Reeves says inflation fall shows ‘plan for change is working’ – as it happened

Speaking about the latest inflation figures, chancellor Rachel Reeves said there were “encouraging signs that our plan for change is working.”UK inflation dropped to 2.6% in March, meaning prices are rising slightly more slowly. Reeves said:Inflation falling for two months in a row, wages growing faster than prices, and positive growth figures are encouraging signs that our plan for change is working, but there is more to be done.I know many families are still struggling with the cost of living and this is an anxious time because of a changing world

UK trade secretary to visit China with aim of reviving key joint trade commission

The trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, will travel to Beijing to revive a key trade dialogue with China despite saying it had been naive to allow Chinese investment in sensitive sectors, the Guardian has learned.Reynolds is scheduled to travel to China later this year for high-level talks in an effort to boost bilateral trade and investment.His trip is intended to restart the UK-China joint economic and trade commission (Jetco), which has not met since 2018 when relations began deteriorating after Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong.In documents published after Rachel Reeves’s trip to China in January, the Treasury set out its intention to revive the talks.The government is also planning to conclude its cross-Whitehall audit of UK-China relations by June, although the results will not be published in full

Reform a ‘racist and far-right’ party, says teaching union after Farage attack – as it happened

The largest education union in the country, the National Education Union (NEU), has called Reform UK a “racist and far-right” political party.Reform – led by Nigel Farage - has been neck and neck with Labour and ahead of the Tories in some recent polls and will contest nearly all the 1,600 council seats up for re-election on 1 May.Delegates at the annual NEU conference called for the union’s political fund to be used to help campaign against Reform UK election candidates whose policies and campaigns were described as “racist”, according to the PA news agency.A motion, which was passed by delegates at the conference on Tuesday, said it believes Reform UK is racist because of its hardline policies on immigration and its “campaigns against migrants”.It added that organisations like Reform UK “seek to build on the despair, poverty and alienation in our society by scapegoating refugees, asylum seekers, Muslims, Jews and others who do not fit their beliefs”

Liz Truss to launch ‘uncensored’ social network to counter mainstream media

Liz Truss is preparing to launch her own social media platform championing free speech, as she warned the “deep state” and mainstream media were stifling freedom of expression in Britain.The former prime minister said the platform would launch this summer. It is her latest attempt to become a leading figure on the radical right in Britain, openly declaring her support for Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s mission to slash state spending in the US.Truss made the revelation at a cryptocurrency conference in Bedford over the weekend. She said that she had been “cut off at the knees” when she became prime minister by “the elite”, which opposed radical change

‘Cutting DEI won’t fill potholes’: Labour ready to play long game against Farage

It was, a Labour official hastily explained, “just one front page”. But for Nigel Farage it was quite a front page: a banner headline in the Sun proclaiming “Britain is broken”, the exact slogan Reform UK is using for May’s local elections.Inside the paper was not an actual endorsement for Reform, but something that felt as if it could be a precursor to one – details of polling that showed Farage is more trusted than Keir Starmer by “red wall” voters on key issues, with his party level-pegging with Labour for support.This was the perfect lead-up to Farage’s biggest speech yet in the local election campaign, in which he proclaimed that Reform’s tanks were “on the lawns of the red wall” and directly targeting Labour, with the Conservatives dismissed as finished.It has been well documented how seriously Starmer’s team, as well as some Labour MPs, treat Reform UK as a threat

Threats to nature in Labour’s planning bill | Letter

Re your article (Planning bill ‘throws environmental protection to the wind’, say UK nature chiefs, 9 April), while Labour’s planning and infrastructure bill aims for 1.5m homes to spur economic growth, part 3 of the bill threatens both nature and delivery.The UK’s wildlife has declined 19% since 1970, with 16% of species at risk. Yet part 3’s environmental delivery plans allow developers to pay an unquantified levy for vague restoration, sidestepping the Environment Act’s principles of prevention and precaution, and risking irreversible harm to our iconic ecosystems such as chalk streams and woodlands.The bill’s “overall improvement test” rests on weak “likely” benefits outweighing harm, ignoring scientific evidence, bypassing existing safeguards and failing to guarantee delivery of biodiversity gains