Use our new Starmer tracker tools to see how the government are performing towards five key policy areas and five important economic targets - including disposable income, tax, healthcare, immigration, clean power and more:
news.sky.com/story/keir-s...
Disposable income is what's left after tax. We still need to pay for things like food/energy/rent from it.
Those have all risen in price faster than inflation since 2019, leaving even less available to save or spend on nice things.
More here:
news.sky.com/story/a-disa...
And...
We're also worse off now than we were at the start of the year.
Labour's first six months continued the positive trajectory from the last six months under Sunak and Hunt, but that turned around in 2025.
We're now only £1 better off each month than we were at the end of 2019
The ONS has updated its disposable income data, including a revision to older figures.
It now reveals that living standards fell between Dec 2019 and Jun 2024 - the first time that disposable income has been lower at the end of a parliament than the start
Inflation is slowly but surely trending back upwards though, which could eat away at all of that if it's sustained.
More here: news.sky.com/story/one-ye...
(4/4) 🧵
But... the tax burden is lower than it was under the Tories, growth has been trending upwards compared with our G7 rivals, and disposable income has risen faster in the first nine months of this parliament than all but one other in post-war British history (3/4) 🧵
08.07.2025 10:40 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
An unmitigated failure on small boats, a decline in housebuilding, and only miniscule improvements on each of NHS waits, violent crime numbers, and clean power (2/4) 🧵
08.07.2025 10:40 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
It's still a bit early to assess in full, but we had a go at tracking how some of Labour's big pledges are going so far - to mark their first year in power.
In short, perhaps surprisingly good news on certain economic measures, but not much to get excited about on the main policy targets (1/4) 🧵
Part of this is because the smuggling gangs are taking bigger risks. The average number of people on each boat has quadrupled since 2020. More with @alifortescuenews.bsky.social
news.sky.com/story/govern...
Line chart shows that "high viability" crossing days when the weather is good lead to more migrants crossing, but that the rise in crossings on "low viability" days is consistent and fast
Bar chart shows that the number of good sailing days is significantly higher this year than last year
The government are trying to draw links between better weather this year and more small boat Channel crossings.
The link is there, but it's not as simple as that.
What they're not telling us is that there's also been a big rise in crossings on days when the weather is not good.
And if you're in a crash now, you're three times as likely to survive than in the late 90's.
There are now about 29 deaths for every 100 accidents, compared to 88 per 100 then.
700 times more people die in road traffic accidents each year than do from air accidents (6/6)
How dangerous is air travel?
Despite what you might think from the recent news, not very.
At this year’s rate, if you got one flight every day since you were born, you’d be approaching 59 before you got in an accident. It would be 131 years before you died (5/6)
Almost 3/4s of the US-based deaths happened in the helicopter/plane collision at the end of January.
That is skewing the numbers. Chances are - so long as there are no more tragic incidents like that - by the end of 2025 the proportions will be closer to normal (4/6)
One reason it may seem high is that 93 of the 197 deaths -almost 50%- have been in the US, where there tends to be more attention.
Usually, the US makes up about 1 in 5 global air accident deaths. Even in 2001, when 9/11 happened, it made up less than it has so far in 2025 (3/6)
According to the Aviation Safety Network there have been 457 air accidents, resulting in 197 deaths.
That might sound like a lot, but it’s lower than last year, despite more flights now.
By 17 Feb 2024, there had been 573 accidents and 262 deaths (2/6)
Have there been more plane crashes this year? The short answer is no, but there is one big reason why you might think there have been…
There have been almost 10m flights so far this year. That’s a lot, it’s 10% higher than had been recorded by this time in 2024 (1/6 🧵)
More stats about the size of Trump's win in this article!
news.sky.com/story/us-ele...
7. "Republicans have never won the youth vote. We win a lot of votes but we never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote by 36 points, so I like TikTok."
I couldn't even work out what this was meant to refer to. Trump improved among 18-29yos, to the best level since 2004, but still lost overall
6. "The House Republicans won their largest popular vote majority in a presidential year since 1928."
This one is true, but it also highlights how poorly the Republicans have performed historically in terms of popular vote in the House.
Their 1928 victory was their final one that century
5. "We won more Hispanic American votes than any Republican has ever got before, by a lot, and we won Latino men and women…”
Trump won a majority of Latino men but still lost the group overall - Harris led by 19 points among women.
His vote share was better than Republican predecessors, however
4. "We won the largest number of African American voters in Republican history."
We can't say this for sure, but it probably is right given population size now, and an exit poll that showed the margin narrowing to 73 - the tightest since 1980.
A massive majority still vote Democrat though
3. "All 50 states shifted towards the Republican party and nobody's done that ever."
This one is true, although the late Jimmy Carter achieved the feat for the Democrats in 1976.
The success didn't last long. Reagan swung all but Vermont back towards the Republicans next time out in 1980
2. "We won the great state of Florida by 13 points, and nobody's done that ever."
One of the more easily disprovable ones, but Trump could have made a correct claim that sounds almost as good - his margin in terms of raw votes was the largest in Floridian history, even if the percentage wasn't...
We're not in a post-truth world yet, so I had a look at some of Trump's recent claims about the size of his... election victory.
1. "We won all the swing states and by historic margins."
Sweeping them was impressive, but 'historic margins' is a bit of a stretch. Many of Obama's were larger
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