Nigel Farage backtracks on Reform UK’s promise to cut £90bn of taxes
Nigel Farage has rowed back from his party’s election promise to cut £90bn of taxes, accusing Labour and the Tories of “wrecking the public finances” and saying Reform UK would need to get public spending under control first,The Reform leader rejected suggestions he had been forced to break manifesto promises in order to gain economic credibility, suggesting the proposal had only ever been an “aspiration”,As well as backtracking on the party’s 2024 pledge to raise tax-free thresholds to £20,000, he refused to guarantee that the pensions triple lock – estimated to reach £15,5bn by 2030 – would remain under a Reform government,Farage’s speech in the City of London laid bare the tensions at the heart of his project, as he attempts to improve his party’s economic credibility, which political opponents regard as a weak point, while at the same time retain the electoral benefits of political insurgency.
Reform’s manifesto committed the party to tax cuts worth about a third of the NHS budget, but economists said the plans – along with £50bn of spending commitments and £150bn of cuts – were “problematic” and cost far more than claimed.Reform has yet to set out any detailed plans on spending cuts, although it has signalled there will be big reductions on welfare benefits, net zero policies, support for asylum seekers, foreign aid and the Whitehall civil service.In his speech, Farage said: “I cannot tell you what the state of the economy will be as the next general election approaches.If I’m right, and that election comes in 2027 then the economy will be in an even worse state than any of us in this room could even relate.“So how can anybody project on pensions or thresholds or any of those things between now and then … They were only ever aspirations.
I think what you’re seeing today is us being realistic about the state of the economy,”Reform is also understood to be looking at changes to public sector pensions, leading to suggestions that it could cut the future incomes of millions of nurses, teachers and police,Farage said he was focusing on “exorbitant” management fees paid by pension funds,He ruled out any immediate major tax cuts should Reform make it to power, saying that he would introduce “relatively modest” savings at first, including reversing the inheritance tax on farms and raising tax thresholds,Farage said he wanted Reform to be the party of working people – lifting Nick Clegg’s line on “alarm clock Britain” – but suggested the minimum wage for younger workers was too high, and criticised the government’s workers’ rights bill, arguing it damaged small businesses.
“There’s an argument the minimum wage is too high for younger workers, particularly given that we’ve lowered the level at which NIC [national insurance contribution] is paid to £5,000 a year.So do one or the other: either lift the cap at which NI is due, or lower the minimum wage for lower [sic] workers.”Farage said the UK was suffering a wealth drain, just as it experienced a brain drain in the 1970s, underlining his opposition to the non-dom tax, which he argued forced many high earners out of the country to avoid paying tax here.“The exodus is real,” he said.“These people pay their UK taxes.
These people employ a lot of people,These people invest in British businesses and British industries,These people are the biggest spenders in the country,“I want as many high-earning people as possible living in this country, and paying as much tax as they legally have to,Because if the rich leave and the rich don’t pay tax, then the poorer in society will all have to pay more tax.
It’s as simple as that.”Farage said there had been “misunderstandings” about Reform’s policy on benefits, saying that he would lift the two-child benefit cap – but only to help low-paid British couples who were both working.The party last week announced it would bring in huge cuts to disability benefits if elected.Farage claimed Reform could save £9bn by scrapping Pip payments for those with low-level anxiety, although the figure is disputed and it was unclear where it came from.Farage, who has been blamed by Labour for poor economic growth as the architect of Brexit, said the opportunities of leaving the EU had been “squandered”.
“The opportunity to sensibly deregulate, the opportunity to become competitive globally – all of that has been squandered,The worst thing is that regulations and the way regulators behave with British business is now worse than it was at the time of the Brexit referendum vote,”In questions after the event, Farage was unwilling to say who his chancellor could be in government, despite the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, acting as its economic spokesperson,“This is a work in progress,What I’ve tried to do really hard this year is to get away from this idea, this criticism, that somehow it’s a one-man band.
It’s not a one-man band,It’s a broadening team,” he said,
Jimmy Kimmel on government shutdown: ‘There is no Republican plan for healthcare’
Late-night hosts recapped Donald Trump’s state visit to Japan as the government shutdown continued into its fourth week.On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the comedian checked in on Trump’s visit to Japan this week. “You know, when Trump visits, you have to find something to do with him,” he said. “You can’t just take him for a stroll around town.“So instead, you take him for a stroll inside a palace, where he gets uncomfortably close to the band,” he said over footage of Trump wandering aimlessly through a ballroom with the Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi
Steve Coogan says Richard III film was ‘story I wanted to tell’ as he agrees to libel settlement
Steve Coogan has said his film about the discovery of the remains of Richard III was “the story I wanted to tell, and I am happy I did” after he and two production companies agreed to pay “substantial damages” to settle a high court libel claim over the film’s portrayal of a senior university administrator.Richard Taylor, deputy registrar at the University of Leicester at the time of the find, sued Coogan, his production company Baby Cow, and Pathe Productions for libel over his portrayal in the 2022 film The Lost King, which follows the amateur historian Philippa Langley and her search for the king’s skeleton.Taylor’s lawyers had asserted previously that he was portrayed in the film as “devious”, “weasel-like” and a “suited bean-counter”.Judge Lewis had ruled previously that the film portrayed Taylor as having “knowingly misrepresented facts to the media and the public” about the find, and as being “smug, unduly dismissive and patronising”, which had a defamatory meaning.The case was due to proceed to trial, but lawyers for Taylor read an agreed statement to the court on Monday saying the parties had settled the claim
From White Teeth to Swing Time: Zadie Smith’s best books - ranked!
How do you follow a smash hit like White Teeth, which, as everyone now knows, sold for a six-figure sum while the author was still at university, and turned Zadie Smith into a literary superstar and poster girl for multiculturalism at 24? With a novel about a pot-smoking Chinese‑Jewish autograph hunter, the dangers of fame and the shallowness of pop culture, of course.The Autograph Man begins in full wisecracking throttle with three boys in the back of a car on their way to watch a wrestling match between Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks at the Royal Festival Hall. As 12-year-old Alex-Li Tandem gets Big Daddy’s autograph (the start of an obsession), his own daddy drops dead from a brain tumour. Unfortunately, the rest of the novel doesn’t quite live up to the prologue. The critical heavyweights of the time didn’t pull their punches: “A poky, pallid successor” (Michiko Kakutani, who had rapturously reviewed White Teeth, in the New York Times), “cartoonish” and full of “misplaced ironies and grinning complicities” (James Wood in the LRB)
Nobody Wants This to Lily Allen: the week in rave reviews
Kristen Bell’s sex podcaster and Adam Brody’s hot rabbi return with more romcom angst, while the Smile singer’s new record is a sharp autopsy of marital betrayal. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviewsNetflixSummed up in a sentence An on-form return for the hot rabbi-featuring romcom whose plot (are an agnostic sex podcaster and a rabbi really compatible?) plays second fiddle to its millennials-pleasing casting (The Good Place’s Kristen Bell and The OC’s Adam Brody).What our reviewer said “The chemistry between Brody – still able to trade on the heart-throb status he accrued two decades ago playing beautiful nerd Seth Cohen in The OC – and Bell, who specialises in acid-tongued cool, remains electric.” Rachel AroestiRead the full reviewFurther reading Tummy-flipping kisses and a chlamydia love story: TV’s best ever romcomsBBC iPlayerSummed up in a sentence A hugely layered thriller starring the excellent Lauren Lyle as an anaesthetist who flies to New Zealand for the wedding of her younger sister – only to find her dead.What our reviewer said “Get stuck in
Stephen Colbert on ex-prince Andrew: ‘Pervert formerly known as prince’
Late-night hosts spoke about Donald Trump’s trip to Asia and how he refuses to accept criticism while also reacting to ex-prince Andrew being stripped of his royal title.On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about Trump’s recent trip to parts of Asia, including South Korea where he negotiated tariffs with Xi Jinping, China’s president.Colbert played awkward footage of the two in front of cameras, adding that he was “not confident we’re gonna win this one”.The talks ended up with both sides agreeing to what amounted to a pre-tariff status quo yet Trump has been “telling everyone he won the negotiations big time” saying that he would rank the meeting as a 12 out of 10.Colbert joked that he “must have been insufferable as a teenager” telling friends he went to 14th base with girls which means “over the bra, under the hat”
A third of people in England believe in ghosts, survey finds
It is the time of the year when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and spirits walk the Earth once more.But it appears you are more likely to be visited by a ghost if you are under 35 years old, while spiritual creatures tend to avoid those who live in the East Midlands.New research from the National Folklore Survey has found that, across England, more than a third of people believe in ghosts and supernatural beings, but belief in the paranormal varies according to age and geography.Led by academics from Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Hertfordshire, and Chapman University in the US, the survey is the first of its kind since the last Survey of English Language and Folklore more than 60 years ago.Just over one in three people in England said they believed in ghosts or the spirits of the deceased, with younger people (aged 25-34) most likely to believe in the paranormal, which also includes magical beings, possession, spells, psychics, angels and demons
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