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A world-first focus on long-term outcomes could transform UK government – or create new spending fights

Tucked away in John Healey’s budget is decision to ringfence preventative projects where future savings outweigh initial cost

It merited the briefest of mentions in John Healey’s speech and just one paragraph in the 166-page budget document, but some believe it could revolutionise not just public spending but the very process of government itself: a new focus on long-term outcomes.

The idea in the broad sense is very simple. Any spending deemed to be “preventative” – that is, the initial outlay will be more than made up for by future savings – will from now on be ringfenced, meaning it cannot be raided for more immediate needs.

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© Photograph: House of Commons/Reuters

© Photograph: House of Commons/Reuters

© Photograph: House of Commons/Reuters

UK PM Burnham says he is ‘open’ to formal apology for slavery, but rules out reparations

31 October 2026 at 16:42

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he is open to calls for a formal apology for Britain’s historical role in slavery, before attending next week’s Commonwealth summit at which he is likely to face demands for financial reparations.

Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Burnham said Britain was “offering a structured dialogue with those affected by the transatlantic slave trade”, in which at ​least 12.5 million Africans were abducted and sold into slavery.

“Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process, and I am open to them,” he added.

But Burnham rejected calls for financial reparations, writing: “I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part.”

From the 15th to the 19th century, millions of Africans were sold into slavery ​by European traders, with Britain transporting an estimated 3.2 million people across the Atlantic, according to the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database.

Ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda next week, King Charles, who is touring the Caribbean, said it was “only right that we should acknowledge the great suffering and injustices of the past”.

Caribbean leaders are expected to press demands for reparations, which they have often framed in terms of debt relief, development finance, education, healthcare and climate resilience.

Burnham also wrote in the Guardian that he wanted to “launch a new drive on debt”, including by helping more vulnerable countries “repay over a longer time period and with better rates”.

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne welcomed Burnham’s comments and proposals for practical assistance, though he added in a Facebook post: “The Caribbean’s longstanding position on reparatory justice remains unchanged.”

UK hints at apology for county’s role in slave trade but PM rejects reparations

31 October 2026 at 16:30
Burnham says British people can't 'be held liable for historical wrongs,' but will consider formally apologizing, amid anger during King Charles' visit to former colonies

Starmer says UK must get closer to Europe as US relationship changes

31 October 2026 at 13:32

Shift in dealings with Washington not likely to reset once Trump leaves Oval Office, former PM says

The UK and other European nations must draw closer together as the US becomes a less-reliable partner, Keir Starmer has said in his first significant political intervention since leaving No 10.

The former prime minister warned European leaders of the threat posed by Russia, among others, and said the shift in relations with Washington during Donald Trump’s presidency was not likely to reset once he leaves the Oval Office. He accused them of being caught out by these new realities twice already.

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© Photograph: ITV via Getty Images

© Photograph: ITV via Getty Images

© Photograph: ITV via Getty Images

Starmer says UK must get closer to Europe as US relationship changes

31 October 2026 at 13:32

Shift in dealings with Washington not likely to reset once Trump leaves Oval Office, former PM says

The UK and other European nations must draw closer together as the US becomes a less-reliable partner, Keir Starmer has said in his first significant political intervention since leaving No 10.

The former prime minister warned European leaders of the threat posed by Russia, among others, and said the shift in relations with Washington during Donald Trump’s presidency was not likely to reset once he leaves the Oval Office. He accused them of being caught out by these new realities twice already.

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© Photograph: ITV via Getty Images

© Photograph: ITV via Getty Images

© Photograph: ITV via Getty Images

Burnham Admits Budget Was Not Radical Enough

31 October 2026 at 11:00

Andy Burnham has admitted that his first Budget was not radical enough, telling ITV: "The room for manoeuvre wasn’t what I would have hoped it to be."

The post Burnham Admits Budget Was Not Radical Enough appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

‘Reparations now’: King and Burnham face protests at Antigua Commonwealth summit

Activists see meeting as opportunity to demand UK confront role in transatlantic enslavement

“The royal family enslaved us! Apologise now! Reparatory justice now!”

King Charles and the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, will be greeted with messages as they travel through Antigua’s capital, St John’s, to attend meetings at the Commonwealth leaders’ summit next week. On billboards, placards and T-shirts, in letters and at a candlelight vigil for the thousands of Africans trafficked to Antigua and Barbuda during the transatlantic slave trade, the message from the Caribbean will be pervasive: slavery reparations is not an issue they “are going to be able to dodge”.

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© Photograph: Victoria Jones/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Victoria Jones/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Victoria Jones/Shutterstock

Britain’s Prime Minister Says He’s Open to a Formal Apology for Slavery

31 October 2026 at 03:32
The premier’s comments represent a major change in British policy, but they are unlikely to satisfy those who hoped that reparations would follow.

© Pool photo by Russell Cheyne

Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain in Glasgow on Friday.

Local devolution decisions rest solely with Scotland and Wales, first ministers tell Burnham

John Swinney and Rhun ap Iorwerth say devolving power further is up to Holyrood and Senedd – not Westminster

Scotland and Wales’s first ministers have told Andy Burnham that decisions on local devolution rest solely with their parliaments, in response to the prime minister’s push to extend English-style regional powers across the UK.

After Burnham held discussions in Glasgow with John Swinney and Rhun ap Iorwerth about localised employment and reindustrialisation powers, Downing Street characterised the talks as constructive.

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© Photograph: Russell Cheyne/PA

© Photograph: Russell Cheyne/PA

© Photograph: Russell Cheyne/PA

Business secretary says UK needs to understand direction of EU before signing up to closer relationship – as it happened

30 October 2026 at 16:21

This blog is now closed

Downing Street has paid tribute to Patrick Stewart following the actor’s death. At the daily lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson gave a comment that was a bit more extensive than the usual No 10 contribution when a great British celebrity dies. The spokesperson said that was because Andy Burnham feels strongly about the importance of actors.

The spokesperson said:

The prime minister was very sad to hear of the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart.

As a former culture secretary he knows how much Britain’s greatest actors mean to the country, and Sir Patrick was one of the very best.

Just a reminder that when it comes to Wales, we are not comparing like with like. The term ‘region’ in an English context typically refers to an area covering between 1.5 and 3 million people. In Wales, regions cover much less dense areas. The Swansea Bay city region captures some 700,000 people, and similarly North Wales around 690,000 people. In Mid-Wales sheep outnumber people by 7:1. Only the Cardiff city region is comparable to English tiers, and even then at the lower end: around 1.5 million people.

Transposing an English mayoral worldview onto a very different political geography just doesn’t work. Wales may be a similar population size to the PM’s old manor but that’s where the parallel ends.

Andy Burnham talks about the regions of England and Wales interchangeably but the role the new prime minister champions for metro mayors is, in many respects, already performed by the Welsh government. Powers over skills, employment support, economic development, housing investment and major spending programmes sit at an all-Wales strategic level (covering a similar population size to Greater Manchester.)

His argument for England is that powers should flow from Westminster to city regions because they operate at an economically meaningful scale. Yet when the PM turns to Wales, he seems to suggest that powers already devolved to Cardiff Bay should be dispersed further down the system.

But notably he is not calling on his successor as the mayor of Greater Manchester, Bev Craig, to fragment the powers of the Greater Manchester combined authority and redistribute them amongst its ten constituent councils. On the contrary, the whole logic of the Greater Manchester model rests on concentrating strategic authority at a regional level.

Yet the implication of his comments is that Wales should move in the opposite direction.

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© Photograph: Darren Staples/Pool AFP/AP

© Photograph: Darren Staples/Pool AFP/AP

© Photograph: Darren Staples/Pool AFP/AP

Prepare for Decade of Pain, Warns IFS

30 October 2026 at 13:24

Britain must prepare for a decade of pain as the country faces the worst decade for household income on record after John Healey’s "tinkering" Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.

The post Prepare for Decade of Pain, Warns IFS appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Business secretary says UK needs to understand direction of EU before signing up to closer relationship – as it happened

30 October 2026 at 16:21

This blog is now closed

Downing Street has paid tribute to Patrick Stewart following the actor’s death. At the daily lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson gave a comment that was a bit more extensive than the usual No 10 contribution when a great British celebrity dies. The spokesperson said that was because Andy Burnham feels strongly about the importance of actors.

The spokesperson said:

The prime minister was very sad to hear of the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart.

As a former culture secretary he knows how much Britain’s greatest actors mean to the country, and Sir Patrick was one of the very best.

Just a reminder that when it comes to Wales, we are not comparing like with like. The term ‘region’ in an English context typically refers to an area covering between 1.5 and 3 million people. In Wales, regions cover much less dense areas. The Swansea Bay city region captures some 700,000 people, and similarly North Wales around 690,000 people. In Mid-Wales sheep outnumber people by 7:1. Only the Cardiff city region is comparable to English tiers, and even then at the lower end: around 1.5 million people.

Transposing an English mayoral worldview onto a very different political geography just doesn’t work. Wales may be a similar population size to the PM’s old manor but that’s where the parallel ends.

Andy Burnham talks about the regions of England and Wales interchangeably but the role the new prime minister champions for metro mayors is, in many respects, already performed by the Welsh government. Powers over skills, employment support, economic development, housing investment and major spending programmes sit at an all-Wales strategic level (covering a similar population size to Greater Manchester.)

His argument for England is that powers should flow from Westminster to city regions because they operate at an economically meaningful scale. Yet when the PM turns to Wales, he seems to suggest that powers already devolved to Cardiff Bay should be dispersed further down the system.

But notably he is not calling on his successor as the mayor of Greater Manchester, Bev Craig, to fragment the powers of the Greater Manchester combined authority and redistribute them amongst its ten constituent councils. On the contrary, the whole logic of the Greater Manchester model rests on concentrating strategic authority at a regional level.

Yet the implication of his comments is that Wales should move in the opposite direction.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Darren Staples/Pool AFP/AP

© Photograph: Darren Staples/Pool AFP/AP

© Photograph: Darren Staples/Pool AFP/AP

Andy Burnham admits he would have liked more radical first budget

Prime minister says room for manoeuvre was limited by geopolitical crises and Labour’s 2024 manifesto

Andy Burnham has admitted his first budget as prime minister was not as radical as he would have liked because of the economic uncertainty facing the country.

He said he would have liked to have gone further with this week’s announcement – including with higher energy support payments – but felt hemmed in by external events such as the war in Iran, which has pushed up borrowing costs.

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© Photograph: Darren Staples/PA

© Photograph: Darren Staples/PA

© Photograph: Darren Staples/PA

Opening the EU debate again is clearly a political minefield. But we have to do it | Simon Jenkins

30 October 2026 at 06:00

Andy Burnham must tread cautiously, but Brexit was a very grave act of self-harm – and he is right to address it

Andy Burnham’s opening debate on whether Britain should rejoin the EU is divisive, painful and politically risky. That is why it should be welcomed. To jeopardise his popularity so soon after coming to office might seem reckless, but the issue is urgent and not going away. Brexit is continuing to damage the nation’s economy. The prime minister’s job is to challenge, if not reform it.

The Brexit decade has evoked a bizarre sense of guilt among Britons. Opinion polls show nearly 60% regard it as a mistake, with just a third still in favour. Almost a quarter of those who voted for Brexit now regret it. While early forecasts of economic disaster were proved wrong, the accumulated cost of cutting links with Britain’s biggest trading partner is estimated at 6-8% of GDP.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

The Guardian view on a changing Brexit debate: Kemi Badenoch is trapped in denial | Editorial

29 October 2026 at 18:30

The prime minister’s ambitions might be ambiguous, but unlike the Conservative leader, he is following voters and the facts

British politics is still polarised around Brexit, although 10 years on from the referendum, the terms of debate are very different. Or they should be. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has moved discussions of European solidarity from the realm of abstraction to a matter of urgent defence partnership. Donald Trump’s presidency in the US, marked by scorn for European democracies and indulgence of Vladimir Putin, has undermined confidence that Britain can rely on any “special relationship” with Washington.

Under these circumstances, it would be absurd to deny that a reappraisal of Brexit is in order. The prime minister acknowledged this in his speech at the Labour party conference last month, calling for a national conversation about the future relationship with every option, including rejoining, on the table. The Eurosceptic opposition are having none of it. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, accuses the government of stirring division by raising the European question. She told MPs this week that Labour should thank the Tories for the Brexit deal they negotiated.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: House of Commons/PA

© Photograph: House of Commons/PA

© Photograph: House of Commons/PA

Emergency stockpiles are a luxury that not everyone can afford | Letters

29 October 2026 at 17:55

Keira Callaghan says being prepared should be a public health measure, not a privilege, and Chris Rotheram is experiencing prescription anxiety. Plus five more letters in response to the Be Ready campaign

The Be Ready campaign may offer sensible advice in principle (Every Briton should stockpile water and food supplies, government advises, 22 October), but as a midwife working in Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in London, I can see first-hand that its practical recommendations risk excluding precisely those families who are already most vulnerable.

For families living in a single room in a shared house, storing nine litres of water per person alongside three days’ worth of essential supplies may simply be unrealistic. When families are already struggling with the cost of food, heating and everyday necessities, buying additional emergency provisions may also be financially impossible.

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© Photograph: pundapanda/Getty Images

© Photograph: pundapanda/Getty Images

© Photograph: pundapanda/Getty Images

UK politics: Burnham denies preventing ministers from speaking about plans for closer relationship with EU – as it happened

29 October 2026 at 17:30

Prime minister wrote to ministers saying he did not want them to ‘advocate for specific options or opine on the likely outcome of the process’

Selling nicotine-free vapes to children under the age of 18 has become illegal from today, the government has said.

Children were already banned from buying vapes containing nicotine. But, under the Tobacco and Vapes Act, shops across the UK will now be banned from selling nicotine-free vapes, and nicotine pouches, to children.

Vaping can be a way to help established adult smokers who are already addicted to nicotine from tobacco to swap to a less dangerous product. Vaping is considered safer than smoking, but that is a low bar. Vapes should therefore never be used by children or non-smokers.

Some children have already come to harm from bad reactions to vapes. The long-term health harms of vaping in today’s children will only become clear over time. They are however unlikely to be good; inhaling multiple, often heated, chemicals into the lungs may well do irreversible harm.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

Burnham now close to taking the UK back into the EU, according to Labour report

By: A A
29 October 2026 at 10:35

The real reasons are that the Brussels club is broke and wants to dump U.S. technology on the battlefield in preference to Britain’s.

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The UK prime minister might go further than merely bringing the EU closer to the UK. But the real reasons are that the Brussels club is broke and wants to dump U.S. technology on the battlefield in preference to Britain’s.

There are increasing signs that Britain’s new PM, Andy Burnham, might consider shifting over to full EU membership, away from his more moderate position of merely a closer working relationship, according to a recent report from a pro-Labour thinktank.

Such a move might be a stroke of genius, as it would give Labour exclusive ground to stand on, creating a clear divide between it and the rest of the political landscape in the UK whose apparatchiks are against re-joining the Brussels club. According to the recent report, as much as 64 percent of the British public would vote to rejoin the EU if there were such a referendum.

Such a large majority could be a real advantage for Burnham and the Labour party, perhaps sealing their fate for at least another term in government.

Yet it is the war in Ukraine and the fabricated so-called threat of war with Russia which is driving this new hardcore idea being floated to Burnham. A combination of wanting to marginalise, if not isolate, the far right and link it to Russia, plus providing a feel-good factor among the general public who have been worn down by successive governments’ failure to fix a broken economy, floating the idea of a referendum around the same time (or even at the same moment) as a general election could easily push Labour way ahead of the pack and leave the right broken and fighting among themselves.

Recently the author accused the PM of lying about Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, which proved to be embarrassing for him when the opposition party as well as one of his own ministers actually clearly stated that no such interference occurred. It was a crude attempt to stir up Russian hatred to act as a double-barrelled catalyst to both stoke up war hysteria ahead of conscription and higher defence spending, as well as hammering home the point which aligns with France and Germany’s incumbent leaders that the far right in Europe is financed by Russia.

Yet Burnham’s idea that being in the EU means being part of a bigger defence pact against Russia is also flawed. Given that the EU still has no army of its own, despite decades of hardcore federalists’ wet dream always presenting the subject on the talk-shop circuit in EU institutions, the move to join the EU is purely political and a way of supporting a failed project as the EU itself faces a massive funding crisis (a shortfall of 750 billion euros for its next seven-year budget period). Can we assume that Macron, Merz and Ursula von der Leyen have all been lobbying Burnham and see political capital in the UK rejoining? Likely.

Laura Chappell, associate director at the IPPR thinktank, said: “It’s time to stop talking about Brexit and focus entirely on the future. A lot has changed over the past decade. The prime minister has said his mission is to give people back control, but Britain can’t do that alone anymore,” she is quoted by the British pro-Brexit tabloid the Daily Express – a newspaper favoured by older people and which can be argued played a key role in pumping out flawed information about the benefits of leaving the EU.

Chappell, in a nutshell, seems to be saying that the UK is too tiny and pathetic to hope to achieve anything on its own. “Whether it’s protecting households from swings in the cost of living, restarting industry, or keeping us secure, we lack the weight to act alone. In today’s world, we can’t take back control while being an outsider in Europe.”

And then, almost as an afterthought, the dark truth emerges in the article about why the EU really needs Britain to rejoin.

“The IPPR calls on the government to work with the EU to, among other things, create a European Defence Alliance, with the UK offering capabilities that would allow Europe to rely less heavily on the U.S., including satellite communications,” she gushes.

In plain English, with Britain in the EU, the EU can go ahead with some sort of EU-NATO alliance, with increased budget contributions (not to mention the UK’s) as well as using British technology to replace Starlink and Starshield battlefield intranet systems for Ukraine’s army. In even plainer English, the Czech PM made it even more crystal clear when asked if the UK would be welcome back to the EU. Czechia’s Prime Minister Andrej Babiš: “Yes, of course, we need more money.”

UK politics: Burnham denies preventing ministers from speaking about plans for closer relationship with EU – as it happened

29 October 2026 at 17:30

Prime minister wrote to ministers saying he did not want them to ‘advocate for specific options or opine on the likely outcome of the process’

Selling nicotine-free vapes to children under the age of 18 has become illegal from today, the government has said.

Children were already banned from buying vapes containing nicotine. But, under the Tobacco and Vapes Act, shops across the UK will now be banned from selling nicotine-free vapes, and nicotine pouches, to children.

Vaping can be a way to help established adult smokers who are already addicted to nicotine from tobacco to swap to a less dangerous product. Vaping is considered safer than smoking, but that is a low bar. Vapes should therefore never be used by children or non-smokers.

Some children have already come to harm from bad reactions to vapes. The long-term health harms of vaping in today’s children will only become clear over time. They are however unlikely to be good; inhaling multiple, often heated, chemicals into the lungs may well do irreversible harm.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

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