part” and avoid overloading the health system.

“We don’t want to encourage a dependency culture where people think it’s OK not to bother eating healthily or exercising, because the NHS will pick up the tab and pay for their weight loss jab,” he said.

“People in this country have the right to expect top quality healthcare, but also a responsibility to look after their own health, so we’ve got to get the balance right.”