The debate: should voting be compulsory? Opinion Andy Burnham is said to be considering voting reform. Two writers go head to head on whether Britain should introduce Australian-style compulsory voting YES: Everyone’s vote should count, not just those who turn up British politics has a turnout problem. Just three in five registered voters went to the polls in the 2024 general election. [...]
Local elections 2026: City awaits ‘significant’ event for Labour leadership Politics City giants have warned today’s local elections will be “significant” for market pricing, with traders keeping a close eye on possible leadership moves made by the likes of Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham. Several financial behemoths have lined up to warn investors that results across the country over the coming days could be unusually important [...]
Nigel Farage: Reform will tax the banks even if they don’t like it Banking Nigel Farage has confirmed Reform will slap a tax on the UK’s banking giants in the latest dramatic escalation of his party’s tensions with the City. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in the Davos, Farage said: “This will be tough for banks to accept but I am sorry – the drain on public finances [...]
Budget: Odds to be slashed if betting industry taxed higher, Reeves warned November 25, 2025 Tax rises for the betting sector in tomorrow’s Budget could leave punters with worse odds across all sports, say industry spokespeople. Chancellor Rachel Reeves may target so-called “sin taxes” on Wednesday as she looks to fill a fiscal black hole, with the gambling sector expected to be hit. Reeves could exempt flutters on horse racing [...]
Paddy Power founder: Bookies ‘scaremongering’ over tax hike damage October 28, 2025 The betting sector is “scaremongering” over the potential damage of a tax raid on gambling, according to the retired co-founder of Paddy Power, who said he had led similar industry warnings of job losses and store closures before other mooted tax changes. Stewart Kenny, who served as chairman and chief executive at the Irish gambling [...]
Reeves must reject this finger-wagging, fun-sapping, tax-loving nonsense October 8, 2025 The Chancellor may have felt in need of a stiff drink after absorbing the latest productivity figures handed to her by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and who could blame her? The OBR is widely expected to have significantly downgraded its productivity forecasts while at the same time conceding that it’s been overestimating productivity growth [...]
Budget 2025: Banks to ‘bear the brunt of higher taxes’ September 2, 2025 UK banks will be the top target as Rachel Reeves looks to drum up cash in the Autumn Budget, a top economist has said. Chatter around a cash grab directed at banks has escalated over the last week after left-wing think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) proposed that the Chancellor raid the quantitative easing [...]
CMA must tackle Apple and Google duopoly to ‘unlock UK growth’ May 15, 2025 One of the UK’s leading left-wing think tanks has called on the government to strengthen the powers of the competition regulator to curb the dominance of tech giants like Apple and Google. It has warned that their stranglehold on app marketplaces is holding back innovation, investment, and growth in the British economy. In a new [...]
‘Wealth the new work’: Wealth inequality ‘undermining capitalism’ November 27, 2024 “For most, your house has outvalued you this century – making wealth the new work," Parth Patel, associate director of at the IPPR, said.
Gambling stocks Flutter, Entain and Evoke nosedive on Budget tax fears October 14, 2024 Shares in British gambling firms plummeted on Monday morning after reports that the government was eyeing up £3bn tax rises on the sector in a move that one investment bank said would “all but wipe out bookmaker profitability in the UK”. William Hill-owner Evoke saw its share price crater by over 13 per cent in [...]