An emboldened – or desperate – new government will look to wealth taxes June 10, 2026 Wealth taxes are climbing back up the political agenda as the Labour party begins the process of reinventing itself for a post-Starmer era. Wes Streeting thinks he’s found “a wealth tax that works” by hiking capital gains tax while Andy Burnham is flirting with a land value tax that would naturally hit wealthy areas the [...]
The climate quango empire will keep growing until cheap matters more than ideology June 9, 2026 Net Zero has generated an ever-larger bureaucratic apparatus operating at arm’s length from ministers, insulated from accountability and immune to the question of whether it is actually working, says Anne Strickland Ed Miliband frequently claims that net zero is the economic opportunity of the century. A theory that collapses the moment you open your energy [...]
Starmer scrambles to make savings in bid to boost defence spending June 7, 2026 Keir Starmer is planning on making cuts across the government in a bid to fund his long awaited Defence Investment Plan. The prime minister will make targeted slashes to transport and net zero spending by 1 per cent in a bid to raise approximately £6bn for defence costs by the end of this parliament. Starmer [...]
King’s Speech: Ministers ban North Sea oil and gas exploration May 14, 2026 The government will make it illegal to grant new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, the King said at the state opening of Parliament, in a sign ministers are refusing to buckle in the face of a barrage of criticism that the policy is depriving the UK of billions of pounds in tax [...]
Starmer serves up his best and empty platitudes May 11, 2026 If today’s relaunch-not-relaunch buys Keir Starmer any additional time in Downing Street, it will only be due to the extraordinary fecklessness of his would-be challengers, none of whom has anything significant to say about change either, says Eliot Wilson Is Sir Keir Starmer all right? There is a reason I ask. At last week’s local [...]
Backbencher threatens rebellion as Starmer vows to stay put May 10, 2026 A Labour backbencher has issued the Prime Minister with an ultimatum as Sir Keir Starmer battles to stay in Number 10 after taking a battering at the local elections. Catherine West, a former junior minister and MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, said she will trigger a leadership bid on Monday if cabinet ministers fail [...]
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is right – our energy policy is ‘all over the place’ May 6, 2026 Punchy interventions from chemicals tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe are not rare; most announcements from his company, Ineos, are enriched with a missive from the billionaire on where exactly the UK is going wrong. But these are no mere PR ploys. The stakes are high and he knows what he’s talking about. Yesterday’s confirmation of his [...]
BP eyes North Sea exit as tax load bites May 2, 2026 BP is reportedly eyeing a potential exit from the North Sea as the tax load on energy companies seems unlikely to be eased with the Iran war. The UK oil giant is considering either ceasing or partially winding down operations in the North Sea, according to Bloomberg, as part of an effort to strip assets [...]
After a ‘stunning’ update, what does the future hold for long-suffering BP? April 30, 2026 BP wowed shareholders with its first quarter results – doubling profit and bolstering its balance sheet. But with an activist breathing down its neck, its new boss Meg O’Neill isn’t out of the woods yet, writes Ali Lyon As she sat down to pen her first email to BP’s 100,000 staff, Meg O’Neill opted against [...]
‘Fossil fuel rollercoaster’: Government plans energy price shake-up as Miliband ‘doubles down’ on renewables April 21, 2026 UK households could see their electricity bills fall after the government unveiled measures to end the pricing system’s relationship with volatile gas prices and fossil fuels. Energy secretary Ed Miliband is set to overhaul the system in a major intervention to sever the link between the prices of electricity to gas, which has long been [...]