Heather Stewart

"excusez-moi, aimeriez-vous être premier ministre de la France"

Rachel Reeves’s second budget needs a narrative of fairness to justify tax rises | Heather Stewart The chancellor should reach for the language of solidarity and social justice that this government tends to recoil from

Here’s this week’s column - if there are chunky tax rises coming, Labour needs a coherent story about who should contribute more - or the Budget risks falling as flat as the winter fuel cut. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

[Scene is ANCIENT GREECE - where SOCRATES and PLATO and others are sitting round, thinking] 1 SOCRATES: Plato.. PLATO: Yes Socrates? 2 SOCRATES: Can you tell me, are you human? PLATO: Why… yes, Socrates 3 SOCRATES: And would you agree, Plato, that a human knows what a chariot is? PLATO: Um, yep 4 SOCRATES: So you can tell me, then 5 [Socrates produces a papyrus, showing a drawing of the corner of a chariot wheel] SOCRATES: *Is that a chariot*? 6 PLATO: Well that’s more just a bit of wheel 7 SOCRATES: So not a *chariot*. PLATO: No. 8 SOCRATES: [Producing another papyrus with the full drawing of the chariot, chopped into boxes] So if a man were challenged to “tap the boxes containing chariots to prove you’re human” when he was just trying to check his ClubCard points... *where could he tap*? 9 PLATO: Well you can’t tap any of them really 10 SOCRATES: So are we not human? PLATO: ‘Spose not. 11 [Bleak pause] 12 PLATO: I’ll get the hemlock SOCRATES: Yeah [ends]

Tony Diver Associate Political Editor. Ben Riley-Smith Political Editor. Aaron Newbury Related Topics Kemi Badenoch, Conservative Party Conference, Migrant crisis, Reform UK, Nigel Farage, Conservative Party 04 October 2025 9:00pm BST 3049 Kemi Badenoch arriving at the Conservative Party conference on Saturday Kemi Badenoch, pictured arriving for the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Saturday, has unveiled a seven-point plan to tackle migration Credit: Eddie Mulholland for The Telegraph Kemi Badenoch has pledged to deport 150,000 illegal migrants a year with new Trump-style immigration squads. The Conservative Party leader will use this year’s conference in Manchester to announce how she would reform Britain’s migration system after leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Mrs Badenoch has unveiled a seven-point plan to “secure Britain’s borders”, including a commitment to deport small boat arrivals within a week, refuse any asylum claims by illegal migrants, deport all foreign criminals and remove immigration powers from judges. Advertisement In an interview with The Telegraph, Mrs Badenoch pledged to stop “silly arguments” about human rights from preventing the government from doing the “right thing”. She said she was “ashamed” Britain’s immigration system had allowed the emergence of grooming gangs, with “foreigners raping our little girls”.

I'm in Manchester for the Conservative conference, where some of the views on show are likely to be fairly extreme. As one example, these quotes from a Kemi Badenoch interview in the Telegraph are the sorts of things which not very long ago would have only *ever* been said by the racist far right.

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...

This is so good from Cory Doctorow on all the tricks Amazon uses to get both consumers to pay more, and how businesses on the platform end up paying it 45-51 cents on every dollar.

Plus he rightly calls for regulatory change, not just individual consumer action
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

“So I leant over, tapped her on the cleavage with a pastry fork, I said my mother gave birth to twins in an unheated wash house and then got straight back up and finished the mangling, so think on.” RIP, Patricia Routledge.

In the mid 90s I had a terrible night out at The Hacienda which by then was a shadow of its former self & I got the shit kicked out of me for making a joke about a lime green Ford Cortina parked outside the club.

I used to think nothing could be as bad as that night until I was emailed this 👇

Manchester synagogue terrorist was on bail for alleged rape Exclusive: Jihad al-Shamie had been under investigation over alleged sexual attack earlier this year, sources say

Manchester synagogue terrorist was bail for alleged rape at time of the attack

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

i might frame this Altman quote

Clear visions for tax reform exist — Reeves just needs to back one Our system is a mess but experts have already set out what would make it coherent, efficient and equitable

This is good, from @helenmiller.bsky.social - "stop thinking in terms of isolated tax increases and start with a vision" (not sure there's much sign of that at the moment, tbh...) www.ft.com/content/d425...

Jeff Bezos hails AI boom as ‘good’ kind of bubble Amazon founder’s comments follow warning by Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon that ‘it’s not different this time’

Roses are red
Black cats can mean trouble
on.ft.com/48d00Xl

It would be better to name her than to just say a woman was named Archbishop!

"Sarah Mullally will be first woman to lead Church as Archbishop of Canterbury"

Never change, Kemi Badenoch, never change.

Q: How did the White House decide it was appropriate for Jared Kushner to be working on matters that involve Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia -- 3 countries combined that have given him more than $2.5b

LEAVITT: It's frankly despicable that you're trying to suggest that it's inappropriate

OpenAI employees are very excited about how well their new AI tool can create fake videos of people doing crimes and have definitely thought through all the implications of this

I'd forgotten this - excellent

Labour considering charging workers for employment tribunal claims, sources say Exclusive: Reintroducing tribunal fees would be ‘a gift for bad bosses’, says TUC chief Paul Nowak

Good tale here from @rjpartington.bsky.social - unions furious at the suggestion govt is considering reintroducing fees for employment tribunals...
www.theguardian.com/money/2025/o...

THIS IS VERY VERY GOOD NEWS.

There has never been any UK government reporting on the implementation of trade agreements. None. In five years. Deals hyped then ignored. That's not trade policy, that's government for the sake of daily announcements.

ecipe.org/blog/uk-trad...

"it's your own time your wasting"

First decline in ADP construction payrolls since 2021.

(via Kev Gordon)

I think everyone in Britain should be given about £1.70 each. So we feel justice more clearly. We can spend it how we like. I’d go for a big Twix.

I’m at a CBI “In Conversation” with Rachel Reeves. We’ve learned: she listens to Beyoncé (not Radio 4) when running; she has been known to duet on “I Know Him So Well,”
from
Chess, with sister Ellie; and Jeremy Hunt sent her a good luck message this morning, telling her, “sock it to them”.

'How can we fund public services?' with
@IPPR

🕘9am, Tuesday
📍Museum of Liverpool

👉 @dantomlinson.bsky.social
👉 @yuanfenyang.bsky.social
👉 @andy-summers.bsky.social
👉 @guardianheather.bsky.social
👉 Chair: @carsjung.bsky.social

Chart showing - Number of young people who are NEET, by age and benefit receipt: UK, 2025

Good news that the Govt will offer more support to young people who are out of work.

But while there are almost a million NEET young people, the support announced today (focusing just on 18-21-year-olds who are long-term unemployed and claiming UC) will reach less than 5% of this group...

This is of course great news.

But worth noting limited eligibility: UC claimants out of work for 18 months.

As our recent research showed, only 1 in 3 unemployed NEETs actually claim UC. To really tackle youth unemployment, we need to reach the rest.

learningandwork.org.uk/resources/re...

Another brilliant point from Chris: we have stumbled into a tax system that makes the amount of tax you pay highly determined by your age (thanks to student loan repayments) which is 'mental'. Jill concurs; we are too squeamish about taking privileges from the old compared to lumping on the young

Really sorry to hear that, Laura, but glad you're staying positive.

Sam Altman’s description of ChatGPT Pulse is practically a sales pitch for an ad network. You tell ChatGPT your favorite vacation destinations and later on it gives you “updates” about these destinations? 🤔

Sounds like ads.

I’m personally glad the Chancellor has discovered the benefits of an EU youth experience scheme. A pity that it wasn’t in the manifesto, that the Govt rebuffed EU proposals, and were lukewarm about it at the 19 May summit. We c’d have been much closer to a deal now if it had been made a UK priority.