Fiscal headroom is a matter of guesswork | Brief letters

Your editorial (The Guardian view on OBR v the Treasury: ministers have embraced the theatre of errors, 1 December) correctly flags the huge uncertainty in trying to come up with a five-year forecast of the difference between taxes and spending. Although markets like big fiscal headroom numbers, they seem to ignore the wise words of Bertrand Russell, who defined mathematics as “the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true”. This also applies to the concept of the medium-term fiscal headroom that economists and politicians alike are obsessed with.Prof Costas MilasUniversity of Liverpool The scrapping of the two-child benefit limit certainly seems to have polarised opinion. One camp reckons it should not have been scrapped at all, and the other reckons it should have been done a year ago

OBR chief’s exit may ease pressure on Rachel Reeves but the battle isn’t over

Had Richard Hughes not resigned as boss of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) on Monday amid the indignation over the accidental publication of Rachel Reeves’s budget, the Treasury might now be under pressure over the tsunami of leaks that preceded it.The OBR’s David Miles told MPs on Tuesday the leaks had been so widespread and misleading that the watchdog feared its reputation was at stake.Alongside briefings about the potential direction of OBR forecasts, there were public comments too, including from Reeves herself, about the frustrating timing of the watchdog’s productivity rethink; and its refusal to “score” pro-growth policies.Arguing for an ambitious “youth experience scheme” in September, for example – details of which are still to be negotiated – the chancellor told the Times, “we want the OBR to score it. They scored it when we left the European Union

‘The biggest decision yet’: Jared Kaplan on allowing AI to train itself

Humanity will have to decide by 2030 whether to take the “ultimate risk” of letting artificial intelligence systems train themselves to become more powerful, one of the world’s leading AI scientists has said.Jared Kaplan, the chief scientist and co-owner of the $180bn (£135bn) US startup Anthropic, said a choice was looming about how much autonomy the systems should be given to evolve.The move could trigger a beneficial “intelligence explosion” – or be the moment humans end up losing control.In an interview about the intensely competitive race to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) – sometimes called superintelligence – Kaplan urged international governments and society to engage in what he called “the biggest decision”.Anthropic is part of a pack of frontier AI companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, xAI, Meta and Chinese rivals led by DeepSeek, racing for AI dominance

Charlie Kirk tops Wikipedia’s list of most-read articles in 2025

Wikipedia’s article on Charlie Kirk was the most read on the online encyclopedia this year, as users sought out information on the conservative activist.People viewed the entry on Kirk nearly 45m times, many after he was shot at a university campus debate on 10 September.Although Kirk was a well-known figure in the US as co-founder of the Turning Point USA organisation, his death attracted headline coverage around the world. More than 40% of the views for the most-read article on English-language Wikipedia in 2025 came from outside the US, according to data from the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that operates the website.The second-most read is a regular feature in Wikipedia’s annual list: notable deaths of the year

Robin Smith obituary

In the eras before the Twenty20 format nobody hit a cricket ball harder than Robin Smith. Muscled like a prizefighter but with quick feet inherited from his ballet dancer mother, he produced strokes, the square cut especially, with a force that left dents in boundary boards and opponents’ ambitions. His wicket was highly sought after, for teams knew they were in for a hand-wringing experience, in all senses, should he spend any time at the crease.But Smith, who has died aged 62 after a long period of ill-health, was a mass of contradictions. On the face of it he was a courageous, attacking batter famed for thrilling encounters with fast bowlers, yet behind the bravado was a highly insecure person who constantly questioned his worth

ITV to show every England Test from 2026 after agreeing new £80m deal

ITV has won the rights to broadcast every England rugby union Test from next year after submitting a successful £80m bid for the inaugural Nations Championship.The terrestrial broadcaster is understood to have beaten off rivals to secure a deal that will ensure that all of the home nations matches will be available free-to-air for at least the next three years, in a major boost for the exposure of the sport.ITV already has a joint £63m deal with the BBC for the Six Nations Championship, with the commercial channel having the rights to every England game and 10 of the 15 matches overall as it is paying a greater share of the bill, and once the contracts are signed will also have exclusive rights for the first two editions of the Nations Championship. The 2027 World Cup in Australia will also be broadcast live on ITV, as it has been since 1991.The Nations Championship deal gives ITV the right to show every game in the new 12-team competition, which features all the Six Nations and their major southern hemisphere rivals – South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Fiji and Japan