Fuel duty expected to rise by up to 7p a litre after the budget

Fuel duty is expected to rise by up to 7p a litre after the budget, with speculation intensifying that the chancellor will restore inflationary rises as well as ending the temporary cut.Environmental and transport campaigners have urged Rachel Reeves to bring the cost of motoring more in line with other forms of transport, after more than a decade of fuel duty freezes at the pumps and heavy increases in rail fares.Treasury officials are also reported to have lobbied the chancellor to seize the opportunity to make the hike in duty, with petrol prices at a relative low compared with when Rishi Sunak announced a temporary 5p cut in 2022. The average price of a litre of petrol is now about 135p compared with 146p at the start of 2022.Fuel duty is levied at 52

Lisa Nandy announces plan to restore charities to ‘centre of national life’

Charities should criticise the government if they disagree on controversial policies areas such as immigration or the environment, the UK culture secretary has said, as she announced plans to restore civil society organisations to “the centre of our national life”.Lisa Nandy said publicly speaking out was “critical to a healthy, functioning democracy” and that charities should “tell government where we’re getting it wrong and work with us to set it right”. She indicated they should no longer be told to “stick to their knitting”, a reference to a criticism by a previous Conservative government that charities had strayed too far into politics.She spoke to the Guardian as she unveiled a new deal between the government and the £54bn-a-year charity sector that aims to give charity bosses greater influence and enlist them in the delivery of Labour’s five core missions.The prime minister, Keir Starmer, told charity bosses at a Downing Street reception on Thursday: “To fix the foundations of our country we need a fundamental reset of the relationship between government and civil society

SNP chief executive Murray Foote quits after heavy general election defeat

The chief executive of the Scottish National party, Murray Foote, has unexpectedly quit “in the best interests of the party” after it suffered its worst election defeat in nearly two decades.Foote, a former editor of the Labour-leaning Daily Record newspaper, said he did not believe he was the right person to oversee a reorganisation of the SNP and to run the party during the “critical” 2026 Holyrood election campaign.“While I agree these changes are both essential and appropriate, I also recognised after a period of reflection that I could not make the necessary personal commitment to leading the delivery of these changes into 2026 and beyond,” Foote said.“In the circumstances, I concluded it would be in my best interests and the best interests of the party that I step down to give my replacement the time and space to mould and develop these changes in a manner they deem appropriate.”John Swinney, the SNP leader and first minister, said Foote had made a significant contribution to strengthening the party’s “headquarters functions”

KemiKaze and Honest Bob are let loose on GB News where they can’t do any harm | John Crace

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This is the existential dilemma that the Tory party now faces. The pain is real and their faces are contorted like Munch’s Scream. But they are locked into their own echo chamber of futility.Fair to say the Tories have not adjusted well to opposition. Many continue to believe they are the natural party of government and the country has a sacred duty to continue accepting whatever deadbeats it puts in front of voters

Tory debate takeaways: a clash of styles, a tame format and a win for Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have faced off for what could be the only televised clash of the Conservative leadership contest. It was not actually a debate: the pair took it in turns to take questions from party members and GB News viewers.Below are some of the things we learned.Judging the winner of such events is an imprecise business, with the additional caveat that the impression gained by those inside the studio might not be the same as viewers watching on TV. But Badenoch definitely got a better reception

Use of ‘culture wars’ phrase ‘a dog whistle to attack the right’ Badenoch tells GB News Tory leadership special – as it happened

An audience member is asking Badenoch about culture wars. “When people use the phrase, it is a dog whistle to attack the right,” she says. “We are defending our culture, we are defending our country.”It is about doing what is right for our country and following conviction, she adds, before giving the Guardian yet another shout-out.“It is about being brave and not being scared that the Guardian is going to try and mock us, they are going to do that whoever the leader is”, she says